Hey all, I was on the prospects website back in april and stumbled across a department at my old university with research that interested me, so i mailed the supervisor who ecouraged me to come down and speak with him, so i did and he was very accomodative, showed me round and i felt i wanted to apply, i asked him what to put on the form regarding the funding and he said for the time bieng just put 'not yet decided' so i did. anyway i got my offer letter through and this is astandard letter which is irrelevant of funding apprently, but im scared il not be gettng funding, i thought all phd were funded but it appears not as some people self fund? the supervisor i will have is in france for the next week but im gettng myself all worried that i wont get funding! surely for me to have found out about the reseacrh on a wensite means they advertise, and they wud have funding? i wasnt told to apply seperately, so what shud i think? i need my mind to be put at rest!

Does your college have a research office / administrator you could contact? they should still be around over the summer - if you search on their website there's usually a contact.

As for whether most PhDs are funded - it depends what your area is. In the Arts and Humanities funded studentships are rare but I believe they're more usual in Sciences.

Hope you manage to find out what's going on.

Good luck in your search. In my experience funding is quite rare (although I am in the humanities field), self funding is the norm rather than the exception sadly.