Hello everyone. I'm a M.Sc.R in Particle Physics student at Manchester seeking a PhD come September 2010. I currently hold a B.Sc. (albeit a low classification) in Physics and an M.Sc. in Radiometrics (radiation instrumentation, detection and modelling), both from Liverpool uni. I averaged close to 60% for the latter but don't really want to go down that road of research.

I'm passing my current Masters but it seems it may not be good enough to get onto a PhD here that I want (I know the project's pending). Does this mean that I'll have to apply for a 3rd masters in a vague attempt to get to where I want to be or are there options out there? I have searched around myself and the (Manchester's) opinion seems one that is ubiquitous with other departments.

I don't want to sound like an enormous snob, but if it's honest advice you want - I think you should really ask yourself if you're cut out for a PhD. You've done two degrees already and not managed to get over the 60% threshold; now, even with the benefit of the training and experience you got during your first MSc, it sounds like you're not expecting to do any better in your second.

Obviously I don't know your personal circumstances, and maybe you have good reason to think you'd do substantially better on a third MSc, but I think you need to be realistic. The standard of work that would be of expected of you as a PhD student is, to put it bluntly, a lot higher than anything you've produced so far; you need to ask yourself whether you can get from where you are now to where you'd have to be in a couple of years' time to succeed on a PhD (i.e. to the stage where you have the professional research skills and in-depth knowledge of your field needed to produce work that merits publication).

Maybe my perspective's just skewed because, coming from an arts & humanities MA, I've had it drilled into me that even a good distinction (70%+) might not be good enough to get a funded PhD place. I know the sciences aren't supposed to be so competitive.

I averaged 63% over 13 or so exams in the Radiometrics but the project brought it down to a few percent below 60.

That's a good sign on the 'subject knowledge' side (although I think you're now not going to be working in that area anyway?), but when it comes to getting a place on a PhD program, people are going to want to see evidence of strong research skills in particular.

What stage are you at in your MSc now? Are you still doing a research-project? If you could do anything right now to ensure that you get a really solid mark for a substantial research-based piece of work, you might yet swing it.

At roughly this stage last year, I had the first draft of a dissertation of round about a 66% standard, but with some focused advice from my supervisor on what I needed to do to do demonstrate research skills in particular, I managed to get the final draft up to 74%. And it wasn't *that* hard to do - it was largely a question of knowing what boxes I needed to tick. So maybe it would be easier than you think to pull your mark up substantially from where you are at the minute.