worth applying abroad (UK) for phd?

Graduate School
1

<p>hello,
im interested in doing graduate works in biomedical engineering or genomics/bioinformatics. i've been thinking about applying to the following schools; harvard (genomics), duke (bme), mit (biological engineering), berkely-sanfrancisco(bioengineering), stanford(genomics or bme), ucsd (bioinformatics)
oxford has a program in both biomedical engineering and bioinformatics. im interested but it seems funding's pretty restricted for non-EU students. is it harder to get into oxford graduate schools because of that?? should i just focus on american univerisities?</p>

<p>thanks</p>

2

<p>Don't take my word on this... but I've heard that british degrees don't carry the same weight as american graduate degrees, especially in the U.S.. This comes from two Iraqi (formerly, of course..) professors I know (step dad's parents) who studied in england, then moved here. They seemed to think pretty strongly that american graduate programs are much better, and that things like law and medical degrees were much easier to obtain there</p>

3

<p>With all due respect, just because two Iraqi professors feel that way doesn't make it true (and I realize that you were simply stating what you've heard so I don't mean to attack you, TTwhite). Funding in the UK is indeed much harder to come by if you're not from the EU, but if you can get funding and get into a top program at an elite university then you're set. Most grad programs in the UK do expect you to have a VERY strong background in your subject though, since PhD's are only 3 or 4 years and rarely require coursework. As far as American graduate programs being better...that's arguable. There are certainly many more quality grad programs in the States and they to promote teaching at the grad level more, but do you really think that a PhD (or DPhil in the case of Oxford) from Oxbridge, Imperial, UCL, LSE, etc. will be frowned upon anywhere in the world? I would suggest that you only consider the top universities in the UK though.</p>

4

<p>Depends what field, I guess, but American grad programs are pretty much the best right now. In my particular department in a Canadian university, they don't hire Canadian PhD's accept to teach Canadian politics (with a few exceptions here and there) and don't hire from the UK at all. It's pretty much all from the US top ten, because that's where the talent is. As far as a US PhD being better than an Oxford DPhil, again, it depends in what subject but at least in politics and government I can say that nothing too exciting is coming out of the UK, frankly.</p>

<p>Keep in mind, however, that this is only related to political science. I'm sure the value of a UK PhD caries widely depending on what field youre in. I'm pretty sure that a degree in neuro from UCL or a PhD in Economics from LSE won't be laughed at by Americans in academia.</p>

5

<p>It may, in general, be true. However, I think Oxford, Cambridge, and LSE are exceptions. If you're just looking at Oxford, I would say go for it.</p>

6

<p>I've been looking at some UK universities during my gradschool search and I wondered why the UK PhD program was only 3-4 years as opposed to the 5-6 years in the US. My guesses are:</p>

<p>1) The US PhD program is actually a PhD+MSc program. So if you cut out the approximately 2 years of MSc work, the "real" PhD program is only 4 years. </p>

<p>2) Most US students, from what I understand, do RA/TA work, while this seems to be rare, at least less common, in the UK. So I assume UK students work full time on their PhD.</p>

<p>3) Even though they only ask for a BSc as the minimum requirement for entry into a PhD program in the UK, they seem to expect you to have a good knowledge of the field and a good level of research experience. Notice that for US admission they ask for a personal statement while in the UK they ask for a full research proposal as part of the application.</p>

<p>4) Especially as an overseas student, it seems difficult to get funding unless you have an MSc. Most scholarship schemes I've seen say that you need an MSc to have a fighting chance for the scholarship. </p>

<p>(This is not to deter you in anyway; If you're capable of applying for MIT, then you're definitely capable of applying to top UK universities along with a scholarship. I'm just not in that league. Perhaps I can get an MSc first and then I might be able to apply to a top UK/US program. :D )</p>

<p>As for prestige, it is true that the top PhD programs are in the US, but if you take out the top 5-6 programs (MIT, Stanford, Berkley, Carnegie-Mellon, etc) my guess is that the top UK universities, such as Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Southampton, Edinburgh would fall along nicely with the US programs - though probably the lower ranked UK programs might be a bit less valued than the US ones.</p>

<p>Incidentally, I happen to notice this page recently:</p>

<p>Cornell</a> Computer Science - Faculty</p>

<p>You notice that along with professors from MIT, CMU, there are also professors from Surrey(UK), Birmingham(UK), Waterloo(Canada), Toronto(Canada), Tel Aviv(Israel), Buffalo(US), and German and Hungarian universities I've never heard of. So I guess the moral of the story is that ultimately what really matters is the research you do. And many applying-to-graduate-school-guides I've seen stress the importance of the adviser over that of the university.</p>

<p>This is of course, my guesswork based upon my gradschool search.</p>

7

<p>im sure im capable of applying to mit and such but by no measure do i have a good chance. im studying bme at (one of those boring) top 10 schools in us. i have a ordinarily good (but not great/amazing) research experience with no published paper. i have a great GPA, an average GRE (550v, 790q), and good to great recommendations.</p>

<p>i am not keen to apply to uk schools because, just to apply to oxford, i must learn their entire process and scholarship stuffs. esp it sounds like all of you are saying it is much harder for non-EU students to get an adequate funding.</p>

<p>if anyone thinks differently, let me know.</p>