The Student Room Group

The Official Funding questions/moans/possible joy Thread

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Original post by eff01
Hello,

I'm in my second year of university and really want to do a post grad in something related to politics or politics in a particular part of the world. My main issue like hundreds of other posts is funding. How do I secure funding, I don't want to ask my parents as it's a bit unfair on them and I know that they will give me the money, but I want to be independent and do this by myself. So where do I begin, is there something like SFE available, or do I take a loan out, just really where do I start? Also when will I have to apply for universities (I graduate in 2013)? Is it this September?

On a broader note, I'm currently doing a degree in English and Politics, if I had to convert my degree into law so I could become a solicitor, how would I do this?

Thank you in advance and any help at all will be greatly appreciated.


In order to do law in England you will have to take the Graduate Diploma in Law (the law conversion course). You can do this at the College of Law (different locations), BPP Law School, and a handful of other universities. It takes one year. After that, if you wish to practice law you need to take either the Legal Practice Course or the Bar Vocational Course, lasting one year. It is extremely expensive, and the best way to do it is to get a training contract with a law firm, who will pay your fees for each part of the course. But these are very competitive and so you would need to start looking for summer vacation schemes (like work experience), and getting involved in law related activities asap.

As for the question of Masters funding: this is virtually non-existent (certainly for home and EU students at most universities) in politics. What most people end up doing is working through their undergrad to save the tuition money (like I did) and then working through your Masters year to pay your living costs (like I did), or borrow the money from a bank with a Career Development Loan. This is a loan of up to £10,000. The government pays the interest on the loan for you while you are studying, and you get a one month grace period after graduating. After that month, however, regardless of whether or not you have a job, you have to start repaying the loan at the rate you originally agreed with the bank.

There may be some scholarships that you might be eligible for, but these will obviously be individual to each institution.

I hope this info helps a little bit.
I got this book, and applied to loads of places, but unfortunately didn't get any support from any of the organisations. It is worth a try though.

If your course is BACP accredited, you could also apply for this.

The uni/SU/postgraduate association may also have funds available - I have got £100 to pay for a workshop relevant to my dissertation, which I wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise.
Hey guys,

I applied for ESRC funding through the North West Doctoral Training Centre. According to their list of dates and deadlines, successful and reserve candidates should have heard by 25th April.

I've heard nothing. :frown: I'm guessing this means I wasn't successful - they say nothing about notifying unsuccessful candidates by a particular date. Has anybody else applied through this DTC and heard either way? I need to start applying for jobs if I haven't got funding, but I'm clinging to the desperate hope that I have.
Original post by balletomane
Hey guys,

I applied for ESRC funding through the North West Doctoral Training Centre. According to their list of dates and deadlines, successful and reserve candidates should have heard by 25th April.

I've heard nothing. :frown: I'm guessing this means I wasn't successful - they say nothing about notifying unsuccessful candidates by a particular date. Has anybody else applied through this DTC and heard either way? I need to start applying for jobs if I haven't got funding, but I'm clinging to the desperate hope that I have.



Perhaps send them an e-mail?
Original post by balletomane
Hey guys,

I applied for ESRC funding through the North West Doctoral Training Centre. According to their list of dates and deadlines, successful and reserve candidates should have heard by 25th April.

I've heard nothing. :frown: I'm guessing this means I wasn't successful - they say nothing about notifying unsuccessful candidates by a particular date. Has anybody else applied through this DTC and heard either way? I need to start applying for jobs if I haven't got funding, but I'm clinging to the desperate hope that I have.


This happened to me last year when I applied for ESRC funding at Manchester. I hadn't heard anything by a week after the deadline so I emailed them to ask, and it was only then that they told me I was unsuccessful.
I was resisting the urge to get in touch with them as I didn't want to seem pushy, but I think ten days is enough to wait. I've sent them an e-mail.

My proposal is being considered for internal funding as well, so if I don't get the ESRC funding I still have a chance, although it's low. Now to wait in patience and try not to get swamped by the sense of my own ineptitude. :/
Reply 646
Right.. I wonder if anybody can help. I am applying for a CDL and will send my application off in June.

I will automatically get a post grad scholarship from my uni because I am alumni so this will redyce my £3400 fees for the 2 years to £2400. I hope to apply for another bursary of £500.

