Indian journalist looking for advice in pursuing a DPhil in History

Hello, members!

This question may have been asked here before so apologies in advance in case I'm repeating it. I'm a journalist from New Delhi, India with 10 years of full-time experience across a range of national dailies and magazines. Right now, I am a news editor with a premier daily where I handle the metro pages.

I also write about the Indian military, especially pre-Independence conflicts involving the Indian armed forces. I also have a blog that my organisation has given me where I write about my interest areas.

Sorry for burdening you with my personal details but this is just to give you a background of what I do.

I want to do a DPhil in the UK in History and the topic is related to the old Indian Army about which I have written extensively. But I am not exactly sure about the right way to go about it.

I have been working on a research proposal and plan to approach a few scholars. However, there are two things that I fear might go against me. Firstly, I did both my BA and MA in history but it's been 11 years since I finished my master's. So there's this big gap now.

The other thing is I managed to get 2.2 (57% in BA, 58.4% in MA) and my MA was also a non-dissertation one (my university still doesn't allow dissertations).

Do you think both these could be hindrances in my finding admission and funding in any good university? Some advice would be sincerely appreciated.

Your BA and MA grades are clearly not going to help. You would probably need to impress potential unis and dissertation supervisors with articles you have already written in the military field.

I assume you are looking at King's College London, among others?

Thank you so much for your reply. Yes, I will be applying to King's. I have also spoken to a few scholars in the US. They said the quality of the proposal as well as my professional experience would count. Do they count in the UK?

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Your previous academic grades aren't going to enhance your application, but your professional experience is very relevant and if you have written pieces to evidence your research skills, you should be competitive. They key will be finding universities with academics who might be interested in your subject area. I'd begin, not from a perspective of which Uni, but I'd look up the contemporary academics that are writing in this area, and then find out which unis they are working at, and apply there.

Bts, most DPhils are PhDs in the UK

Thank you! That just gave me some hope. Does it help if your work is quoted by Wikipedia entries, international journals, even academic books, both forthcoming as well as published?

Thank you so much for your reply. Yes, I will be applying to King's. I have also spoken to a few scholars in the US. They said the quality of the proposal as well as my professional experience would count. Do they count in the UK?