 Hi everyone and welcome to today's webinar. If you're having any troubles in hearing us please do let us know using the group chat function. So today's webinar is applying for a postgraduate research program at SOAS. I'm Kishla and I'm one of the doctoral school officers at SOAS who specialises in PhD admissions. So these are just a few of the areas that I'm going to be touching on in today's webinar. Again, if you have any questions, send them through using the group chat function and I will answer them at the end. If you have a private query that you'd rather discuss personally, send them through to me at DSET admissions and I will email you back a response. So the doctoral school offers two programs, the Enfield slash PhD program and the VRS program or visiting research student program. Please note though, neither of our programs are offered through distance learning. The research program is continuous and the talk course term dates do not apply to our research students. What that means is the academic year runs right up until the day before the next academic year starts. For example, this academic year, the 2017 slash 18 academic year started on the 25th of September 2017 and it will run right through until the 23rd of September 2018. The next academic year starts the very next day on the 24th of September 2018. So our students are actually required to be in London and at SOAS throughout the duration of your studies, regardless of whether or not your full time or part time. SOAS doesn't offer a standalone Enfield degree. The Enfield slash PhD program is a PhD program. All students admitted to this program are initially registered for the degree of Enfield. 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 PhD will then be backdated to the commencement of your studies. The Visiting Research Program is a non-award program. Students enrolled on this program are not registered for a degree and are not formally assessed on their work. You can apply for either one, two, or three terms as a visiting research student. As a visiting research student, you can expect up to five hours of supervision per term. One of the most common questions I'm asked is what the definition of a good master's degree is because the school's minimum entry requirement for the PhD program is a good master's degree, a UK master's degree, or overseas equivalent. Usually it is in a relevant field to the program that you've applied to. However, some departments do have more specific levels, which are generally advertised on the relevant pages of the SOAS website. So from an administrative point of view, if you meet the school's definition, we will mark your application as academically eligible. If you do not meet the school's definition, i.e. you do not hold a UK master's degree or overseas equivalent, you can still apply, but when we initially assess your application, we would mark it as not academically eligible. It would then bear 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 then go through a second approval by the relevant Associate Dean of Research. Regarding our English language requirements, we do have a higher level for the PhD program than what is required for undergraduate or postgraduate taught programs. It is important that when you are reviewing our requirements, that you refer to the doctoral school admissions pages of the SOAS website and not the English language pages for undergraduate or postgraduate taught. If you require a tier 4 visa to study in the UK, you must take a UKVI IELTS test. Please note, any requests for an exemption of the English language requirement will not be considered at the application stage. In order to be valid, your test results must have been received within two years of the start date of the program. For those of you who have just joined us in this webinar, just a reminder, this is a webinar on applying for a postgraduate research program at SOAS, which is either our PhD program or our visiting research student program. For the infill slash PhD program, the majority of departments only offer one entry point 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 programs also offer multiple entry points, again in September, January and April. The online system is currently open to applications for April 2018, September 2018, January 2019 and April 2019. Please note, strict deadlines for the visiting research student programs apply, and applicants should remain incomplete after these deadlines will be withdrawn. As the applicant, you're responsible for ensuring that you have provided us with all the required documentation and that two acceptor references have been confidentially submitted by your nominated referees by the deadline. One thing to note is if you are applying for a SOAS scholarship, this does require a separate application to the program application. Because of this, and because the majority of scholarships do have earlier deadlines to the program deadline, we do recommend where possible you submit your application in enough advanced time to allow your referees to confidentially submit their references and for you to meet the scholarship deadlines. Anyone applying for scholarships that have a deadline of January 2018, I would be recommending that you are currently getting your application prepared and have that submitted by the end of this month and that your referees have confidentially submitted their references by the middle of December. So choosing your program, how do you decide which program is the best fit for you? At SOAS, we 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. Applicants are welcome to make contact with potential supervisors to request feedback or guidance. However, this is not a requirement of the application process. Please be aware that any informal expression of interest does not guarantee a formal offer will be made or that if a formal offer is made, your proposed supervisor will be said academic. All offers are subject to the formal application process. What