 So hello and welcome to today's webinar, applying for a postgraduate research program at SOAS. My name is Kishla Prescott and I'm one of the doctoral school officers at SOAS and I specialise in PhD admissions. Before we begin, just to let you all know if you're interested in applying for a master's program at SOAS, this is not the webinar for you. Today we're discussing the application process for the PhD program. So these are a few of the areas that I'm going to be touching on during the process today. So the doctoral school offers two programs, the infill-phd program and the VRS program. You should note that neither of these programs are offered through distance learning. The research programs are continuous and the taught course term dates do not apply to research students. What that means is students are required to be in London at SOAS throughout the duration of the studies, regardless of the mode of study. So regardless of if you're full-time or part-time, you're required to be in London and at SOAS. We do not offer a standalone infill program. The infill-phd program is a PhD program. All students admitted to the PhD program and initially registered for the degree of infill, in the third term full-time or part-time equivalent, students are considered for a transfer to PhD by their supervisory committee. If the upgrade is successful, the date of registration for the PhD is then backdated to the commencement of your studies. Our visiting research student program is a non-award program. It's usually used by students already enrolled on a PhD program at their home institution. So students enrolled on the VRS program are not registered for a degree and are not formally assessed on their work. You can apply for either one term or three terms as a visiting research student. As a VRS, you would be entitled to up to five hours of supervision per term and you would be assigned a lead supervisor. So eligibility criteria for our PhD program. Or academically, we require students to have a good UK master's degree or overseas equivalent. Now I'm often asked, what is the definition of a good master's degree? The school's definition is a UK master's degree or overseas equivalent, which is generally in a relevant field to the program you have applied for. However, some departments do have more specific levels, which are generally advertised on the relevant departmental pages of the SOE's website. Administratively speaking, if you meet the school's definition, we will mark your application as academically eligible. For those of you that do not meet the school's definition, i.e., you do not hold a UK master's degree or overseas equivalent, you can still submit an application for the PhD program, but when initially assessed, your application will be marked as not academically eligible. It would then be at the discretion of the academic selectors on whether an offer of study was made. Any offers made for applicants considered to not meet the academic eligibility criteria must also then be approved by the relevant Associate Dean of Research. Regarding our English language requirements, we do set our requirements at a higher level than required for undergraduate or postgraduate taught. It is important when you're reviewing our requirements that you ensure you're referring to the doctor's school admissions pages. It is important also to note that we do not consider requests for an exemption of the English language requirement made at the application stage. If your application is successful and offers studies extended and you believe you have grounds for making a case, at that time it may be submitted to us. In general, due to strict Home Office requirements and the school's need to treat all international students, applicants and non-native English-speaking applicants alike, we require all applicants educated outside of one of the Home Office lists of a majority English-speaking countries or educated for less than three consecutive years at degree level within one of those countries within the last two years to submit a secure English language test or a SELT as it's known. Let's move on to the study of Economic English. For those of you that require Tier 4 visa to study in the UK, you must take a UK VI IELTS test. Again, your results must have been received within two years of the start date of the program in order to be considered valid. So for September 2018 entry, your results must have been received after the 1st of September 2016. Our entry points. For the majority of departments for the ENFL-PHD program, only one entry point is offered each academic year, which is in September. The only exception to this is the School of Finance and Management Studies. They offer entry points in September, January and April. The Visiting Research Student Program also offers multiple entry points again in September, January and April. The online system is currently only open to applications for September 2018, January 2019 and April 2019. The system will not open to applications for September 2019, January 2020 and April 2020 until November 2018 after the annual update process has been completed. Now deadlines is an important one to consider when you're making your application. The school's deadline for completed applications for September 2018 entry is 1159 p.m. on the 30th of June 2018. Strict deadlines doer here for the Visiting Research Student Programs and applications that remain incomplete after these deadlines will be withdrawn. So if you are applying for Visiting Research Student Program plus at September 2018, you must have a completed application by 1159 p.m. on the 30th of June 2018. Some departments may choose to remain open beyond the school's deadline. We are hoping to update our website pages in the next few weeks for this information on which departments will be staying open beyond the 30th of June. Please be aware the completed deadlines are the