Well its Nov now and most of the newbies in PhD would have started by now..I am here being not accepted to any university in the UK yet... three 'just-miss' cases :-(. Anyways, will not loose hope. I would like to know the success rate of phd aspirants over a year. Am I 1 in 100s or 1 in 10s. If it is the latter, i guess I may have to work harder.

To Muvi's post I would like to comment:

1.What you change in the present determines what you don't want to see in your future.
2.Without desire there is no sense of urgency.
3.If you don't practice, you can't expect the desired result.
4.Attaining the impossible means it was not impossible, merely inconcievable!
Synopsis: YYUR YYUB ICUR YY4ME!

anonGerman/even bigger Enigma!

Well......this is all I get all the time... some philosophical answer.. i know it all.. i want some numbers and get realistic and work on it... I dont know where to get the information and the unis have just said they have no feedback on my application.. or they dont have the time

phdaspirant - I think "success rate of PhD aspirants over a year" is abit of a vague term, but i'll do my best here...

i cannot tell you how many potential PhD projects and university deparments i looked at...it feels like 500+. i think i seriously considered about 5 uni's, which i had email-contact with and went to open days e.t.c. i eventually formally applied for only 2 studentships. One i wasnt even short listed for because one of the other candidates had more relevant experience. The other one, i was short listed for...i had the interview, and they offered it to me (and i said yes!). My PhD search began in summer 2005, and got more serious around xmas 2005. hope thats helpful (?)

i know that in good departments in the US, application success rates are 10%, if not even less. I (can only) imagine that this percentage grows as the reputation/quality/call it what you like of the department drops. I seriously doubt there's any centralised statistics anywhere, but many departments do mention these numbers in their websites

Try to get as many papers published in your field as possible.