======= Date Modified 26 Jan 2009 23:16:17 =======
*offers hugs*

Don't give up. It will all be worth it in the end. I would suggest asking the supervisor who turned you down for feedback, rather than appealing. It might be more constructive and could help you improve for the next application.

I used to work in a Student Finance office, which I know is undergrad mostly :p but I am sure in this case its a similar situation. I assume that University fees are for general tuition fees and College fees are specific to your department which may vary, depending on what you are studying. For example, I applied to Leicester and the particular department had additional fees of £5K a year. I would think its safe to assume that if you win a funded place after interview, both of these fees will be taken care of unless stipulated in the invitation offer. Might be worth clarifying with the institute beforehand, though!

Hello,

I'm new here but I have been lurking and looking at other threads since I started my Masters last year. I've been offered an interview for a DPhil place at Oxford's Gray Institute. I'm so excited but also nervous! I've wanted to do a PhD/DPhil for some time now and this seems too good to be true! I'm honoured just to be short listed! The main project I'm interested in is on Base Excision Repair, which is what my Masters project was on so I feel pretty confident on answering questions based on the project offered and my dissertation. I expect the usual questions like "why do you want to do a PhD?" and I feel I can express my desire to research pretty well. If I can calm my nerves, that is!

However, I also have to give a 10 minute presentation on my previous work. My first lab project was in 2005, is it worth including this as well or is it too long ago to be relevant? Also if anyone here went through Oxford interviews in previous years, I would like to know what to expect: are these presentations in front of all the other candidates or just the panel (5 people according to my letter, which in a way is less scary than a one-to-one! I never know where to look!) In addition, I have also been given a journal to analyse and discuss. Its a concise paper which I understand and can pick out the main points but I'm worried they will ask me about questions not obvious from the journal itself!

I have found an old thread on the Student Room forums which is a few years old but about the same Institute but I was hoping if anyone had more recent experience, they may have some useful advice for me?

Many thanks for reading this!

Claire