Uni of Edinburgh postgrad

Son applied there for a PhD in Physics. They acknowleged his application but he heard no more for months and was then told he was not successful.Strange because he was offered interviews by all the other 4 and ended up at St Andrews.

Hello!

I know there is no rule of thumb but I was just wondering anyone who has applied to university of Edinburgh for a postgrad when did you apply and how long did it take for the University to respond?

Also if you don't mind letting me know what you applied for?

Thanks a lot in advance for any help

PhD is different because the application process doesnt always follow a structured timetable with deadlines/etc, it more depends on which academics want to supervise someone, what funding is available, etc

I applied for PhD in English literature on 26 December last year and got a conditional offer on 17 Feb. I've found that Edinburgh is a bit slower compared to other unis (I've had offers from Warwick and Nottingham), although I expect Edinburgh has a higher application load. Compared to the other unis, Edinburgh has also been a bit more demanding in terms of documents needed for the application - the length of the research proposal is up to 2,000 words (compared with 500 for Cambridge!). Also, I had to do other statements for the International Scholarships as well. The Edinburgh online system seems to be a bit more 'clunky' than the other online application systems too, and it was a little hard to work out how I was supposed to upload documents and which ones were required.

So if you're thinking of applying, my advice is to start as soon as possible because it takes a lot of time an effort (and they take a while to respond). Hope that helps!

Did you receive funding?

No, unfortunately. I was informed that I'm on the reserve list though. I ended up getting funding at Warwick so I'll be withdrawing my Edinburgh application.