final deadline for you to provide all required information. Extensions beyond this deadline are not permitted. An incomplete application will be withdrawn from consideration. As the applicant, you are responsible for ensuring you have provided us with all required documentation and ensuring that two acceptable references have been confidentially submitted by your nominated referees via the specified deadline. If you are applying for a scholarship, please be aware earlier deadlines may apply. Just a reminder to those that have just joined us, if you have any questions, please send them through the group chat function and I'll answer all questions at the end of the session. Choose in your program. At SOAS, we do welcome applications for interdisciplinary research but only one application to one department may be submitted each academic year. Submission of multiple applications will result in withdrawal of these applications and may delay the processing of your chosen application. You are welcome to make contact with a potential supervisor to request feedback on your proposal however this is not a requirement of the application process. Any informal expression of interest does not guarantee a formal offer will be made or that if an offer is made that your proposed supervisor will be the academic that you have been in touch with in order to be considered all applications must be submitted through the formal application process. If you are not sure which department your research best fits, we recommend reviewing the expertise and research interests of the academics within the departments. This information can be located under the relevant departmental staff pages of the SOAS website. On your screen now you'll be able to see the link to the list of departments offering the PhD program at SOAS. So completing your application. I touched on this in my previous slide but just to reiterate in order to be considered for entry your application must be submitted through the online application system. Unfortunately we are not able to consider any application sent through alternative methods. When you are completing your application it is essential that you select the correct class or grade achieved for any previous qualifications you have been awarded. If you cannot locate your class achieved from the drop-down list you should select other and manually input the correct grade into the free text field provided. This is very important as we do recommend that applicants use the terminology provided on the official documentation they receive in order to prevent any confusion and reduce the risk of an accidental false declaration being made. What documentation is required to make your application complete? We have your supporting or personal statement. Basically this is your chance to tell the academic selected about yourself. Who you are, why you want to study your chosen program, why you want to study at SOAS. Ideally you should aim to write at least a page but you are welcome to write more than that. You are up to date CV. This must include dates and account for any gaps. For example if you spend a year travelling please note this. Your research proposal is one of the most vital parts of your application and it will be studied in detail by the academic selectors. We do have generic guidelines available on the doctoral school admissions pages of the SOAS website for writing this and we recommend that as a minimum your proposal should be at least 1000 to 2000 words. You must also include preliminary bibliography of the sources you intend to use. If you have a more detailed proposal please do submit this. Now we come to your transcripts. We do require copies of your official transcripts for all qualifications studied at a degree level or higher that detail the marks received throughout the duration of your study. We do understand that the previous studies section of the online application only allows you to detail up to three previous qualifications but any additional qualifications should be listed in your CV and you should provide documentation for all. Your degree certificate is the same as your transcripts for all qualifications awarded at a degree level or higher we do require you to provide us with official copies of your degree certificates. Even if you don't believe the qualification is relevant to the program you've applied to please ensure you include the qualification and the documentation in your application. The reason we say this is when the academic selectors review your application they may feel it is better suited to another department and may recommend we forward it to them for consideration. Your English language events if you have a valid English language test available at the time of your application please upload this. If you do not no need to panic your application can proceed without this documentation as long as all other required documentation has been provided. If your application is successful and a test is required this will be stipulated in the conditions of any offer made. Now references in order to be considered complete your references not only need to be nominated but your nominated referees must have confidentially submitted their references by the stipulated deadline. And finally if there is any document that you have uploaded to your application that are not in English then we do require accompanying certified translations from a legal translator or the administrative authorities at the awarding institution. Self made translations by the applicant will not be accepted. For all applications we require two references to be confidentially submitted. When deciding who to nominate as a referee please bear in mind the following. If you are currently studying or your most recent qualification was awarded within the last three years then you will need to nominate two academic references with at least one being from your