I recommend for applicants that are not sure which department is the best fit for their research is that you review the expertise and research interests of the academics within the department you are considering. To do this, you will need to go to the SOAS website, click on the department you are interested in and locate the departmental staff list on the departmental pages. You can then view the academic's research interests and expertise. So what documentation is required? Before you submit your application for consideration, you should review the documentation you have uploaded to ensure it is the correct versions you want considered. It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure all required documentation is submitted by the deadline. Only applications deemed complete by the doctorate school admissions team can be forwarded to the department for consideration. An application is only considered complete with the following, your personal statement or supporting statement. So this is your chance to tell the academic's electors about yourself, who you are, why you want to study your chosen program, why you want to study at SOAS. We recommend that you should aim to write at least a page, but you can do write more than this if you so wish. Your CV, this must include dates and account for any gaps. If you spent a year travelling, note this, your research proposal. This is the one of the most vital parts of your application and it will be studied in detail by the academic's electors. There are generic guidelines available on the doctorate school admissions pages of the SOAS website. With tips on how to write this and the type of information these academic's electors look for and want the applicant to consider when they are making their application. We do recommend as a guidance that you should aim to write a minimum of a thousand to two thousand words. You must also include a one page preliminary bibliography of the sources you intend to use. If you have a more detailed research proposal, by all means please do submit this. The guidelines are only intended as such and not a definitive word count. Your official transcripts and degree certificates. You must provide us with official transcripts for all qualifications studied at a degree level or higher that detail all marks received throughout the duration of your studies. I know that the previous study section of the online application will only allow you to detail up to three previous qualifications obtained. But any additional qualification should be listed on your CV and you must provide us with documents for all. Again, the same applies for a degree certificate. We do require this information and one of the reasons we ask for all qualifications obtained is so. When your application goes forward to the academic selectors for consideration, on occasion the selectors may feel your application would be more relevant or suitable to another department. In these instances they may recommend we forward your application on for consideration and these are the only times that we would do so if the recommendation itself comes from the academic selectors. And if it is forwarded to another department for consideration, your other qualifications may become relevant. The English language evidence. So if you have a valid English language test available at the time of your application, please upload this in the relevant section. If you do not, don't panic guys, it's not going to delay your application. Your application can proceed without this documentation, but if your application is successful and a test is required, we would stipulate this in the conditions of any offer made. Your references. So I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in the next slide, but one of the most common misconceptions when making your application is what the references when that is considered complete. So in order for your application to be considered complete, your references do not only need to be nominated by yourself, but your nominated referees must have confidentially submitted their references by the stipulated deadline. Finally, any documents that you upload to your application that are not in English require accompanying certified translations from a legal translator. Self-made translations by the applicant will not be accepted. So references. 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 referees with at least one being from your current or most recent place to study. If your most recent qualification was awarded more than three years ago, you can nominate either professional or academic references. All references must come from individuals who have direct experience of supervising you in either an academic or professional capacity. We will not accept references submitted by family members, friends or colleagues that do not meet this criteria. When you nominate your referee, you have an option of whether or not they nominate as an online or an offline referee. If you nominate your referees as online and provide an official institution or professional email account for that referee, then they will be sent an automatic email through 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 offline, you will need to contact them and ask them to submit their reference for your application in one of the acceptable formats detailed on the doctoral admissions pages of the source website. Due to the volume of applications we receive, we are unable to chase a referee on behalf of an applicant. If you find that after you submitted your application for consideration, something happens and your nominated referee is no longer able to submit a reference on your behalf for whatever reason, then you can nominate an alternative referee in one of two formats. You can either ask the alternative referee to submit their reference directly to us at dsadmissionsatsoas.ac.uk, from their official institution email account or professional organisation email account, quoting your name and application