Application Procedure for PhD

All application materials for the PhD (full and part time) can be found on the Board of Graduate Studies (BGS) website:
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/gsprospectus/applying/

Applications should be submitted to the Board of Graduate Studies (BGS), the University's central administrative office for graduate students. Applications can be made either online or in hard copy. The Board of Graduate Studies co-ordinates all admissions, sets the minimum entrance requirements and ensures that an applicant meets any conditions attached to his or her offer.

Once you have submitted your application, it is possible to track its progress through the BGS website.

The Faculty is asked by BGS to make recommendations on applications but all final decisions on admissions to the PhD are made centrally by BGS.

The University Graduate Studies Prospectus is a general graduate prospectus for the university as a whole. It contains a detailed explanation of the admissions process and includes the application pack and useful information about scholarships and colleges. It can be downloaded from the following address:
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/gsprospectus/request_form/index.cgi

If you wish to submit any supplementary documentation with your application, such as a curriculum vitae, please enclose this with your application to the Board of Graduate Studies. Please do not submit any documents directly to the Faculty of Education.

The Faculty cannot give reasons for not offering admission, nor advise you how to improve your application. However, if you believe that there has been an administrative error, or if you believe you have been treated unfairly because of bias or prejudice, or if there are circumstances unknown to the Faculty that might have affected the decision, you should write to the Secretary of the Degree Committee within three weeks of obtaining the letter notifying you of the outcome, setting out your reasons. Please note, however, that there is no appeal against academic judgements made by the University.

Application Deadlines

The academic groups meet four times a year to consider applications. These meetings are set to tie in with Board of Graduate Studies deadlines and the deadlines of the various funding competitions. When deciding which of the following deadlines to apply by, please also consider carefully which funding competitions you wish to apply to as you should make your application for admission and for funding in parallel. The deadlines set out below are the deadlines by which your application must be received by the Board of Graduate Studies. Please ensure that you enclose all the required documentation with your application. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

The deadlines are as follows:

15 October 2008
15 December 2008
15 February 2009
30 June 2009

Applications received after the 30 June will not be considered. Please note that if you are an overseas applicant you need to ensure that your application is submitted early in order to enable you to apply for a student visa if necessary.

The research proposal and admission to the Academic Groups

All applicants for the PhD are required to submit a 1,500 word research proposal with their application, addressing the issues set in the attached guidance.

Each doctoral student receives individual supervision from a member of Faculty staff. In addition, one or more advisers are appointed to share responsibility for monitoring the student's progress and providing further support. The Faculty looks to admit research students to pursue a topic related to those areas of educational study where groups of staff are currently active in research. This allows students to be attached to a research group so they can benefit from contact with other staff and students working in the same area. For appropriate research areas see the research profiles of staff on this website. When writing your proposal, please consider carefully which of the Faculty's academic groups your research would best fit within and state clearly at the top of your proposal which group you wish to be admitted to.

Interviews

Once the Faculty has received your application we will contact you via email if we require any further documentation or examples of written work. Both national and international applicants may be called for an interview.

Failure to meet conditions and deferring entry

It is not possible to defer automatically an offer of a place to the following year. If you fail to meet the conditions of your offer, you will receive a letter from BGS confirming that your offer has been withdrawn. However, if you wish to reapply the following year, you will not need to make a fresh application. You simply need to inform BGS that you wish to reapply. BGS will retain your application materials and will return them to the Faculty for consideration with a new start date. The Faculty will then make a decision on whether to make a new offer for the next academic year. There will be no guarantee that you will receive a new offer as your application will be considered in competition with other applications.

Applicants with Disabilities & Equal Opportunities Policy

The Faculty welcomes applications from students with disabilities or chronic illnesses and treats them on the same academic grounds as those from other candidates. The Faculty is committed to equal opportunities for all. It aims to ensure that no present or prospective student receives less favourable treatment than another on grounds of any condition or status not directly affecting study or work.

Further information can be obtained from the following links:

Contact

Higher Degrees & PPD Office
Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PQ
Phone: +44 1223 767730
Fax: +44 1223 767602
E-mail: [er206@cam.ac.uk]