most recent or current place of study. If your most recent qualification was awarded more than three years ago you can nominate either professional or academic referees. All references must come from individuals who have direct experience of supervising you in either an academic or professional capacity. If you nominate a referee is online and provide an official institution or professional organisational email account then they will be sent an automatic email by the application system notifying them of the nomination and inviting them to submit their reference directly through the online system. If you nominate your referees as online as sorry as offline you will then need to contact them directly so that referees that you nominate as offline you need to contact them and ask them to submit their reference for your application in one of the acceptable formats as detailed on the doctoral school admissions pages of the size website. Please be aware due to the volume of applications we receive we are unable to chase a referee on behalf of an applicant. We often get queries from applicants after they have submitted their application asking us to amend a document or add a new referee for consideration. As the applicant it is your responsibility to ensure that all required documentation has been provided for your application and the versions of your documentation uploaded are the final versions. Your application should only be submitted for consideration once you are satisfied that all documentation is final. However, we do understand that occasionally an error will occur but in those instances you should alert us at the earliest opportunity. It is essential that you fully review all documentation uploaded prior to submitting your application for consideration. It's also important to know that once your application has gone forward for consideration or the deadline for completed applications has passed, we will not be able to upload any further documentation for you. So how does it work? Well, you submit your application. Once your referees, once two referees have confidentially submitted their references for your application, your application will move into the queue to be initially assessed. At the time that initial assessment is completed, you will receive an email from the doctoral school admissions team updating you on your application status. This will either be a request for additional information or references or confirmation that your application is complete and has been forwarded to the department for consideration. From the date your application is forwarded to the department and not from the date that you submit your application, it may take between five to eight weeks for a decision to be returned. All formal communication regarding your application will come through the doctoral school admissions team and it is subject to the formal application process. Once the decision has been returned and processed for your application, you will be notified by email that a decision can be viewed. Please be aware we are unable to provide decisions over the phone or in person. Keeping in mind that when you do send us queries, we do process all information in date order received. So that is applications with references to be initially assessed, emails and posts. We do ask that applicants avoid sending duplicate queries as these delay our processing times. I also want to highlight here that when you do submit your application, as I've mentioned, it can only be assessed once two references have been confidentially submitted by your nominated referees. What that means, though, is if you submit your application for consideration today, the second of May, but your referees only submit their references on the 28th of June, then your application would only go into the queue to be initially assessed from that day and we process in date order according to our current volumes at the time. So the offer stage. If your application is successful, you will need to meet any conditions stipulated in your offer letter by the deadline specified. Failure to do so will result in your offer being expired and offer withdrawn. If you require a TO4 visa to study in the UK, you will need to have met all conditions specified and accepted your offer prior to applying for your CAS number. The relevant guidance for this is included in offer letters for successful applicants. If your offer is successful, but your circumstances change and you are unable to commence your studies in the year offered, you may consider applying for a deferral. Deferrals are not guaranteed and are subject to academic approval and availability. If approved, an offer can only be deferred once to the following academic year. Deferrals must be requested prior to the start date of the program offered and all queries related to deferrals should be sent to doctoral school admissions in the first instance. Now your note, I haven't touched on things such as fee status, tuition fees or scholarships in today's session. Tuition fees are managed by our colleagues in the fees team, not by the doctoral school office, so any queries related to fees should be sent to them. Scholarships, any SOE scholarships are managed by the scholarships team. We do not have any oversight of these in the doctoral school office and unfortunately we would not be able to answer your queries regarding them. If you want to be considered for a SOE scholarship, you will need to submit an additional application to the program application. If you are applying for scholarships, please be aware earlier deadlines may apply. Our colleagues in the scholarships team have advised us that the deadline for applications for one of the Bloomsbury College studentships has been extended until the 7th of May. This studentship is based in the History Department. If you have any further queries about the scholarship, please refer to the scholarship pages