number in the subject line of their email, or you can provide us with their name, email address, relationship to you and their employer details and ask us to add them to your application as an additional referee. Please do be aware we do process all information, so that's all applications, emails and posts received and they order to make it fair to all applicants. I do ask that you avoid sending duplicate emails as these do delay our processing times. So just a reminder, everyone that's just joined, all questions will be answered at the end of this webinar. Keep sending them through the group chat. So the application process. It is important, as I mentioned, that we do process everything in day order. So just be aware that when you're sending us emails, we will provide you with a response once we've taken action, but it may not be immediate. So what happens? When you submit your application for consideration, you will receive an automatic email from the online system notifying you of your application number. This seven digit application number is yours throughout this application process. Any communication you have with a doctoral school admissions team, you should ensure that you have your application number to hand. If you phone us, please have this ready as we will request it. If you send us an email, this should be included in the subject line of your email. It makes it easier for us to identify your application in the online system and to ensure that we are giving you the correct information. So once you submit your application, we can only assess it within the doctoral school admissions team once two references have been confidentially submitted by your nominated referees. So what that means is if you submit your application today on the 22nd of November 2017, but your referees do not submit their references until March 18, 2018, then your application would only go into the queue to be initially assessed in March 2018 and it would then be processed in day order according to our current volumes. So once the initial assessment is complete, you will receive an email from the doctoral school admissions team updating you on your application status. So 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 five to eight weeks for a decision to be returned. So again, if you submit your application today on the 22nd of November, 2017, but your application is not sent to the department until April 2018, it would be five weeks from the date it was sent to the department in April 2018 and not five weeks from today for a decision to be returned. All formal communication regarding your application will come through the doctoral school admissions team. All applications and offers are subject to the formal application process. You should not be making any contact with the department directly regarding your application status. That should come through our office and our team. Once a decision has been returned by the department, the doctoral school admissions team will complete internal procedures and once your decision has been processed and published, you will be notified by email that decision can be viewed. Please be aware we cannot give decisions over the phone or in person. So the offer stage. So if your application is successful, you will need to meet any conditions stipulated in your offer letter by the deadline specified. If you are unable to do this, this would result in your offer being expired and withdrawn. If you require a tier four visa to study in the UK, you would need to have met all conditions specified and accepted your offer prior to applying for your CAS number. Please refer to the relevant guidance in your offer letter for further information on this. If your offer is successful, but your circumstances change and you are unable to commence your studies in the year offer, you may consider applying for a deferral. Please note, deferrals are not guaranteed and are subject to academic approval and availability. Deferrals must be requested prior to the start date of the program offered and all queries related to a deferral should be sent to the doctoral school admissions. So if you are successful in your request to apply for a deferral to the following academic year, please do be aware. It is over once. If the following year you could not take up your offer, you would need to decline it and reapply at a later stage when you are able to. If you would like further information on how fee status is assessed, what the tuition fees for the first year will be or what scholarships are offered and what the deadlines for these are, please review the relevant guidance. Please note, as I previously mentioned, if you're applying for a SOAS scholarship, this requires a separate application to the program application so earlier deadlines may apply. Tuition fees at SOAS are managed by the fees team and SOAS scholarships are managed by our colleagues in the scholarships office. At the doctoral school admissions team, we're not able to advise you on scholarship matters. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in today. If you need to get in touch with us during the application process, send us an email or give us a phone call. Please be aware that when you do contact us, we will get back to you, but we do process in-day order. So if you send us an email, it may not be an immediate response, but we will respond to you as soon as we can. I do recommend that before you consider contacting us, that as a first point of reference, you do check the doctoral school admissions pages of the SOAS website, including our frequently asked question section, because your query may be answered there and that would actually save you time and make sure your application goes through faster because you would have the information available to you. A copy of today's webinar will be emailed to all attendees and to everyone that has registered. Thank you again, and let me now take some questions. Okay, so our first question, Erin, did I say that PhD