That sounds very doable to me - as long as your supervisors feedback on time.

I really don't think connections are a factor in these competitions. And age certainly isn't - I'm older than you and I know plenty of older students who have funding! But it's not all merit either - some project topics will be favoured over others and that can be very hard to predict. Certainly a lot of very good applications don't make it - just demand outstripping supply. Hopefully you will be one of the lucky ones.

It depends on your field and which funding body you are applying to - and whether you are going via a quota or as an individual. So not enough information really. I don't understand your MSc grade either. Although many are pass/fail, funding bodies will ask for the actual mark. A lot also depends on your project as funding bodies have areas of particulat interest whcih may change from year to year (but are often listed on their websites).

It is very hard to predict. Could you manage without funding or go part-time and continue working? In general, applications from mature students are well-received. Good luck!

Are you using SPSS? Binary logistic regression is fairly straight forward in SPSS. Analyse-Regression-Binary logistic. Remember to specify that your DP is categorical (as prompted) and enter the categories. I use the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit option - to test whether the model is a good fit to the data (this is basically a chi-square test, ironically - you want it to be non-significant). The 'omnibus tests of model coefficients' will give you the significance level for your predictor (again, this is given as a chi-square result). Your 'model summary' will give you a measure of the amount of variance explained by the model - I use the Naglekerke R square figure given.

An SPSS manual will give you the table output and interpretation.

By 'seek out funding' do you mean get someone to take on a grant for you (i.e. you write it they send it) rather than looking for an advertised post? If that's the case I would start putting out feelers to likely names now and see if they're interested as you'd want to submit the grant next year in order to start asap after submission (this is what I will probably be doing myself next year - also no hope of seeing an advertised post especially as I can't move).

I would have liked Escala or Signature to win. I didn't care for George much but then I don't vote so I guess I can't complain.

Some of the University of London's intercollgiate halls of residence are in walking distance - International, Connaught, Commenwealth, are all in/around Russell Square (forgot the rest). UCL has halls quite close too. They probably have rooms during the summer.

I've never heard o them - what are they?

Wow - this is very interesting. I give small group supervisions which tend to be very informal and 'chatty'. It is rare but not unknown for me to go to the pub with students even though I am old enough to be their mothers (with years to spare). I probably should be a bit more careful about what I say.

Crappy but not uncommon. I'm lucky - I'm in a new institute with a postgrad office where I have desk and pc. But I hear that e.g. over in SPS it's normal to have no desk space. Personally I think sharing ad hoc desk space is as bad or worse than none.

I know you are juggling this around family life like me. It is tiring and I don't like working late at night (or rather, I don't like having to get up early with my daughter after working late the night before).

I just try to hang on to the idea of actually submitting and how great that will be!

I think I am at the extreme end. I never wrote a first-year report or had any offical upgrade. Just a letter in the post one day to say I had been upgraded. I think if I were younger, less determined (utterly tenacious more like it) or self-funding I would have quit when I got pregnant. I have gone through stages of being alternately furious, bewildered and miserable about the lack of support. But in the end, I have got used to it.

Hmmm. I designed my project and have no input for my supervisor. We rarely meet, and on the rare occaision I have given him something to read, I have had few, if any, comments. I think now that I'm writing up this will improve (although that remains to be tested as I submit chpaters) as we are both keen for me to submit end 08.

It has been very frustrating. I would like some interest and someone to talk to about my project. There have been a lot of serious problems with the methodology which I have just had to batter away at hopefully (or quit). My supervisor is a top guy in his filed, but my project is quite tangential - an area he would like to get into - as long as someone else actually does it. He has never made time to really get to grips with it and I am worried that he will not give me adequate feedback.

Well Project was originally my passion. No fact or incident was too trivial or too boring for me to hear about. But no, Project doesn't give back like it used to.

How to rekindle the flames? I have had some success with putting my data into new positions I haven't tried before. Some are exciting and I will definitley repeat them - but some have been disappointing or require too much theoretical contortion to sustain. Occaisionally dressing Project up and pretending it's a different, new, exciting project is fun too.

And we have 'date nights'. Just me, project, and a bottle of red wine. You have to remember to make time for eatchother....

Congratulations!