Oxford Graduate Application 2012/13

Nope, nothing, nada. Have ventured in on the bourbons myself ...

I take it as its been almost a day and I have heard nothing, that means a rejection?

"If you have not heard from us by the time this notice is posted, then your application for a Clarendon Scholarship has been unsuccessful."
Ah, well who was I kidding anyway!

Come'on Studentship or bye bye Oxford *sigh*

it probably means you have an offer, but that your funding has not been approved yet. good luck

hey guys,

Any news from the Clarendon Fund (Social Sciences division)? I see they have apparently amended the notification date and letters/funding decisions should be sent out today..

may the force be with us..

I know, it's rotten!

Come on studentship or it's bye bye Master's, bye bye DPhil, bye bye career in academia.

It actually makes me angry to see people unable to take up offers from the world's finest universities because of a lack of funding.

I can totally relate with that. The pressure does NOT help at ALL.
Well I was just a bit taken aback because on their website it says high 2.i - Cambridge for example have asked only a 2.i of me.

Can I ask what Mst you applied for in English? And also if on your letter of acceptance, they mentioned anything about funding!

(I actually can't wait to complete undergrad and star postgrad! the undergrad is actually boring me just about now!)

Well in theory it should come from the money that research brings into the departments...

Sorry, can you explain this theory a bit more? In what world of philanthropic giving would research money be sufficient to support research, competitive academic salaries, teaching costs, equipment, teaching spaces, laboratories, libraries and postgraduate students (accommodation, consumables, living costs etc)?

They've updated the page - all Soc. Sci. Clarendon awards have been made. No letter for me. I hope someone here had better luck!

Well in theory it should come from the money that research brings into the departments...It is actually a big problem, because the result is that many good candidates opt for the US where PhDs come with funding.
Tbh it is ridiculous. We keep getting emails from our department that they will cut things like serving wine after the graduate seminars or that we ll have to wash our cups after the tea and coffee hours we get every week. I don't mind washing and I don't mind the wine (which was bad anyway) but it reflects on the gravity of the situation when you can't pay one graduate student £20 per week to do the washing up (as it used to be). The email was pretty desperate in general.
They forgot to mention though that they also cut the departmental scholarships they offered. Ha...

But its not the university's fault only. The government has massively cut funding so they have to adapt. Bottom line is however that they lose good students.

Sorry, can you explain this theory a bit more? In what world of philanthropic giving would research money be sufficient to support research, competitive academic salaries, teaching costs, equipment, teaching spaces, laboratories, libraries and postgraduate students (accommodation, consumables, living costs etc)?

I applied for the English and American strand, it was a last minute decision since I was preparing my application for the 1900-present strand for ages, and then decided I might be more suited to this one given I'm writing my dissertation on Nabokov and went to the US in my second year...

Funding wise they were like "Sorry you aren't getting any" basically I'm hoping that the Danish government will be nice and pay my tuition fees for me and will give me some pocket money too..gotta love Nordic socialism!

If you are curious about research income you should probably read the annual accounts of the leading research Universities in the country - Oxbridge, Manchester and the University of London colleges.

It amounts to hundreds of millions and it is perfectly conceivable that it could be extended slightly to facilitate more PhD studentships.

"philanthropic giving"? surely you mean investment, or should mean investment. Humanities is an investment, a social one at that. In which case yes, enough investments needs to be made in order to support the listed requirements. The problem as we've identified is not enough money is invested into certain subjects and this results in a lack of funding for subjects like English.

You can use the language to suit yourself, but if you want to converse between people and make sense, then the conventions about meaning need to be followed. Financial 'investment' that does not offer any economic benefit to the 'investor', save that of the improvement of mankind/society etc is called philanthropy. Sure, philanthropic donors 'invest' their money for these reasons, but not enough of us and not enough money.

Quoted for the simple joy of being told to do my job

Drop me a line as to how, because none of us can work out how to do it

I got a Clarendon for MSc in African Studies! i can't believe it! good luck to everyone!
Still haven't heard directly from the African Studies Program. But I guess I can assume I got in.

Thank you for teaching me about philanthropy and finance. I assumed given the context, that being funding, it was quite obvious that "philanthropy" does, as you point out in the last sentence, have a point. To what extent we can have philanthropy by your definitions is a question in itself. I do apologise if what I am writing does not make sense to you.