scytoo

Congrats to all who've received an offer! Looking forward to meeting some of you in October ?

Ah right, sorry I didn’t go back and check, I just assumed they were right when they said internationals had heard back in late Jan. Either way, my point is that the rejections sent in late Jan weren’t for international applicants, they were for US finalists. Internationals have been notified if they are finalists but rejections for non-finalists haven’t gone out yet and unsuccessful finalists won’t hear until very late March or early April. I know for certain that no rejection emails have gone out for internationals yet.

Are you talking about this forum, or are they people you know? US applicants who got to the finalist stage but weren't ultimately offered a scholarship got their rejection emails in late January. International applicants were notified of finalist status also in late January. So they're two separate groups at different stages of the application. AFAIK internationals have not yet received any rejection emails from Gates, but will soonish (for those not selected as finalists). Then those who have heard they are finalists will get the final acceptance/rejection in March or April.

I think you've gotten that a bit mixed up. There are generally ~80 scholarships each year, of which ~20 are from the US and the remaining 60 are international. It's not 60 scholarships all up.

I think we will still have some restrictions on gathering numbers, maybe wearing masks on public transport, but I'm pretty optimistic that we'll be back to some form of in-person teaching. They're on track to vaccinate all over-50's (with their first dose) by the end of May, and that covers the vast majority of people who are admitted to hospital with COVID, so I think risk will drop dramatically from there. I think all people at high risk should have both doses by October, plus a fair few of other groups.

Sure, probably. It's actually pretty rare that a supervisor is going to hand you opportunities on a plate. If you want to e.g. go to a conference or set up a collaboration, that's definitively up to you. It's your PhD, it's your thesis, it's your career. The PI is just there to provide you with mentorship, but even then you should be working mostly independently towards the last year. So yes, Gates would more than make up for a supervisor who's busier and doesn't hold your hand because it's more opportunities to do that independent networking than any supervisor could ever offer. But the benefits obviously vary by field because of it. If your field doesn't value networking outside of your field then Gates isn't the scholarship for you, you'd want something purely academic instead.

It depends. The Trust is just a collection of scholarships, and like I said, nearly every single one is separately administered. Some require that you have submitted an external application to a certain non-Cambridge foundation, others will require you to answer their particular prompt in the Trust box in your application, and usually the college scholarships require you to put that college as your first choice to be considered. That's why college choice is important, as some colleges offer more scholarships than others. Just ticking the box for the Trust makes you eligible for some scholarships but it's far from a majority, or even a significant minority. They're all just so specific to nationalities, subjects, colleges etc. Gates is the Cambridge version of Rhodes. Is there any difference between the Rhodes scholarship and some regular TA funding at a US institution? Of course. Rhodes (and Gates) isn't about the money, it's about the purpose and the network. When you're a Gates scholar you get access to all of the Gates alumni and all of their collective contacts across many fields and throughout many governments. Also the name recognition will help. People know what Gates/Rhodes represents, but they will have never heard of your other funding offer at another university and it'll be very unimpressive to them. That's why it's so rare to turn down the offer. Rhodes is announced far earlier so that's not a consideration, and what else is there that has that kind of name recognition or alumni network? If your only interest were the amount of money then you'd be applying to the wrong scholarship and unlikely to be awarded Gates (or Rhodes) for that reason: they try to weed those people out.

You will get an email from the relevant body offering the scholarship, and then you should have a certain amount of time (it'll vary a lot) to respond to that offer. If you have one full scholarship then you cannot accept another without giving up the first. You can only receive enough money to cover your tuition and standard living costs, and anything above that amount will be distributed to other scholars. Once you are no longer eligible for more scholarships then you might be taken off the list or might not be. Again, these are all independent boards doing the assessment, and it can take some time to pass along the news that you're not a candidate unless someone passes it along directly. If the college offers you something then you would accept. And then if the Trust offered you something full-cost your only options are to decline or to accept and give up the college scholarship. That kind of switching and juggling is why scholarship offers are given out in drips until quite late in the year.

