Hello,

This is my second thread about the same topic.

I hope this time I will get some useful information, and people will be a bit active on this thread.

After a suffering of 3 years and writing 5 different proposals, I got an offer from the University of Salford.

Does anyone knows if it is really a good university to do PhD in it?

Are there any old or current PhD students in it here on this website?

Please guys I need any kind of help regarding this.

As I mentioned above, I really suffered a lot until I got an offer, and I do not have any other options.

I am an international self-funded student who will pay thousands of pounds, so if it is not that good for PhD studies, I will reject the unconditional offer.

Please guys try your best to help me.

Thank you in advance.

There are lots of ways to measure 'good'- e.g. prestige, student support, student experience.

The fact that it appears to be the only university to offer you a place after three years of trying may give you an idea as to how prestigious it is!

Sorry, I don't know anything about Salford University. But have you considered/sought feedback on why your application has been rejected from so many other places? I had heard that it was fairly easy to obtain a PhD if you are a self funding international student (or at least comparatively easy - as compared to applying for funding). So what are problems with your proposal / application. Is the English to a good enough standard, for example?

I think that if you have any doubts about a university being the right one for you, then it would be better to not accept the offer. Rather - figure out what is going not quite right with your applications and how to improve them so that you can be accepted in a university of your choosing.

People on this forum are very helpful when it comes to giving feedback and advice on applications and things!

Good luck with your decision and getting the information you need : - )

We are not going to be able to give you advice about unis we don't go to. Salford is not a fantastic uni if you believe league tables: https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2018/may/29/university-league-tables-2019

It's 88 out of 121 in the UK. It's not in the Russell group. But much depends on your supervisors as research area so it's hard to say how good it is.

If it's the only offer you have you may as well take it, especially if you are struggling to get others. Your PhD will be what you make it.

I'd say the supervisor is more important than the uni. And probably supervisors play a role to varying degrees depending on your field of study.

Thank you for your reply :)

Thank you for your reply :)

Thank you for your reply.

I will comment on your both replies here.

To be honest, I do know that universities care more for money rather than education, but getting a PhD is not something easy these days.
Even if I am a self-funded student, these days it is hard to get an offer as there are millions of filthy rich students and governments worldwide that pays billions of pounds for their students. Also a lot of students are doing researches on the same topics (which is something not acceptable in any high educational institute)
What happened is that universities has reached to a level they are not able to accept all these students, because they do not have enough resources to support this huge number of students.
So since 2010, universities started to search for good to perfect quality students who are very creative and their research topics are hot and brand new topics.

In my case, what happened is that all my research proposals are related to Computer Science and Technology. We are in an era were CS and IT are things none of us can survive without, so in U.K. these 2 majors are very sensitive and universities need very genius students and very strong research topics to offer any applicant a place.
The second issue are my marks. I graduated with a PASS, and I think any student who got a pass in his masters needs a miracle from God to get into PhD and to find a university that accepts him.

Regarding supervisors, everyone on earth is telling me do not look at the university name or rank, just find the best supervisor as he or she will be the person whom I will see during all the 3 to 4 years!
He or she is most important than any other thing.

Again thank you for your reply.