Conditional offer at Cambridge. But no funding mentioned.

My friend recently got a phd conditional offer at Cambridge. What's the next step regarding funding? I can't see any information of funding on the offer certificate. Will his advisor contact him regarding funding options? Or is this gonna be like a non funded PhD.

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Did your "friend" apply for funding? Did they discuss with the prospective supervisor what funding options there are and that he would be applying to before submitting the application...?

For most PhDs (at least outside of STEM fields) as I understand, funding is separate to admission and while some sources of funding may be considered just by applying for admission, many you need to apply to specifically separately. And equally confirmation of whether one is successful for applying to funding may come after being admitted to the PhD programme itself (equally confirmation one was not successful for applying to funding).

Some PhD projects (especially in STEM fields) are "prepackaged" and have funding attached and are already an existing planned project (rather than a research proposal from the applicant who will then need to apply to funding sources as well), and so usually for those you are applying to both funding and the PhD programme at the same time. Although they may admit some students to the project but not with funding (e.g. if they have more projects than they have funding for).