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When do you apply for postgrad?

What time of the year in your 3rd year do you apply?

Are you on a three or four year course? In my experience, the application deadlines tend to be between early December and the end of February for funded places. But it will depend on the institution, where the money is coming from, whether you want funding and what subject you're applying for. These are just the basics. It is also possible to get funded studentships as late as May if a department doesn't manage to fill all places in the first round or gets more funding later on in the year.

The best thing would be for you to check the departmental web pages which will contain all the details about application deadlines.

Reply 2

Klix88

I applied for my Masters in the October of my third undergrad year and had a conditional offer within a month. I knew exactly what course I wanted to do, so I didn't see any point in leaving it and getting tangled up with the bulk of applications later on.

Reply 3

Dillio

Ideally, as soon as possible. I know of people who applied in the August before third year of undergraduate actually began. However, most people look to apply by February.

Reply 4

BrushieDuck

I think I applied in the November of my 3rd year but know people who only started their applications a couple of weeks ago.

Reply 5

fdZ

I am in my 4th year of undergrad now, so postgrad is next year for me. I emailed all the universities im interested in attending, and they all told me I can apply for next year starting October 1st, and that the sooner I apply, the better.

Reply 6

btfl

What would be a better gamble? Apply in January with my first term grades or apply in May with my full year of grades? My first 2 years is a 3.3 (low 2:1) and my last 2 years I expect to be a 3.5+ (high 2:1/first).

So do I try to show I finished my undergrad with a strong 2 years after mediocre grades or apply earlier where their standards might be a bit lower and hope one semester of grades out of 8 won't really make a difference in their assessment?

I'm applying to the less competitive MSc courses at UCL and LSE.

Reply 7

sj27

Original post by btfl

I think the usual advice would be to apply with stronger grades, but May seems quite late for the unis you've mentioned. I don't know anything about UCL, but do you have any idea how quickly the course you're interested in at LSE has filled up in the past few years? If there are still typically places available in May/June, then you should be ok. If not you may be better taking a gap year - isn't a 3.5 GPA typically the minimum requirement for LSE? (I think UCL may be more lenient on the grade conversion judging from a previous thread.)

Reply 8

btfl

Thanks for the advice!
I don't know how quick they filled up but I assume not too fast as they did accept applications for them up to the very end this year. They're less competitive, the ones I'm applying to at LSE intake ratio was something like 20/80 and 30/150 and I would think UCL's course is about the same.

I'm Canadian and as for the GPA, their conversion of a 2:1 for Canadians was a 3.3 and a 3.5 from American schools (not sure why.. but that's their conversion!) So I know I'm cutting it close but figured it's worth a shot.

Reply 9

returnmigrant

Depending on subject (and therefore demand for places) you can sometimes apply for a place right up to start of the course.

For a funded place (because there is no Student Finance at postgrad level) then you need to start looking out for ads etc from November onwards. Most Research Council deadlines for scholarsihp/studentships/bursaries etc for Taught courses are around March/April. Lots of Unis also have Dept studentships funded by the Uni.

A good place to look is www.jobs.ac.uk - scroll down to the bottom of the initial page to Studentships - keep checking back on a weekly basis to make sure you give yourself as much time as possible to get a decent application together - getting your PS and references etc together can often take weeks longer than you think.

Good Luck!

Reply 10

Thailiafoo

Hi everyone,

Don't really know how related this is, but where is the best place to do an up-to-date course search for masters degrees (universities in the UK)?

I've found 'UKPASS', 'Prospects' and 'Find a masters' but have found that some of the courses they mention are no longer running :s-smilie:

Reply 11

returnmigrant

One of the best ways is a simple Google search.

Include "ac.uk" and then either "MA" or "MSc" as appropriate, and obviously a few subject keywords.

Yes, its a bit long-winded, but you avoid the 'not running' courses and get straight to the relevant Uni webpages.

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