My problem is the application form for the CDL, what's the best way to put my outgoings? I hope to be able to work part time. The course is part time. However, I don't work at present. Technically, I don't have to pay any bills as my partner will allow me to live rent and bill free save a few £50 every month now and again. I don't want to put my rent/bills down as £50 plus personal living expenses as this will look like I don't need the loan. Nor do I want to put what my share of the bills are in theory as this takes me over the 10k allowed amount when you include tuition fees.

I live off £250 a month. That's my own personal expenditure including travel costs

Any help gratefully received
Reply 647
Does anybody have a marie curie early stage researcher fellowship ?
I'm interested to know if its taxed and by how much.
Hi everyone,

Does anybody know whether universities award bursaries to cover travel cost for PhD students? Just curious to know about this.

thanks
I've got a departmental studentship! (Conditional on not making a right mess of the rest of my MA.) I'm incredibly relieved. :biggrin:
Reply 650
Hi everyone!

I'm going to confirm my unconditional offer at University of Manchester for the Msc in Aerospace Engineering!
I have a lot of doubts about the possibilities of funding my Msc :frown:
As far as I've understood, there are basically no funding possibilities for Postgrad. (for sure a lot less than for Undergr.). I've also talked with the uiniversity's funding office and they confirmed my fears.
So basically:
- there are no loans for postgraduates,
- I can't access to their bursaries (those ones based on house income) since they're only for undergr.
- there are no suitable scholarships published on their website (not for my field of study)
- I cannot ask for an overdraft to my uk bank since I'm not a uk resident
- the only good thing is that I can pay my fees in instalments without any interest
- I cannot apply for any "external" scholarship (I mean from an external body or association, since it is too late)
...so basically the only opportunity could be asking a "personal" loan/lending to a bank (besides working of course)!

Have you got any other option to suggest me? :frown:

Thanks a lot and good luck :smile:
Renzo
Original post by sedo_5
Hi everyone!

I'm going to confirm my unconditional offer at University of Manchester for the Msc in Aerospace Engineering!
I have a lot of doubts about the possibilities of funding my Msc :frown:
As far as I've understood, there are basically no funding possibilities for Postgrad. (for sure a lot less than for Undergr.). I've also talked with the uiniversity's funding office and they confirmed my fears.
So basically:
- there are no loans for postgraduates,
- I can't access to their bursaries (those ones based on house income) since they're only for undergr.
- there are no suitable scholarships published on their website (not for my field of study)
- I cannot ask for an overdraft to my uk bank since I'm not a uk resident
- the only good thing is that I can pay my fees in instalments without any interest
- I cannot apply for any "external" scholarship (I mean from an external body or association, since it is too late)
...so basically the only opportunity could be asking a "personal" loan/lending to a bank (besides working of course)!

Have you got any other option to suggest me? :frown:

Thanks a lot and good luck :smile:
Renzo


Have a look at this book. It is expensive, but lists everywhere that you can apply to for funding.
Reply 652
Hello again.

i don't know if I'm becoming unnecessarily paranoid but I've had to do absolutely nothing in terms of filling in Je-S forms for my AHRC PPM Studentship beginning 2012/13.

Should I be worried? Does the RO do most/all of this? Or is there always some student input? I'm finding general information VERY hard to come by.

I know the obvious answer is check with the institution, but I don't want to flood them with emails, so just wanted to know if there was anyone out there in a similar position!

Cheers :biggrin:

EDIT: In terms of correspondence with the RO - I had confirmation of my nomination on 20 April, when I was told I don't need to do anything yet, but nothing since. As it's June now I'm a tad nervous.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 653
Original post by ~ Purple Rose ~
Have a look at this book. It is expensive, but lists everywhere that you can apply to for funding.


I don't want to sound rude, but I have no time (and even less money) to buy and read an expensive book like this, especially without knowing its real worth.
I would like at least to know if, more or less, what I've written is correct...then, if I'd like to search further for any possible source of funding, then I'm sure I will give that book a try for sure! :smile:

Thanks a lot for your answer anyway :smile:
Renzo
Original post by Pherenike
Hello again.

i don't know if I'm becoming unnecessarily paranoid but I've had to do absolutely nothing in terms of filling in Je-S forms for my AHRC PPM Studentship beginning 2012/13.

Should I be worried? Does the RO do most/all of this? Or is there always some student input? I'm finding general information VERY hard to come by.

