Hey to be fair this is a valid question that actually can be answered simply.

An MRes is a maters level research qualification which you obtain by undertaking a significant piece of research at a university. There are no specific classes or exams.

An MSc or other taught programme is more didactic and requires you to attend classes and sit exams. There may be a research component, but this is not the specific focus of the degree.

Not sure which is best for your future career. You should ask the universities that you want to attend about where people go onto.

@Shani. I agree absolutely that the uni has a part to play in this. I am not sure about "preferential treatment" for ANY group. I always believe that people should be judged on merit alone, rather than affirmative action or social engineering.

@ Juno: I am aware of the poor standard of English in some Brits too, and as postgrad rep I had to deal with these issues. However, I found it a relative rarity, as presumably after their supervisor and MRC had done their selection, the weaker candidates were filtered out.

Regardless, I feel all students (international, domestic or from mars) should be able to communicate well, independent, be able to think in a reflective critical manner and be judged on their merit. If they cannot do this they have no place reading for a PhD.

This clearly didnt apply to every international student. There were several that had obtained funding and were doing excellent work. However, there was a significant proportion that had clearly just bought their way in by self funding and it was galling to see that they were being rewarded on their financial status rather than merit.

Perhaps this explains my somewhat extreme behaviour when I see a poorly phrased, vague post by a clueless applicant that wants someone else to do the research to find them funding.

Similarly, we used to have a limited budget for conferences, training. The foreign rep used to argue that since "Home students already had fees paid and stipends granted, the majority of this budget should go to international students as they paid more". My counterargument that "Conference funding should be allocated on merit alone" was met with hostility and accusations of favouritism.

Alarmingly EVERY committee convened for doctoral failures (non-awarded PhDs after viva) that I sat at was for a international student. There was huge pressure placed on the uni to let them pass otherwise they would litigate or get their government to threaten us by not sending more students. (Like its a UN diplomatic matter or NATO pronouncement)

Issues around longer than average submission times and "adequate" use of English in manuscripts would crop up and invariably relate more to international students than home students (who had been rigourously pre seleted by MRC/ Wellcome etc already). However, the other rep advocated all international students should have free proofreaders and double supervision time because they "paid more". I would advocate that international students learn the language properly before they decided to write a 100,000 word in it.

In these meetings a few supervisors of international student used tofrequently complain that their students lacked any ability for critical enquiry, learned by rote, and that they had to damn near write their student's thesis up themselves to avoid the penalties that came with failure to submit.

While there are some absolutely amazing international phds/students there are others that take the biscuit.

I used to serve on the postgraduate research committee for a large well known Russel group university. There were two PhD representatives, one for home students (me) and another for international students. I was absolutely astounded by the double standard that was constantly favoured foreign students (that brought in lots of lovely revenue each year) and home students (mostly that had accrued funding by grants/studentships that were already paid in advance so didn't matter).

Its a fun conjectural answer to a hypothetical question.

Bright people know when not to take things so seriously...

The egg again, which was laid by the genetic ancestor, which probably came from the same family, but formed the separate genus.

To be fair though, it probably wouldn't have just been one egg. It is more likely that there would have been a sub-species within that family that all started laying eggs with adaptive features, that would compete against the existing species and prevail. The survival of the fittest and all that, and eventually this group became a distinct genus in its own right.

The egg came first. Then the chicken.

The egg was laid by the genetic predecessor of the chicken, which was probably fowl, but not actually a member of the species Gallus Gallus (aka domesticated chicken). It may have belonged to the same genus though and would have probably resembled the chicken.

That is if you believe in evolution. If you don't you probably are on the wrong board.

I don't know what qualifies as "postgraduate level" in Egypt, but in the UK it doesnt mean "get someone else to do all your research for you".

Am I the only one that has read enough of these "Help- find me funding- Right now!" posts? Not just this guy, but the raft of questions you get all over this board. Presumably if you want to study at doctoral level you it does not bode well if:

a) You cannot use google to find the most elementary information
b) You Write without correct use of punctuation/ spelling/ grammar.
c) you ask such a vague, random question such as "where do I find funding?" or "HOW I GET PHD IN MOLCULAR BILOGY FROM TOP UNIVORSOTY?!!?"

Do the posters lack the degree of self awareness to realise that this doesn't scream "doctoral calibre".

You are doing what is expected for someone at your stage, possibly even a little bit ahead.

If you do have an "uncommunicative" supervisor, you may want to negotiate a road-map where certain milestones are linked to various time periods. Having this helped me loads.

After the first 3 years it took me about 3 months to finish off the loose ends and another 3 months to actually sit down and write up the thesis.

All applications are about a "narrative". Despite your lack of research experience, you have a blindingly compelling story and can draw things like determination and effort from it.

I reckon you should be okay.

I know the type.

Well you can do two things

a) put up with it and accept it as the price of working with the man and not making any waves.

b) call a meeting and negotiate what an appropriate workload would look like. You can ask other people in the department other students to get a good idea. If you think it will be too much for you alone, ask if you can bring a co-supervisor or tutor along to it.