students are required to stay in London for the full academic year and are they considered for PhD in the third term? Okay, so to answer your questions, I'll break it down into the two parts. So yes, the PhD research degrees at SOAS are continuous programs. We expect all students to be based in London and at SOAS throughout the duration of their degree. Students may apply for a period of an approved absence. However, if you require a Tier IV visa, the maximum number of days that you can be away in academic year if approved is 60. This doesn't include Year 2 when we expect the majority of our students to undergo a period of field work and that is exempt from the 60-day period because that goes through a separate application process. Your second half of your question, so when you are initially registered for the MFILS-PHD program, you are initially registered as MFILS status. During the third term full-time or the sixth term part-time, you will present an upgrade paper to your supervisory committee and effectively undergo a mini-viva process. The outcome of that will be decided by your supervisory committee and if they believe your work is at the standard of PhD level, you will be successfully upgraded to PhD status and that will be back-dated to the commencement of your registration with us on the program. Okay, so Andrea, the application deadlines in 2018 are to start the same year or decisions start in 2019. So applications are currently open for the majority of departments for September 2018 entry. As Kitchow actually has mentioned, so I see in the comments now, the program for September 2018 starts on the 24th of September 2018. If you are unable to commence your studies in 2018 and are looking for a program in 2019, we recommend you wait and apply next year when the system opens to those applications. So does your CV include work experience or just studies? Okay, so your CV should be including everything. This should be both your work experience and your previous qualifications. It should be a standard CV that you would submit to any job application that gives an overview of yourself, the candidate. Okay, so we have a query here from Robert. Can my references be written in Chinese by Chinese professors? If I'm applying to the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. Okay, so no, all documentation must be in English. References must be submitted to us in English because they come through our office prior to going forward to the department. We cannot accept translations made by the applicant directly. So your referees must write their references in English and submit them to us either through the system or directly to the DS admissions email address. Okay, hi Pippa. So what are the deadlines for the 2018 course start date? So depending on which entry point you're applying to, if you're applying for the standard Enfield PhD program for the majority of departments, then the skills deadline for a completed application is the 30th of June 2018. For a September 2018 entry. If you are applying for April entry for April 2018, then the deadline for those applications and getting your application sorted would be the 31st of January 2018. If you're applying for January 2019 entry, your deadline for applying would be the 12th of October 2018. But we do recommend that you keep an eye out on the Doctoral School admissions pages of the SOAS Web Star because some deadlines may change depending on department's availability to assess the application. So for the VRS that could change, the June deadline for September will not, but some departments may stay open beyond that date but we will not have that information until May. Mohamed, I see your question here about the requirements for contemporary Pakistan History Masters Lending to PhD. Could you please elaborate more on your question so I can answer it? Alternatively, you're welcome to email us through at DS admissions so that I can look into this further for you. Pippa, there are guidelines available on the Doctoral School admissions pages of the SOAS Web Star. If you go to our How to Apply page, and in that list, Research Proposal, there are guidelines. As I mentioned earlier though, they are just guidelines. So the 1000 to 2000 words is a recommended minimum, but you can submit a more detailed proposal if you wish. I'll just show you where you can actually find that on our pages. The link currently up on the screen, the landing page, that will take you to our landing page. From there, you want to select on the left-hand side navigation bar the How to Apply link. And that will take you to the information that we have detailed through in the previous slides about the application process. Sorry, not application process, the required documentation. And that will bring you to this information and in that list, you'd have the Research Proposal. It does have a PDF document that you can download. Mohamed, regarding scholarships, we do not manage the scholarship process within the doctoral school admissions team. They are all managed by our colleagues in the scholarships team. So you'll need to have a look at the scholarship pages of this OS website to see what scholarships are available. Regarding your second question, if you are currently studying a master's degree that will not be completed prior to submitting your application, you can still apply. The deadline for meeting conditions of any offers for September 2018 is the 31st of August 2018. So if you will not be awarded by that date, we can still, if the department wishes to, can still make an offer of study, but it would be made on the basis that you'd have a progression requirement to provide us with original evidence that you'd completed your master's degree in the end of term one. So before December 2018, you'd have to be able to confirm that. Again, if you're interested in applying for a program for September 2019, the online application system is not currently open to these, and it will not be until November 2018, once the