of the SOE's website. Thank you for tuning in with us today. If you need to get in touch with us during the application process, again please note we process all queries in day order received. We can be reached at any of the contact details on your screen at the moment. We also do have a postgraduate opening evening happening on Thursday the 31st of May. If you're interested in attending, please go to the link displayed on your screen there and book a place in. I do recommend that if you do have any queries prior to contacting us that you have checked the doctoral school admissions pages including our frequently asked questions section in the first instance to see if your query is answered there. Now I'm going to look at the questions received but I'm going to start answering those. Okay so our first question is, should I have to take the IELTS exam before applying? Well as I was in the required documentation section of today's session, it is not required that you have an English language test attached to your application at the time of applying if you do not have this available. However, if your application was successful and an English test required, it would be stipulated in the conditions of any offer made. The three questions are the similar so I'll answer them as one. Do I have to sit for an IELTS exam if I have a UK master's? Unfortunately we're not able to make a formal assessment of your English language requirement without a formal application being submitted and initially assessed. As mentioned earlier, we do require, we have, we do require all applicants in general that, that either international applicants or non-native English speaking applicants who have been educated outside of one of the home office list of majority English speaking countries or educated for less than three consecutive years at degree level within the last two years within one of those countries to submit an English test. So when your application is submitted if you do not have a test at the time of applying you do not need to worry about that, your application can proceed as long as all other required documentation has been provided. But if a test is deemed necessary then this will be stipulated in the conditions of any offer made. The next question is, is a person would discretionary leave to remain visa considered an international student and will the person still need a Tf4 visa? Unfortunately similar to the English language query I cannot make a formal assessment of your fee status without a formal application being submitted. If you want further information on how fee status is assessed then I recommend you go to the link in this previous screen who's going to put it back up on screen now just here the UK's site to give you further information about what the regulations are and the criteria that would need to be met in order for an applicant to be considered as a home student for the purpose of fee payment. Our next question is can I start part-time for two years and then following two years full-time. Thank you for your query, it's not guaranteed that if you make an application and it is issued an offer for part-time study that it would be possible to switch to full-time. That would be subject to the approval and availability of your lead supervisor and the approval of the research tutor for the department. The second question is if you study a full-time PhD how many hours work can you do part-time? This is dependent on any visa restrictions that an applicant may have and so if you require a T4 visa to study in the UK I recommend you get in touch with my colleagues and the student advice and well-being office on welfare at soas.ac.uk to find out further information of whether or not how many hours you would be able to work. For students that do not have any visa restrictions if you're studying full-time as a minimum we expect that a student is working 21 hours a week as a minimum on their thesis. So part-time work should not be impacting their studies or their attendance in any training requirements. Again all students how regardless of mode of study are required to be based in London and at so as throughout the duration of studies as we do not offer distance learning. How much on-site time is required as a part-time student? I believe I've answered that in my previous answer but again any additional courses that you may be either to required to attend an audit or taken pass would be either stipulated in the offer issue to you or agreed upon in discussion with your lead supervisor after enrollment when you complete the training needs analysis form. So if during your first year of study you will be required to undergo all the training and for a part-time student the first two years is training and upgrade. So again it would be subject to a departmental discretion on how they structure their course. There's a query here on how long does it take on average for a supervisor to get back to us. Could you please provide some further clarification of what you're asking because it's not clear from this email from this query. If you are making contact with potential supervisor I cannot guarantee that they will get back in touch with you. It's at the discretion of the academic's availability to respond to those emails. Unfortunately we're not able to taste those for you because it's not actually a requirement of the application process for you to make contact with the potential supervisor prior to submitting an application for consideration. And we talked to supervisors from different departments for an application to a particular department. Again if you want to make contact with potential applicants sorry potential academic supervisors prior to submitting an application for consideration that is at your discretion. There is no rule in regards to which supervisors you make contact. If their contact details are on the website you can send them an