PhD The Early Process, Application and Interview advice

I've been accepted onto a number of law PhDs (Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, Edinburgh) starting in September but I'm yet to make a final decision on my destination. My question is, how much do you think the institution you attend matters? My tutors at Cambridge seem to think that, if I don't want to stay at Cam, Oxford is clearly the best place to go. In some respects I see their point, but I always thought that when it came to research, faculty reputations could be somewhat disgarded. Is the case different when it comes to Oxbridge?

I don't know much about law myself but there are fields in which there is a degree of elitism and choice of university is important. It would not surprise me if law was one of those fields. Aside from this though, there are many practical reasons, Oxford and Cambridge are well-resourced compared to many other institutions in terms of libraries, faculty members, students, etc and all this is useful to PhD students.

Ok, I know there's a seperate 'Personal Statement' section but I thought I'd ask here as it's about a personal statement attached to a PhD application. I'm not talking about the Research Proposal as I've got that covered.

This is how I'm thinking of laying it out in order:

1) A rundown of my academic history, from A levels up to the present, the degrees (and other awards) I have to my name and how well I passed them.

2) A discussion of my academic interests, what subjects in particular I have become attached to, which academics, theories and methodologies I am most engaged and influenced by.

3) Something about my aims in pursuing a PhD, my interest in getting involved in univserity teaching and my enthusiasm to contribute to academic life at the university, and beyond, more generally.

4) Something about me as a person, what I've done outside of academic life, what kinds of jobs I've had, other interests, something about my personality.

I'm not aware of a word-limit but 1000-1500 seems to be the expectation, so I'm thinking it will probably be a paragraph each.

Any thoughts or advice on this approach?

I had to write a statement of purpose (which I believe is the same as a personal statement, correct me if wrong?) on top of the research proposal and I did about the same thing except the last one as I...ran out of space. Mine was a page long and I talked about my academic background, how and why I came to be interested in the area of research I'm hoping to pursue and why I was pursuing a PhD in the first place.

Also, I don't know how common it is for candidates in the Humanities (I'm applying for English) to be interviewed, but I had a (phone) interview a few days ago and I have to say Epoch's write-up in the first post helped me tremendously as I had no idea what to expect. As it transpired, it was the first kind of interview, i.e. a discussion of sorts with potential supervisor(s). I was asked a few questions about my dissertation as Epoch mentioned (I'd forwarded my diss to them a few days prior), namely how long it took me to write it and after writing it, whether I'd found out anything new that I didn't know before. I had to think about the second one a little and there was a lot of "umm"-ing and "ahh"-ing since I'd written my MA dissertation a whole year ago and I only remembered the gist of it. Then I was asked how I came about with the idea for my research proposal. At the end of the "interview" I was told that I'd been offered a place so I guess I didn't do too badly! I'm still waiting for my references so they said they'd issue the offer letter as soon as I sent them in.

Anyway I hope this helps anyone who has a PhD interview in the Humanities! Best of luck everyone!

Thanks for that, it helps a lot. I know what you mean about answering questions about your MA, I completed mine in 2009 and I can't so easily offer up detail like I could have if asked in the weeks after I'd handed it in - when I could probably have talked non-stop for three hours! In my circumstances I will be invited to a face-to-face interview if selected, so I'll swat-up should I get that far.

I had to write a statement of purpose (which I believe is the same as a personal statement, correct me if wrong?) on top of the research proposal and I did about the same thing except the last one as I...ran out of space. Mine was a page long and I talked about my academic background, how and why I came to be interested in the area of research I'm hoping to pursue and why I was pursuing a PhD in the first place.

Which university was that?

QMUL! I don't know if the two are the same (I take they're not, from your response!) but I just wrote about how I came to be involved in the area of study I'm pursuing, why I want to do a PhD and how it would contribute to my career and so on. Did I do the right thing?

Pretty much. Normally a statement of purpose is just for MA-applicants who don't need to do a proper research proposal, so it's for talking about your research interests in broad terms, how the course they're applying for fits into your plans for the future, what specifically you're hoping to gain from it, how your undergraduate degree has been preparing you for it etc. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to ask for one on top of a research proposal, though.

I know, I thought it was strange too! But I checked with Admissions and they said that I had to hand in both a research proposal and a statement of purpose, so I just whipped one up haha. Queen Mary works in mysterious ways...

Hi Charlemagne!

I'm writing a SoP for Queen Mary as well, so I have the same points pretty much covered, I was just wondering if you included anything on why chosing QM?

It's a one page statement, pretty short, so I'm not sure how to go about it. Also, I'm applying for a studentship, for which I also have to write a research brief, where they specifically ask for why study at QM (I would write the supervisor and the research interests/support of their dept). Not sure whether to put this there instead of the SoP...

Thanks a bunch!

S

I didn't write anything specific about choosing QMUL, I just said something about the library and the research facilities' (?) compatibility with my area of study and so on.

I would put the really specific bits about choosing Queen Mary in the research brief for the studentship. The way I see it, a statement of purpose should be general, and the research brief should be tailored to the department/uni in question. At least that's what I think, I'm no expert though.

Good luck! Isn't the deadline for studentships pretty soon though (the 21st iirc)?

Universities do seem very inconsistent when it comes to PhD applications. Newcastle only want a 500-750 word research proposal. Other universities want a research proposal ranging anyway from 500-2000 words, and a personal statement that seems almost irrelevant at this stage. As if a PhD students needs to explain why they want to spend three years of their life at a particular university and with a particular set of staff...

Universities do seem very inconsistent when it comes to PhD applications. Newcastle only want a 500-750 word research proposal. Other universities want a research proposal ranging anyway from 500-2000 words, and a personal statement that seems almost irrelevant at this stage. As if a PhD students needs to explain why they want to spend three years of their life at a particular university and with a particular set of staff...