Hi all,

I've decided to take a year out after the BS Microbio and apply for PhD's to start around Oct 2005. I'll be abroad (sittin pon' da veranda, sippin a tall, cool glass a soursap' juice man!) so need to know how the application procedure will work if I can't attend interviews?

Cheers,
Ocean Drop

If you're going to be away next year you'll need to try and sort yourself out some kind of a deferred place (in this case you may be offered a studentship, but it will be too early for the supervisor to know if they will be awarded funding and therefore the whole thing could easily fall through) or you risk applying late for a studentship next year. If you begin applying in June or July you may well get a place for the following October, but your choice will be limited and you may be unlucky. You may need to consider starting a PhD in Oct 2006 to give yourself time to do the things you want to do.

No doubt there are sympathetic supervisors out there who will bend over backwards to assess your application fairly, but if you can't be interviewed then it puts you quite a way behind the other applicants.