annual update process has been completed. So check back in with us closer to that time. Sorry, Pippa, I'm not sure about your question about how to apply for a PhD. So S, could you elaborate on what area you are asking about the application process? All applications will only be considered if they're submitted through the formal online application system. Hi, Heather, regarding your question. So academic versus professional references. It's been four years since completing your master's and you want to know whether or not you should choose academic or professional references. It is your decision on who you nominate. If your most recent qualification was awarded more than three years ago, it's your decision whether you nominate academic or professional references. You may choose to nominate one academic and one professional. As long as both individuals have experience of supervising you in a direct capacity, those will be acceptable. But please do be aware that when they submit the references, they must be submitted through official institution or professional organisational email accounts because we will not accept references submitted through free-use email accounts such as yahoo.com, hotmail.com, Gmail, AOL, 123. Anything like that would not be accepted and it would delay your application. Hi, Allie. So if we've completed our master's in English, do we need to provide an IELTS too? Okay. So, yes, you must read the Doctoral School admissions pages of Regarding English Language Requirement. We require all applicants who have not, that either not from one of the Home Office identified majority English-speaking countries or who have not been educated at degree level for three consecutive years within the last two years at one of those majority English-speaking countries as identified by the Home Office to submit an English test to us. As I mentioned, however, you do not require this at the application stage if you do not have it available. If it is required, it would be stipulated in any conditions made. Again, regarding your PhD proposal, I recommend you read through our generic guidelines. We say as a minimum, 1,000 to 2,000 words. You must also include a preliminary bibliography of the sources that you intend to use, but if you have a more detailed proposal, then please do submit this. There is not a definitive word count. Hi, Allie. Sorry, could you please clarify your query regarding what is the difference between reference one and reference two? All applicants must nominate two referees to submit, conveniently submit references for their application. If your most recent qualification was awarded more than three years ago, you can choose if you nominate academic or professional references. If you are currently studying or your most recent qualification was awarded within the last three years, you must nominate two academic referees and at least one must be from your current study. If you are currently studying a master's and you have previously done a bachelor's degree, then you would have to have at least one of your referees from your master's and the second could be either from another from your master's or one from your undergraduate's degree. The full list of your degrees can be found on the Dutch School of Admissions pages. If you go there, the landing page again is currently shown up on your screen and on the left hand side navigation bar, there is a which department to base your studies in. So definitely please go to the admissions section and then where to base your research degree and that will give you the list of departments that you do not have a department, human resource management. However, you may find that that research fits into their interest and expertise of one of our academics within one of the other departments. If you are wanting to apply for a scholarship, I recommend that you read through the scholarships pages of the science website to determine what the deadlines are for applying for these courses or when you submit your program application. In terms of my personal recommendation and experience, I believe that if you are applying for a scholarship that has a deadline of January 2018, that your program application should be submitted by the end of this month. So by the end of November it should be submitted and that your referees should confidentially submit their references by mid of the month. So I do recommend that you submit your application in in order to give us enough time to get that process and send to the department for consideration. Because one thing to note is we are actually, the school is closed over the Christmas period from 4pm on the 22nd of December and we don't reopen until 10am on the 2nd of January. So I do recommend that you get your application in as soon as possible so if you are applying for a deferral for the academic year starting in 2019, should you wait to apply for funding? Well, if you are looking to apply for a program starting in 2019, then you shouldn't be submitting an application for this application cycle. We are not currently taking applications for September 2019, deferrals are not guaranteed so we do recommend if you have no intention of coming in the future, you can submit an application for the following academic year when you are able to commence your studies. It is not guaranteed that a deferral would be approved as it is subject to academic availability and approval. So if you know already that you would not be able to commence your studies in September 2018, I recommend that you wait until the online system opens to applications for September 2019 and submit an application for September 2019. So I do recommend that you wait until the application is available at that time as scholarships do on occasion change between years and the relevant information for September 2019 scholarships would not be made available by my colleagues until around November 2018. Hi, Ali again. So your masters will be completed in September 2018. Can you tell me what you would