It's also very unusual here to take out loans for a graduate degree; it's not the same as the US. You generally need to have a job in order to take out a bank loan, or some other way of making the repayments. The payments usually need to be made whilst doing the degree, not afterwards.

I think you should clearly explain your situation to your supervisor and clarify how much he can provide, and try to get a rough idea of living expenses in the area you will be living in the UK, to make it easier to identify the amount required to self-fund.

I'm a bit confused as to why your start date affected your funding? Is this a UK university?

Yes definitely explain your funding situation to your supervisor, because they may be under the impression that you are mainly self-funded; you won't know how much support they can offer until you ask.

Could you delay your start date further to allow yourself the time to find extra money?

Regarding searching for funding, you are actually searching rather late when it comes to approaching charities... Most of them open a year in advance of the academic year. So if you see funding opportunities around now, they are likely to be for an Oct 2015 start, rather than Jan 2015.

I have applied to several charities that specifically fund PhD students and some that are just general hardship funds. I have applied to 8 in total to cover my fourth year (that's all I was eligible for out of hundreds) and so far I have had 2 rejections, 4 haven't bothered to reply and I'm still waiting to hear about the other 2, but to be honest I'm not very hopeful. You should apply to anything and everything that you may have a shot at, but bear in mind this is a very time consuming process as some of the application want you to write 3000 words about your proposed research.

Check some of these out for more places to apply: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/prospectus/postgraduate/2014/funding-opportunities.html

There's really not a lot you can do about ensuring you find a decent supervisor. You can really only go on first impressions at an interview, and often people behave differently in interviews, so it's not easy to gauge.

Even if you talk to other PhD students at an interview, they are probably not going to be very honest about their supervisor. The best you can do is guess whether their responses are genuine and whether they are leaving a lot unsaid.

The best advice I can give is to learn to manage your supervisor from an early stage. Work out what they like and what they don't and adapt your behaviour accordingly. You can't change them, but you can change your response to their actions, and it's easier if you learn these things early.

If you already have any kind of masters, you are better off applying to a PhD as there is not to be gained from obtaining a second masters. Many people on PhD programs only have a taught masters with little or no research dissertation so you can still get a PhD with this.

I think you should definitely speak to your supervisor about it, but I also think that an extension may not be a great idea and will likely lead to further procrastination.

You can definitely write a thesis in 3 months, especially if you stop doing lab work. The best thing to do is to not think about it like writing a thesis.

Just think about it as making a title page, then a table of contents, then an opening paragraph of an introduction etc. Do the easy stuff first and the rest will follow. But you have to make that first start.

Each to their own, but for me travelling is awesome, if it's on a decent budget, even better :)

When you say no plagiarism was detected.. what was your score? I always get at least some percentage...

That does sound really confusing!

Where is says 'The amount shown will be deducted from the first year tuition fee above', is there an amount stated or is it just 'Graduate school home/EU 14/15'? If there's no amount, then that makes me think there is something wrong with the letter.

Sometimes these letters are generated automatically or by mail merge and therefore they may contain incorrect information if the information in the system is inaccurate or missing.

I think if they have already told you that you will get a stipend and fees covered, then this is probably correct and the second letter is a mistake.

You could email the department administrator to check.

HI Incognito,

I can relate to your post. It is so hard living in another country when everyone feels you have this amazing opportunity and all you do is sit there and think about home and the people you have left behind who are getting on with their lives and don't seem to give you a second thought. If one more person tells me to 'enjoy myself' or 'make the most of it' I think I'm going to scream!

It's hard being in a different culture.

As Satchi says, it's good to get things that remind you of home. For me it's marmite, PG tips and (real) cheddar cheese and pickle sandwiches. I can close my eyes and pretend I'm back at home whenever I have these things. They are comforting for me. You should try to find things that instill the same feelings in you.

Regarding your brother, maybe give him a call, or send another email? You never know, he might not have got the first one. I know it's hard when people seemly ignore you (I get this all the time) but try to remember that people have their own lives, and they are probably so caught up in them that, whilst they think about you, they don't find the time to contact you. This doesn't mean they don't care about you. They just don't realise what it's like to be thousands of miles away from everyone you care about.

Making new friends is hard too. Especially if you are someone that finds superficial friendships meaningless. But make the effort anyway - like Chickpea says, you never know who you might meet along the way, and at least you will have tried and that might make you feel better.

Ask him for the reference but ask to see it rather than get him to send it directly. You might be surprised by what he puts.

You should always check with your referees anyway before putting them down as a reference.

Well check again. 6 months is a long time.

That's a pretty good chance then 1/3 or 1/4 if you are all equal, which of course you won't be but still!

Some people do send emails after interviews, but I personally don't like this and I don't think there is any need. My feeling is the supervisors have enough emails and they don't want any more. Especially as there was only 4 of you, they are not likely to forget you.