I made a bit of a mistake at the start, thinking that Cecilia was one of those ELT folks who had sprung onto the scene only recently…when in fact she’s been teaching for over 20 years. But I was completely having a fan-girl moment as I really respect Cecilia and her passion and dedication to the profession. She’s about to start a PhD in Applied Linguistics at Warwick (where she also did her Masters on a scholarship) and came along to share her tips for obtaining a scholarship, after being awarded three herself this year. She’s now using her experience to help other people looking to apply for scholarships and you can read more about her course here.
Applications for scholarship usually start in November / December for courses starting the following September and it’s a long process to go through! To start with, Cecilia proudly showed off her THREE (!) scholarship acceptance letters, but also said that she had received over 20 rejections in the past three years.
To apply for a PhD scholarship, you’ll need:
- a research proposal
- a personal statement
- your academic CV
- IELTS accreditation (if English isn’t your first language)
- 2 or 3 reference letters
Of these, the personal statement and research proposal would need to be tailored to the university you’re applying to. Bear in mind that the word counts for these documents might be different for each university too.
Cecilia then shared three mistakes that she had made in previous years. Firstly, she hadn’t realised how time-consuming it would be to prepare the research proposal and personal statement, both of which require numerous drafts, taking on feedback from critical friends. Secondly, she had underestimated the importance of connecting with potential supervisers as once you decide where to apply to, you need to look for a supervisor who will support your application. You can make connections by checking the university website and seeing their research interests and who might best be able to help you in your own research. Finally, she says she hadn’t appreciated the impact of methodology and contribution in the research proposal. She says it’s essential to identify how you’re going to carry out your research as well as the impact you feel your project will have on the community.
She went on to give some tips to help people prepare, such as starting at least three months ahead of the application deadline (though she said the more time you’re able to dedicate to it, the better). She also suggested reading recent papers in the area you’re likely to focus your own research to show you’re up-to-date with what’s happening in your field. She also recommended setting up a spreadsheet to keep track of what you’ve done: such as which universities you’re applying to and who you’ve contacted as potential supervisors and their responses, along with their contact details. She also said it’s worth contacting more than one person from each university to be your potential supervisor and to be aware of the busy periods for academics when they may be less able to respond.
Next, she gave some useful advice on how to find scholarships available. There are two websites she recommended, Find A PhD and jobs.ac.uk. You can also do a search with keywords – studentships, scholarships – along with your field. She also said there are some accounts on Twitter, such as @Scholarshipps, which regularly post details of funding.
As mentioned above, Cecilia has put her experience of applying for scholarships together and created a course, Pursuing PhD Scholarships, to help other people. The course is self-paced and aims to help people plan and structure their application more efficiently. It includes information on how to write the research proposal, personal statement and academic CV, as well as analysis of examples of these documents. There are videos with Cecilia and other academics who have successfully been awarded scholarships.
The course is divided into six modules, including one on preparing for the interview and live sessions each month. There’s also an online community to support one another for questions and accountability. She added that it’s a course she wishes she had been able to take when she started applying as unfortunately, when you are rejected, the university often won’t give personalised feedback as to why.
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