like to apply for because the majority of departments only offer entry in September. The only department for the infill-phd program that offers multiple entry is the school of finance and management studies and they offer entry in September, January and April. I do recommend that you read through our frequently asked questions section on the page that you are applying for the program for September 2018 prior to your current master's degree being completed. So please do check out the frequently asked questions section of our pages. Again, if you go to the landing page there and then on the left hand side navigation bar, you go to the frequently asked questions section that will give you all the information you require. So please do check out in the English language proficiency that if you are from one of the home office identified majority English-speaking countries or as I mentioned have undergone the required three consecutive years at degree level within the last two years at one of those home office identified countries then no, you wouldn't need to take a test. So this is why we need to take a test that is available at the application stage, not to worry because when we do the initial assessment that is something we will check to see whether or not a test would be required and if a test is required we would stipulate it in any conditions of any offer made. So not to worry about missing the first three slides, we are going to be sending out a copy of this presentation and we will be sending it to you and we will be sending it to you. So please do check it out in the English language proficiency. Hi Amore, so just asking again about your professional or academic. So again it's at your discretion, if your most recent studies, most recent qualification was awarded more than three years ago, is at your discretion, it's at your discretion, it's at your professional or academic capacity that is not a problem. It's only where you are currently studying or your most recent studies was awarded within the last three years that it must be academic referees. If it's more than three years ago, it is your decision of whether or not you want to nominate professional or academic. It's not your professional organizational email accounts and not from personal free use email accounts. Hi Alia, you will need to go into our pages to review the information of what departments offer degree programs at SOAS. All of our PHD programs are tailored to the individuals, so whilst departments, there are departments specified at SOAS who offer the PHD program individual research, it's meant to be an original concept that will add value to the field that you're applying to, so it's not a one two fits all, it is a tailored program. There might be required courses that you're required to attend during the first year, either department level or the PHD level, but in terms of the things that you'd be required to do in the program, that would be something that you will need to check to see whether or not your interest, your topic does fit the expertise and interest of the academics at SOAS. So Ketcho, so we don't offer multiple deferos, so if you apply for September 2018, but you do advise that you would not be able to take it up, we would contact you about it and your application for September 2018 may be a little bit more than that, but if you do have one intention of applying for September 2018, then that is something that would be flagged to us when we do the initial assessment and we would contact you about it. Regarding deferral, so can you reapply for a deferral if not successful? So if you apply for a deferral and it's not successful, it could be for a variety of reasons, for example, you are able to reapply the following academic care for whatever reason your deferral is not able to be approved, so it's not a problem at all, but it is something to consider that if you're not able to take up your studies, please do actually make sure you're applying the correct academic care as this is something that will flag up to us when we do the initial assessment and it would cause you to be able to apply for a deferral in your personal statement about your intentions as well. Hi, Mohammed, you will have to contact my colleagues in the Masters admissions team regarding any Masters applications that you wish to do. It's not something we can advise you on here. Get your regarding the US loans, you need to speak to my colleagues in the funding team. They can be contacted on funding pages or the details of the process, so the information would be available on the funding pages of the SOS website. Hi, Mohammed, so I am preparing to submit an application to an Enfield program and another to a scholarship. Still, am I free to take the English language test any month before June, even after January? So, Mohammed, just to be clear, we don't offer a standalone Enfield program. The Enfield slash PhD program is a PhD program. The English language test, you don't have to submit these results at the time you submit your application, but if an English test is required, it would be stipulated in the conditions of any offer made. So, all conditions for September 2018 entry, all conditions must be met by the 31st of August 2018 in order for you to be able to enroll with us on the program. If you have an offer that is made and it means you get us those results prior to the 31st of August, in case you have to undertake any further requirements before your offer can become unconditional. So, this may include but is not limited to having to take a new test or attending a pre-sessional course. Hi, Alia. Again, we do not manage the Master's program at SOAS, so if you are interested in that, please refer to my colleagues in terms of the PhD program and our requirements. Thank you, everyone. That looks like all of the questions there. If you have any further questions that you think of, please email us at dsadmissionsatsoas.ac.uk, and we'll do our best to answer them. Thanks again, guys. Bye.