A PhD Admissions Dilemma: An Update

Several months ago, we ran a thread on an admissions dilemma faced by a student considering admissions offers from programs in the US and UK, complicated by the fact that the funding decisions in the UK are on a different timetable than the US.

That student now writes with an update on his situation and thanks for the helpful advice he received from readers:

I first wrote to you several months ago with a Ph.D. admissions dilemma. Since the contributions to your blog helped me a lot, I thought it appropriate to update.

To recap, I was faced with two Ph.D. offers: one from a world-leading department in the UK, and the other from the leading US department in my field. The US department had offered me a five year scholarship upfront but wanted a quick answer. I wanted to remain in the UK, but the lack of financial guarantees here made that a difficult decision to take. I considered the possiblity of accepting both offers, in order to pull out of the US one if/when AHRB funding came through, but the ethics of this upset me.

Your contributors gave me two pieces of much appreciated advice: (i) to go to the States ("a bird in the hand is worth a phoenix in the bush"); but (ii) if I was intent on staying in the UK, to reject the US department straight away - rather than string them along until I had a UK funding offer.

I took the second piece of advice: I didn't want to betray the good faith shown in me by the US department, so I rejected their offer by the deadline set. In the end, I also rejected the first UK offer.

Career suicide, quite possibly - but in the end I thought my research interests would be best served elsewhere. I accepted an offer from a resurgent UK department conducting some outstanding research and with a great supervisor.

The gamble didn't quite pay off: I didn't get AHRB funding. (My MA research had been done on the continent, perhaps making me something of an unknown quantity.)

I'll be financially insolvent for a long time, but I'm still confident that I made the right decision and that time will prove me right.

Other prospective students, though, might want to take my example as one to avoid. On paper I looked a good bet for funding - but, as many of your contributors pointed out, there are no guarantees re: the AHRB.

I'd like to take the opportunity once more to thank your contributors: their advice about rejecting the US department immediately made a very difficult decision much easier.