Is this someone you've had any previous contact with, or someone who knows nothing about you/your experience at all?

Are you 'cold calling' or have they advertised asking people to make enquiries?

Trouble is Windows 8 has been designed for (and works very well with) touch screen devices, but less so for traditional desktop working. I had a stint on a Windows 8 machine and it involved a lot of disorientation and confusion, though you can manipulate it to just behave like a regular desktop interface if you want. Just be prepared for a week or two of cursing and frustration initially!

How portable do you need it to be? Do you use it mostly just at home or do you carry it around a lot?

What software packages do you use outside of Office? Compatibility issues might influence the PC vs Mac debate.

Sounds like an excellent arrangement. Good luck with the applications when the time comes. I think it should be fine.

Congratulations! I'm very pleased to hear it wasn't as big an issue as you'd feared.

You may have to change your profile name to something more appropriate now Doctor!

It's unfortunate that all the conference deadlines seem to cluster together, with quite long lead times, so if you miss one, you've probably missed them all for the year.

I'd be a little nervous about submitting an abstract about something that I hadn't even started yet, unless I was definitely sure enough will have been done by the time of the conference to make for a decent presentation, and lead to a fairly timely publication. I have, however, submitted abstracts based on 'work in progress' which has been sufficiently advanced by the conference date. There can be a problem with convincing reviewers if you don't actually have any preliminary numbers though (if relevant).

One other option is that some conferences (at least in medical sciences) sometimes have a last minute call for 'late breaking abstracts' maybe just a month before the conference. That might be a way around it. Though usually these will be given over for quite high profile stuff (or at least that's the impression I get, I may be wrong). If you do this, though, you are likely to miss out on early bird discounts for registration.

The other thing you might like to check is what your training budget/allowance is. It would be unfortunate if going to a conference in year 1 deprived you of the opportunity to do so at a later date when you might value the experience more.

I don't know whether the interviewers will have seen your individual module marks. However, the absence of a merit/distinction, along with a 2.2 might make things more challenging for you. It depends on how much competition there is for the PhD.

As you can't do anything to change those grades, I would focus your energy on what you *can* do, namely to prepare well for the interview and ensure that your referees are supportive. In terms of interview prep, be able to talk confidently and clearly about research you have done. They need to be convinced of your ability to deliver a three year project (where success can be as much about project management as intelligence/grades) and your degree marks may be offset by a confidence and convincing performance at interview.

Good luck. :)

Did you get an overall grade for your Masters?

I don't see any reason why this should be a barrier. The only thing they might enquire about (though I'm not sure if they can) is whether you would need any accommodations in terms of managing childcare.

It does really depend on your choice of project though. Something like cell biology where you need to tend to your experiments very frequently at particularly times might afford you less flexibility than an analysis based project. But that depends on your personal arrangements as to whether or not this would be a problem.

As much as anticipating what they might ask you, I would make sure I asked them plenty of questions too. I have no experience of this myself but I imagine that there is variation between departments/institutions as to how hard/easy it is to balance childcare and PhD work.

There's huge variety between fields as to what a conference submission looks like - is yours at the "300 words" or "4+ pages" end of the scale?

This is a tricky one.

What didn't you like about the supervisor at uni A? To what extent will s/he be the sole point of contact/support? Would you be integrated into a research group or very much be by yourself?

When you say you didn't like the topic... be aware that most PhD theses do not identically match the title that was discussed on day one. There is often scope for either deliberate change in direction, to suit one's own preferences, or change by necessity due to results, resources and other factors beyond one's control. This may or may not be relevant to you, depending on your field

Be aware that uni B might never yield a funded offer. Next year there will be a fresh crop of graduates to compete with. Have you looked into alternative sources of funding?