Ahrc

I'm guessing there's quite a few on here who will be applying to the AHRC for PostGrad grants. What are you applying for (I'm supposing the research preperation grant)?

You apply once you have your firm acceptence from a Uni, right?

So it goes

* Apply to Uni
* Accept place
* Apply to AHRC
* (Hopefully) accept grant

Reply 1

Alan Smithee

I thought for Postgraduate study, you applied directly to the institution?

I'm talking about UK applicants here.

Reply 2

etherised

1

For a place yes, for funding no. And for arts & humanities there's precious little institutional funding. Well, there is a little kicking about - but the general scheme of things is that everyone is expected to apply to the AHRC, and then the institutional funding goes to the very best of the people who don't get funding from the research council.

I'm not actually applying to the ahrc this year. I hope to be applying next year, for the doctoral funding. But I went through it all for last year pre-masters: not fun.

Reply 3

symun

OP

Indeed, a vast majority will (I believe) apply to the AHRC once they have an acceptence - especially since the AHRC forms have an area for your future University to fill out as well as your present/past.

Reply 4

ERELION12

1

Hello,
My name is Elliott and I have received a conditional offer for Cambridge. I applied for an MPhil in Linguistics. I was wondering if anyone could tell me if AHRC grants are only for UK nationals, or if a foreign student (I'm from the US) can apply as well?

thanks.

Reply 5

Alan Smithee

Can't you apply for a Fulbright or Rhodes Scholarship?

(Yes AHRC is only Brits as far as I'm aware...)

Reply 6

tommyboy

1

It's for UK and EU students, although EU students usually don't get a maintenance grant.

symun

You apply once you have your firm acceptence from a Uni, right?

So it goes

* Apply to Uni
* Accept place
* Apply to AHRC
* (Hopefully) accept grant

NO, that is unfortunately NOT how it always works (provided they haven't changed everything completely since last year). The AHRC deadline is at the beginning of May and if you want to get funding from then you have to apply by then even if you haven't got a firm place. Moreover, most institutions will set you a much earlier deadline to send the form to them so that they have plenty of time to fill in Part III, i.e. their reference, which they fill in even if they haven't offered you a place or confirmed your place. Since you can only apply for funding for one specific course this can be a gamble.

You have to apply through the future institution (i.e. the one that offers the course that you want funding for). What this means is that they have to fill in Part III of the form, even if they haven't offered (or maybe just confirmed) you a place.

I.e. if the university doesn't offer you a place before the AHRC deadline the process will look like this:

a) apply to university
b) apply to AHRC and send form off to the university you have applied for
c) get a place and accept it - if not then the gamble hasn't paid off and your whole funding application was worthless
d) hope that the AHRC will give you funding (and the competition is VERY tough)

In short, the whole application process seems to be the wrong way round (in particular if the university demands that you show them secured funding before confirming your place, which makes the whole thing even more complicated).

Just pray you are lucky and get an offer of a place before the funding deadline, as even in that case the AHRC application will still be enough of a nightmare.

Reply 7

etherised

1

On the contrary: as I understand it, it's considered extremely bad form to send off your AHRC app to a university before you've been accepted. It's up to you to apply early enough so there's time for the university to accept you and for you then to do the AHRC app. The only case in which that wouldn't be the case is if you had already spoken to your potential supervisor about your project at some length and so could pretty much guarantee you'd get the place. In practice, unless you're super-brilliant, that's unlikely to be the case unless the postgrad app is to the same institution at which you're already studying. Or sometimes you'll get an unofficial acceptance from the department some weeks in advance of the official offer from the university. But I wouldn't send off the AHRC form without a strong indication that you'll get a place.

Reply 8

sesquipedalian

1

ERELION12

Hello,
My name is Elliott and I have received a conditional offer for Cambridge. I applied for an MPhil in Linguistics. I was wondering if anyone could tell me if AHRC grants are only for UK nationals, or if a foreign student (I'm from the US) can apply as well?

thanks.

Erelion, this is the the degree I'm hoping to apply for this coming year! Would you be willing to answer a fellow American's questions about the application process for this? :rolleyes:

Reply 9

tommyboy

1

zigguratted

On the contrary: as I understand it, it's considered extremely bad form to send off your AHRC app to a university before you've been accepted.

NO! As I said it doesn't necessarily work like that. Cambridge, for instance, (well, the History Faculty) want you to have finished your part of the AHRC form by the end of February, and the Board of Graduate Studies hasn't necessarily had the time to process all offers by then (stuff of mine has been stuck there for months). To be fair, they try their best and send loads of information documents on funding to all their applicants before they give out offers, but I can still vividly recall getting sick of reading the phrase "DO NOT WAIT WITH APPLYING TO THE AHRC UNTIL YOU HAVE RECEIVED AN OFFER" in all of them (and there were many). And in the case of Cambridge, they will normally process your application on time if you have applied by their deadline (January). However, there are cases when this is not possible. I've gone through two AHRC application rounds now (one for my MPhil and one for my PhD), and both times I got a few more grey hairs because of how messed up the application timetable is. (The other big one was Cambridge asking me to confirm that I had enough money for my course by the end of July when the AHRC don't give out their offers until August / September).

Ideally, of course, you will have a strong indication - for instance by speaking to a potential supervisor - of whether you will get accepted or not. However, the processing of offers at most universities has to go through several layers of bureaucracy before you will get the letter in the post. Two years ago, for instance, I applied to Cambridge and Oxford for my Masters. Both asked you to apply by January 15th / 31st if you wanted to have a go at AHRC funding. I sent both applications of at the same time (early January) and received a Cambridge offer in February, yet the Oxford offer didn't arrive until late May (i.e. long after the AHRC deadline).

In short, some universities will be very organised about this (the History Faculty at Cambridge, for instance), while others won't be at all.

Reply 10

tommyboy

1

The other thing, of course, is that you will have to fulfil academic conditions if you're applying whilst still an undergraduate. Thus, strictly speaking (in this case), you can't have a confirmed place at your future university until about July (when your degree results are out), when the AHRC deadline is in May.

This might become relevant in a case like this: Student XYZ has two conditional offers. University A wants him to get 65% or above and University B wants him to get 70% or above. Student XYZ is quite confident that he will get above 65%, but he might just be stuck with a very high 2:1 and not make the offer of University B, which, however, he would prefer to go to. Now does student XYZ risk applying or funding for University B knowing that if he only gets a high 2:1 his funding application will be worthless and would have been better made through University A. (You might retort that he AHRC is unlikely to give him funding anyway if he gets a 2:1, but it has happened.)

I agree that you should have been in contact with the university you're applying though before btw. This will probably raise your chances of getting funding anyway since they will be able to write a better institutional reference. Just pointing out that university bureaucracies and other practicalities don't always make it possible for you to confirm an offer before applying for funding, even if you have given it plenty of time.

Lengthy ramblings over. :smile:

Reply 11

The Boosh

17

Depends on the grant... ESRC offer 1+3, and undergrads can apply for this, but you have to be selected by the university if its open competition, which means you have to really really shine. Departments can only nominate 1 candidate for 1+3, but some have quotas, and others have their own studentships. Are you talking about AHRC or generally? I can walk you through my ESRC process if you like...

Reply 12

The Boosh

17

...further to above, if you only want +3, then you have to prove that you have had the appropriate research training at MSc/MA level etc. I already had an MEd and had to do an ESRC recognised MSc to fulfil the +1 requirements before I could apply for the +3 open competition.

Ahrc

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