Hi
@ilaydaeroz I think hearing back about a PhD after an interview is possibly one of the most varied things among the PhDs in my office (even though we all applied to the same university!).
I heard back the evening of my interview from my (now) primary supervisor, but didn’t get the official offer letter for several weeks after that (approvals from the funding had to go through finance, my details had to be approved by the admissions team, etc).
Hopefully your supervisor will tell you that they will be making you an offer before all the admin/bureaucratic things get done, but other universities insist on the supervisors wait until everything is cleared before the student gets told anything!
Others in my friend group got their offers anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after their interviews. This depended a lot on if there was a consensus in the panel, if anyone in the ‘chain of approvals’ was on leave, or even sometimes if they wanted to do a second interview to decide between two candidates.
Ultimately, it didn’t make a difference how quickly we heard back on how we performed as PhD students, and even how well we did in our interviews often didn’t matter.
I will mention one person who’s decision was delayed (due to administrative reasons) who started a little bit after the ‘normal’ start of term (often with research students the ‘official’ start date doesn’t matter so much).
Another guy started his PhD contract but had 3 months left in his old accommodation. He just worked from home (mostly) for this time, as it was primarily reading the literature and planning experiments. Once his contract was up, he moved closer to Cranfield and works hybrid now 😊
So don’t be too stressed if you think you might be given 24 hours’ notice to find a house, thankfully most supervisors are more sensible than that! You should be able to work with them to find a start date (either remote or in person) that suits everyone.
Best of luck!
Ciara
3rd year Agrifood PhD student
Cranfield Student Ambassador