Please i need your advice on how to find schools that will give me phd scholarship based on my most recent degree. I have contacted many schools and all proved abortive, I will share my recent experience with you.

I hold a B.tech in mech. eng. from a nigerian university with CGPA 3.25 of 5 and i am alomost through with a master's degree with CGPA 5.73 out of 7 after coursework, this can even increase when my thesis is completed.I recently found a potential supervisor in the university of queensland, australia who said i will not be able to secure a scholarship because of my First degree CGPA, the search is now so tiring. I had first degree education in a Nigerian university that has a lower ranking than my current university.

I need your candid opinion on the way forward, 5.73 of 7 is a first grade in my school(University of Ibadan) and it means i can start a phd here but i want a school in the americas, europe or Oceania(Advanced countries).Please help me.Thanks.

It's mostly UK people on this site so we don't work on the basis of CGPA and therefore it's difficult for us to help you.

In many cases, having a 2.1 (or a B grade) with a MSc of any grade is sufficient to get a PhD scholarship from the UK. Some people have 2.1 and no MSc and they still get scholarships.

Try applying for funded positions in other countries. Or can you get your government to sponsor you?

Australia:

To be considered for scholarships, I needed an H1 average, which will vary from institution to institution. Some schools list H1 as 80% and above, while others it can be 85, or 90. International funding is very, very competitive in Australia. My university had 80-100 as an H1 average, but you needed a very high grade to be considered. I had a 92% average (11.12/12 CGPA) from my bachelors with honours (no masters degree), a publication, RA experience with letters attesting to that experience in both an academic and a not-for-profit setting as well as strong recommendation letters, and I only just managed to get funding. What I mean by that is that my tuition scholarship was provided by the faculty, not the graduate research school which handles all the scholarships, and I had to keep applying for the graduate research school each round as a condition until I received it.

Your average of 3.25/5 is considered a credit range here in Australia or a C in the Americas as it only equates to a 65% (in some places that's a D, and in others, a B), and your 5.73/7 is a good 81-82%. However, this is unfortunately, not high enough to be strongly competitive against other students with higher averages. I don't think you'll have too many issues getting into a PhD program because you've done well with your masters degree, but your likelihood of securing funding in Australia at least is going to be very very difficult. Remember that you compete against other international students, and many of them have exceedingly high averages.

Americas:

I don't have much advice for this as while I'm from Canada, I didn't apply to graduate school there. You'll most likely run into the same issues because you'll be competing against other students with higher grades. If you want to go the US route, you'll need to sit the GRE examination which might help boost your chances.

Word limit >_<

If you want to be funded, you may have to do your PhD where the funding is available. While it would be amazing to do it in a different country, you may have to resign to the fact that your grades are not competitive enough for international funding. You can of course, give it a go! You never know what might happen, but if you want to go overseas, you might need to be prepared to self-fund your PhD.

As TreeofLife has suggested, you should also look into government sponsorship for overseas degrees. Failing that, you should consider the funding opportunities where you are located.

Thanks a lot awsoci and treeoflife, i will try to come up with some fund from my side and try newzealand, Phd seems less expensive there. Thanks a lot.