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PhD: Accepting more than one offer at once AND applying for scholarships!

Hi there! I'm italian and have very little knowledge of how application, enrollment and funding works in British edu system, so I really hope that you can help me with this.

I've applied for a PhD position at 4 universities in the UK.
At present, I've received two conditional offers.
As far as accepting both is concerned I know that there's another thread which I already read.
My Q is more specific.

If I accept both, how does this double acceptance reflect on my chances of successfully applying for a PhD scholarship?
Let's say, I accept the offer from University A and apply for a number of scholarships that are awarded only to prospective students in UniA, and do the same with UniB : does this create any problem, embarassment or jeopardise my chances?
Really lost :confused:
[QUOTE=Kiwibirdie;49122161
If I accept both, how does this double acceptance reflect on my chances of successfully applying for a PhD scholarship?

It depends on the source of the funding. Much PhD funding is held and administered by the individual university so university A will know nothing about your dealings with B and so on. There are some charities and the like to which you might be able to apply, and they may restrict you to one university. But, based on the limited information you've given us, I'd be very surprised if there were any impact at all on chances of success.
Don't accept both, it's regarded as a really rude move. Just explain the situation to both and hope for the best. If you accept both, you eventually have to rescind your initial acceptance, and trust me - not a good idea. At the very least there will be one researcher in your field that will be very annoyed at you, and will probably pass on the message to his or her colleagues. I know you said this is a specific situation but the same goes for funding - if you're awarded funding you might take it away from someone else who needs it when you reject it much later. Just not a good idea all around.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by punctuation
Don't accept both, it's regarded as a really rude move. Just explain the situation to both and hope for the best. If you accept both, you eventually have to rescind your initial acceptance, and trust me - not a good idea. At the very least there will be one researcher in your field that will be very annoyed at you, and will probably pass on the message to his or her colleagues. I know you said this is a specific situation but the same goes for funding - if you're awarded funding you might take it away from someone else who needs it when you reject it much later. Just not a good idea all around.


This isn't true, at least in the majority of cases; in fact it's incredibly common to accept multiple offers and to turn one down at a later date. Because universities are used to everyone doing it, they won't hold a grudge and in fact will probably not even bat an eyelid. If you turn an offer down at the very last minute, or if you accept an offer that you never intended to take up, then it's considered bad form, but funding is difficult to tie down that everyone will understand if you pull out due to being offered funding somewhere else.

Accepting funding is a different matter, but as long as you're not depriving anyone else of the funding by waiting til the last minute to turn it down, then on the whole I don't think it makes much difference. Only a really horrible admin/academic with a penchant for holding grudges (there are quite a lot of them, but they're not the majority!) would hold it against you.
Original post by ellie.rew
This isn't true, at least in the majority of cases; in fact it's incredibly common to accept multiple offers and to turn one down at a later date. Because universities are used to everyone doing it, they won't hold a grudge and in fact will probably not even bat an eyelid. If you turn an offer down at the very last minute, or if you accept an offer that you never intended to take up, then it's considered bad form, but funding is difficult to tie down that everyone will understand if you pull out due to being offered funding somewhere else.

Accepting funding is a different matter, but as long as you're not depriving anyone else of the funding by waiting til the last minute to turn it down, then on the whole I don't think it makes much difference. Only a really horrible admin/academic with a penchant for holding grudges (there are quite a lot of them, but they're not the majority!) would hold it against you.

Sorry, I misunderstood the situation to be the bolded one, you're right. :smile:
Original post by punctuation
Sorry, I misunderstood the situation to be the bolded one, you're right. :smile:


Ah ok, makes sense then. :smile: I would say that up to the end of August (for courses starting in late September/ early October) is probably the latest to go, not least so you yourself know where you're going and you can fill in all the paperwork!

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