I have been offered a Dphil studentship, however my MSc does not finish until a month after the start date for the DPhil (they are at different unis). As they said there was some negotiation available around the start date I felt that this would not be a problem (but have not accepted the offer until I know what start date I could do).

However, I have been told today that I will not cease to be registered as an MSc student at my current uni until at least 12 weeks after my dissertation...and obviously that would cause problems.

Should I be querying this? (As my DPhil place does not depend on me achieving certain grades in the MSc, but equally I would like to complete it). I only know other people who have gone straight from MSc to phD within the same uni, so do not know whether this is common? (confused as surely if they expect you to be registered for the MSc 12 weeks after the course end date, why do they not offer accommodation etc?)

I imagine it could potentially cause problems because you can't be registered on two postgraduate courses at the same time according to most university regulations (I'm sure there are many exceptions).

My story - I finshed my MSc on the Friday, started my PhD on the Monday. I still had access to the library, e-mail etc etc until 6 months after I finished so I imagine I was still technically registered. Nobody at my new
Uni ever checked up. I did however have a place conditional on passing the MSc and so couldn't receive my studentship money until they had confirmation that I had passed. I then crashed my car (nice) and desperately needed money in order to be able to commute to Uni. So I went to my supervisor and said, "If I failed my MSc, which I'm not going to do, would you terminate my place" to which her replied "of course not, don't be ridiculous". And so the conditional offer was lifted and I had access to all that glorious money.

Moral of the story - talk to your new uni! Talk to your supervisor who probably won't know what the rules of the Uni are, and is more likely to fling their weight around to get ridiculous technicalities sorted out for you.

Good luck.

A

As A116 said, it's a technical problem.

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I started my PhD 45 days before my Msc results were declared. (I eventually got a distinction) but when i had asked my supervisor what may happen if I failed (you need a 65%), she looked at me for a couple of moments, then frowned very heavily and asked whether I had nothing better or slightly more intellectual to discuss with her.

LOL!