email. However it is not a requirement of the application process that you do so. And I do recommend that as we are getting close to the school's completed application deadline that if you are going to make contact with a potential supervisor that you do it simultaneously to submitting your application for consideration. For the research proposal do I have to have connections with organizations people for the proposed topic already in the country? Or can this be a theoretical idea for which the practical connections and logistics can be developed after the application process? Thank you for this question Alina I would recommend that you read through the research proposal guidelines on the doctoral school admissions pages of the service website. That will give you an outline of what information does need to be included in your proposal. What if the supervisor does not reply in at least two weeks can an admission advisor help to expedite the request to an extended supervisor? Unfortunately as I touched on previously no and there's not a requirement of the application process to reach out and make contact with a potential supervisor. Again any informal expressions of interest do not guarantee a formal offer as all applications are subject to the formal application process. So I do recommend that if you are currently waiting for an potential academic to get back to you that you continue on with your application and getting that submitted before the application deadline. Thank you for your comment Alex. Unfortunately we do not manage those scholarships in the doctoral school admissions team. Details are available once the system is open to applications and applicants can then at that time start the applications and get them submitted. Can you reapply if unsuccessful? Unfortunately not in the same academic year only one application to one department may be submitted each academic year. If you aren't successful for September 2018 entry you would then be able to reapply for September 2019 entry but we would not be able to consider a second application for you for 2018. Thank you Ellen for your question. It can be it can take up to five to eight weeks for a decision to be returned once your application has gone forward for consideration. If after eight weeks you have not received a decision on your application please send an email through to us at the doctoral school admissions email address and we will be able to follow up your application on your behalf. Is it possible to finish your part time PhD early for example four years instead of six? It's a good question Joy but unfortunately no. If you were to submit your thesis for examination after four years rather than six it is you would have been considered to be working on a full-time basis and the full-time fees would have been will be retrospectively applied to you. Can foreign students apply for jobs on or off campus while pursuing your PhD of course subject to visa permits? Again I'm not able to advise you on this matter you will need to speak to the welfare team on welfarexos.ac.uk to find out what the visa restrictions are. Any teaching opportunities at SOAS are managed by the internal departments themselves generally they would not be offered to first-year students. Thank you Ellen how many months away from London are we allowed to have a primary research purposes i.e field research? So in your first year of your studies full-time that's when you undergo all the training requirements and also the upgrade process. In your second year full-time that is when most students undergo field work so for field work it can be up to the three terms and the third year is when students are writing up the work that they have gathered during the fieldwork year and at the end of the third year students will either submit for consideration or if they're not quite ready but have completed a full draft of their thesis they may apply to their committee for doing an extension of writing up continuation status which would allow them an additional one year only to complete and get their thesis ready for submission. Again research degrees are continuous and the talk course term dates do not apply we do require our research students to be based in London in SOAS. If there's no more queries for today then I will end the session I just wait to see if any few more comes through so it's a good question from Nina are there any facilities or possibility of getting an external supervision from a professor and another institution in conjunction with the supervision received at SOAS in case external supervision is required. So external supervision is very rare and is not guaranteed we don't offer a joint PhD program with any other institution. In the rare instance where the department feels that there is not the relevant entities required at SOAS they will consider making an application for an external supervisor to be either the second or third member of the committee. That has to go to the head of department for approval and then to the associate dean of research for approval so it's not something that would be considered at application stage it would not be considered until after enrolment. So after you've enrolled well let's go one step before that if you made an offer of study your offer of study will give you the name of your lead supervisor. In your supervisory committee there is currently three members. In the first six weeks after enrolment the second and third supervisory committee member are appointed and that's usually in discussions with yourself and your lead supervisor on who may be an appropriate fit to meet your research interests and expertise to help guide you through your process. If you have any more queries that you think of after the session ends today please email them through to us at dsadmissionsatsoas.ac.uk and either myself or my colleague will get back to you. Thanks for coming today everyone.