Here is our uninformed opinion and we accept no responsibility for its accuracy or otherwise.

Presumably the university bought the equipment, not you. If you need an extension to finish your PhD and the university was not fulfilling its obligations by providing you with the correct equipment in a timely manner then they should cover the costs of any delay.

If there is a problem with the equipment purchased it is for the university to take action, but the best they could probably hope for is a refund or replacement of the equipment that was delivered.

Contact the supervisor directly first, unless the advert says to do otherwise.

DJW your masterpeice still hasn't arrived - just imagine how much better your set would be when you spend your £15 voucher wisely on some top tunes

Besides looking at the supervisor, dept, research group and place you'll live the overall reputation of the University should make little difference.

Nobody knows how many human genes there are at the moment, current predictions put the number between 20,000 and 25,000. Visit this site for a summary of the latest guesses. The number of proteins will be similar.

Search the internet for a list of Dutch universities, then look through each one.

As an international student you'll probably need the MSc to be accepted for PhD (or MPhil) entry.

There are a number of research groups looking at the history of medicine. Try this entry on FindAPhD. They do have funding available for good candidates. They haven't added any details at the moment, but look up their web site to find out more.

Universities are free to advertise their studentships wherever they want. Many of the departments advertising on FindAPhD do not advertise PhD studentships anywhere else. We have kept our advertising rates low and carry 40% more ads now than we did 12 months ago.

If anyone has any suggestions to help us increase this growth rate we'd be glad to hear them.

You do not need a distinction to get a PhD place. Obviously the better your qualifications and grades are the more chance you have of being offered a place. See our PhDs Explained section for links and information.

Thanks for your comments and please keep visiting the forum to help those who are still looking. Applying for a PhD is a mystery to most people, if you'd like to write about your experiences, we'd love to put them on FindAPhD.

We're after interesting, informative and/or humorous pieces of between 250 and 1000 words. There's a £15 Amazon voucher for any that we publish on the site and a £50 Amazon voucher for the best one. All the decisions are down to us and our decision will be final. Articles must be all you own work and must not be published elsewhere.

Please send your articles to [email protected] before Friday 20th May.

See our Funding and PhDs Explained sections for links and information.

Is it any better now?

We will shortly be publishing an FAQ section for students in the Arts & Humanities. To find academics working in your area of interest use one of the major search engines and restrict your search to the academic network (.ac.uk).

sweetchic - Why did you think Matt had any connection with FindAPhD?