I know the obvious answer is check with the institution, but I don't want to flood them with emails, so just wanted to know if there was anyone out there in a similar position!

Cheers :biggrin:

EDIT: In terms of correspondence with the RO - I had confirmation of my nomination on 20 April, when I was told I don't need to do anything yet, but nothing since. As it's June now I'm a tad nervous.


I am in the exact same boat, so hope that it's fine! I was told my uni would fill in the form and that I probably wouldn't hear anything for a while. They said that the AHRC have to confirm nominations (I think this happens in August) but that they had never had a nomination refused.
Reply 655
Is it common for MA funding forms to be the same as PhD funding forms?
Reply 656
Original post by Hylean
Is it common for MA funding forms to be the same as PhD funding forms?


In my experience yes - just tick the relevant box :smile:
Reply 657
Original post by apotoftea
In my experience yes - just tick the relevant box :smile:


Ah, cool.


Hmmm, residency issues might **** me over for funding. :sad:
Reply 658
History MA funding is pretty much non-existant so you've probably found what there is available.

Jobs wise - you can probably start looking around the end of July as it takes a good 6 weeks to get a job app sorted etc etc. Check the uni your going to's jobsite too, and the SU might have their own too.

Seriously consider the negatives of getting a CDL - dangerous and expensive way of getting money for something you may not necessarily need to do depending on what you want to do afterwards. I just remember a poster on here who had a CDL and it totally crippled him afterwards.
I think you're probably a little late for MA funding for this year coming too, but hope is not lost for next year. Could you give me a rundown of the course you did/what you want to do? MA funding for history is shoddy for a number of reasons. There are lots of history grads- about 100 universities will offer at least a joint degree in it, so there are something like 7,000 annually. There are about 150-200 PhD funded places annually, max, and about 100 masters places. Given that lots of history grads tend to be doing it for the love of the discipline, lots tend to want to do further study compared with, say, accountancy grads. So, the numbers are against you straight away- in my year we had 20 per place chasing the masters funding and 12 per place for the PhD. We're also in the situation of being seen as 'academic' and struggle to get grants when compared with economics who say they want to investigate financial crises and end up with £1.2m government grants that pay for a raft of PhDs and some post-docs.

Once you accept the odds and don't get too down about rejections, you can get somewhere. Fact of the matter is, some places are richer and have more funds than others. There are also some related disciplines that might let you in to do something similar with more cash per head, even if it isn't one of your top choices. If you really can't move from where you are and are constrained to one or two MAs that are being offered, it makes life harder, but if not, I'd encourage you to look far and wide. One example is at Glasgow: The MLitt in War Studies or MSc in Global Security share one funded place, but have probably 40 applications for it. The much less popular MLitt in American Studies allows students to basically do very similar/the same modules (and still write on the war on terror if they wanted) but have four places for Gordon Scholarships through a large donation some years ago that covers the fees, and often only about half a dozen people that know about it and apply.

There are lots of little and large bodies like the British Commission for Maritime History and the Economic History Society that, depending on what you want to do, can sometimes come up with a bursary of £250-£1000 here and there. They might make the difference between unaffordable and affordable. If you know the lecturer well and they run the course- talk to them. I know of some people swinging a fee-waiver in return for being a research assistant to someone for a few hours a week. Since you're really just getting a library card and access to tutorials that already run, depending on how rigidly the university runs the department's budget can depend on how much sway a senior staff member has in not charging fees. This is by no means common though.

Failing that, as you know you'd be left with university scholarships or AHRC/ESRC schemes or the occasional charitable fund that pays for fees. I suspect you know these, but it'd be worth checking them at other universities too. It's worth noting some places are very protective of their own students, while others want their own students to go and experience somewhere else, which heavily affects how they approach applicants. Some also just pick those with the best First Class degrees and most prizes, while others are looking for a research proposal that closely matches the department, or somewhere in between- I know of a mature student with a low 2:1 from a not well known department who took time out, wrote a book, and then came back and got full funding on the back of it from a big department. Oxford has some hidden away in colleges and some exist for people from certain countries/counties, which, if you meet the criteria, can mean you're the only applicant eligible.

Anyway, even if your boat has sailed for this coming Autumn, if you spend the next year wisely, you should have a better, if still far from certain, chance next year.

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