Oxford Graduate Application 2012/13

What about "hiding" your postgraduate diploma? I do not endorse lying by omission in principle but to be honest they would have no way to know especially if you changed schools from after undergrad and can ask your former undergrad professors for references.

Pardon me if this sounds obvious, but you should be checking the departmental websites of a variety of institutions. Figure out which ones are doing astrophysical research that you find interesting and apply there.

Keep in mind that in some places, Astrophysics is a sub-department or division of the Department of Physics, at others it is its own separate department, and still, at others, it is grouped in with the Astronomy department. Be sure to verify all of these options when looking at different schools' websites.

I'm researching fee costs at the moment, does anyone know whether the 'college fee' is a single payment covering the duration of the course or is it something which is paid annually?

If you want to study astrophysics at the PhD level, you should be doing it for the reason that you enjoy astrophysical research, not for the job prospects. Frankly, outside of academia and national laboratories, there isn't much demand for people with a doctorate in astrophysics. Consequently, you shouldn't be selecting an institution based on prestige but based on the kind of research that they do. More specifically, the fact that there are experts there who study things that you are highly passionate about. That way, you'll be passionate about your work and do the best research that you can.

When you make it to the next phase of your academic career, you will be assessed on the quality of research that you have performed as a PhD student. The prestige or perceived prestige of the institution is largely irrelevant when compared to your actual contributions to science.

Institutional name brands will have more of an effect if you decide to work in industry after getting your PhD, but if your goal is to work in industry, I would argue that you shouldn't be getting a PhD in astrophysics, but rather in something related to the industry that you would like to eventually work in.

My apologies if you know this already. I'm not trying to be condescending, but I figured that it might be useful to to make these points.

I should warn you that although I now study a different branch of physics, I used to be heavily involved in astrophysics research (before switching to my current subfield). So, my recommendations may be somewhat out of date. In addition to the top three schools that you mentioned, I would also throw in Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy of being a generally great department as well as Manchester, specifically for their pulsar research.

However, although these departments are good overall, they are of no use to you if they don't have people who are interested in the same things your are interested in. My suggestion is to for you to talk to your current lecturers who are astrophysicists and ask them where they think the interesting research is coming from for your particular topic of interest. This should start to give you an idea of schools worth applying to. Another suggestion is to keep an eye on the arXiv and take note which institutions are producing the papers that you find particularly fascinating. This too should provide a hint of which schools deserve further attention.

Good luck!

Ugh, I accidently made a spelling mistake in my statement of purpose and it's already submitted ("I'd like to emphasized".. a "d" too many it seems). Even though it really is unacceptable for graduate philosophy applicants, I hope it won't hurt my chances...... Sigh, I read over it like 10 times, had my parents proofread it, a good student who's a friend of mine too, and we all missed it. It's "funny" how you see those things after you submit them.

Anyway, I e-mailed graduate admissions right after I noticed it, and they notified me that they cannot swap the statement with a newer version without any errors, sadly. They said that they would just "add it to the application", so hopefully the assessors will see the correct version first. I can't believe that I made such a silly mistake on such an important moment; it's really my dream to do my postgraduate studies there. Here's to months of anxiety and sleepless nights!

It is an annual fee (that excludes the cost of accommodation and meals) paid in addition to the course fee and any other sundry costs (textbooks etc.) The following is taken from Oxford's website:

There are three types of expense to budget for when calculating the cost of graduate study:

University tuition fee
Fees are payable for each year of your course. Most courses have a maximum period for which fees are payable. The rate you pay depends on the University’s assessment of your fee status as ‘Home/EU’ or ‘Overseas’ and on the qualifications you already hold.

College fee
The college fee covers academic facilities and other services provided by your college. The fee, which you will need to pay each year to your college for the period you are liable for fees, does not include accommodation or meal charges and is payable in addition to the University tuition fee.

Living costs
University tuition and college fees are fixed for each year, but will increase from one year to the next. These are usually payable to your college.

See http://www.ox.ac.uk/feesandfunding/fees/calculator/ to calculate your actual fee liability.

Also, I'm thinking of a PhD because I think it's something I would really enjoy, but at the moment I'm not sure where I would head afterward - whether that is further academia or a job in another (physics related) sector. If you have any advice on whether the latter is possible, that would be great!

So does someone know when people that applied for the November 18 deadline can expect to hear back from the departments / the university?