Funding doubts

Hello! I am still awaiting a funding decision and news regarding college membership and unfortunately, I already know that my second college preference King's College does not issue scholarships for Clinical Neurosciences PhD training. My first choice is Trinity College. Do you think I should be concerned if I haven't received any news (nor from department or my supervisor, who is quite disengaged at this point). I have a First Class Honours undergraduate degree, Distinction (CumLaude) Research Master's degree, 4 awards, 5 publications (2 as a first author) and yet each time I have asked about some arbitrary intuition regarding my chances for receiving funding (I have contacted my department, colleges, funding bodies) eveybody seems to basically discourage me from awaiting news from Cambridge funding and reiterates how competitive it is after Brexit for internationals to obtain funding. I am Bulgarian, so a pretty poor country compared to other European countries, but not quite sufficiently poor or what one may call 'exotic', so I am not eligible for many awards that are for poorer countries or communities (African countries, Moldova, Belarus), and this further makes me doubt whether I will be successful in the funding competition because of socio-political and economic reasons...

Could anyone kindly share any insights or tips they might have about these doubts/thoughts I have? Thank you very much in advance!

You should have been concerned about funding from the outset. Cambridge has very little funding for students compared to many overseas University structures (though a lot for the UK). In the UK the expectation is that people self-fund higher degrees, saving STEM PhDs, where the competition is fierce.

You may still be lucky, but most first round awards are out now, so it will depend on someone returning an award and you being next on the list. You should search for funding sources independent of Cambridge if you really want to go there.

Thank you for your response. Indeed, I have been concerned the whole time and applying for other programmes as well, but considering the offer from Cambridge as well. May I ask, how do you know that most funding awards are already distributed? And what factors do you think the funders consider when assessing non-UK applicants? Thank you.

There's a Cambridge Postgrad forum here on TSR and you can see the funding offers coming out there. I'm a Cambridge grad and have been watching the pattern for years. Funds are based on academic merit in the first instance. Remember, when applying to Cambridge for PG, you open yourself up to global competition, 70% of Cam PG students are overseas.

Thank you! Take care.