You should assume that each of the scholarships listed on the Trust website are independent. The Trust collates them but may have no say in their selection, and that's especially true for awards that are explicitly non-centralised, e.g. anything from a college, department, or donation. Those all have their own selection process. There aren't any solid numbers on how many conditional offer holders get awarded funding. We know how many attending students have funding, and it's not all that high (self-funding is much higher than you might expect), as per the Funding website (https://www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/funding) : >In 2019, 81% of our new PhD students and 30% of our new Masters students were awarded funding (either full or partial) And if you follow to the PDF, then 73% of PhD applicants (? the language switch between students and applicants is confusing, and those mean two very different things) and 17% of Masters applicants were fully funded. If they're correct in talking about applicants then that's good. But if they're only talking about people who eventually got an unconditional offer or who attended then it leaves out a huge proportion who get a conditional offer but no funding. These people aren't funded but they obviously aren't self-funded either, so it's a glaring gap in the infographic. You should assume all funds are merit-based. There are a couple of need-based things if you're a refugee or come from a war zone, but assuming you're American, neither apply. All other need-based monetary awards are small, one-time bursaries (maybe £500) that individual colleges offer to students who are already on their course and face hardship, not applicants.

In previous years the results would come out at slightly different times or different days for the separate panels. They are separate, after all. I don't know if it's the same this year without any interviews, but I imagine they've still done selections using the different areas/panels, so I wouldn't be too worried unless someone in your panel area has heard back already. And even then, the emails are not sent simultaneously. Different people will get it at slightly different times, even within the same panel. Will be on the same day though, unless an offer-holder ahead of you turns down the scholarship. 48 hours to accept is a tight turnaround, but it's still 48 hours. So I doubt they would send all rejections before that time is up as I'm sure someone will inevitably turn down the scholarship. So sit tight, basically.

They tend to be pretty light on sending "received" emails. Last year I got one for my Gates recommendation, but that was from the GAO, not Gates itself. They don't send receipts and notifications of rejection come later. You can assume if you weren't invited for interview (and are in the US — obviously non-US hasn't sent invitations yet) then you're out of the running.

I have TA'd for a class I was concurrently taking, although it wasn't for credit and I was a few years above the rest of the class so there wasn't any interaction between us outside of my TA work. It was really tough. As the TA you don't just have to understand the material as the term goes on, you need to understand it better than the best student in the class and about a week in advance of them because they'll be emailing you and asking for guidance on the assignments. Plus undergrads can make their classes their full-time job, while I had to juggle research and lesson planning alongside learning the content. My PI was the lecturer and gave me the green light to TA (even suggested it) because (a) I'd learn the content faster that way, and (b) as a graduate with a good few years on the rest of the class, I should be able to learn faster than them and to a deeper level. I managed okay and got very good student reviews, but I would never do it again and I would never recommend it to another person. The stress is insane.

I've TA'd quite a few undergraduate courses at different levels, and what I've learned so far is: 1. The students who show up to extra sessions or are otherwise really engaged will fall into two groups: those who are dedicated but just aren't prepared for the content, and those who are acing it. The apathetic middle is really hard to engage. 2. It's easier to teach students who are struggling. Maybe this is a personal preference thing, but I'll take a business student struggling in calc over someone precocious any day. And if your students are way above the level expected for an undergrad or you're not completely familiar with the content, you end up in an arms race where you're trying to keep 10 steps ahead so you're still the expert in the equation. 3. Don't tutor/teach a subject you're not an expert in. Just don't do it. I made that mistake once and it was hell because while the students could dedicate hours every day to the subject, I had other things to do. I was learning the content while trying to mark assignments, and then fielding questions from those advanced students. Start by teaching intro stuff. 4. Decide early on how much time you'll dedicate to students. If you're going to have intensive one-on-one sessions with one student who's struggling then you do need to offer the same to every other student. If you're not willing/able to do it for everyone then don't do it. 5. Set clear expectations at the start, both for you and them. Tell them when their assignments are due, where, and what the late penalties are. But also tell them how long it'll take you to mark them, and how long you might take to respond to emails. If you need them to check their emails every day, tell them that. Everyone claims they want total freedom but what people really want are clear guidelines and rules. 6. Set professional boundaries and always be wary of students overstepping them, especially if you're a woman. Younger students in particular will see you as an authority figure and source of pastoral support not unlike their high school teachers. They might come to you with some very serious concerns, including abuse and suicidal thoughts. Think ahead for this kind of stuff -- know who you need to contact, what you need to do, and also what you should do to help the student. Read up about what language you should use to address student concerns without appearing to dismiss or ignore them. If you feel concerned or uncomfortable about a student for any reason, escalate it. You are not their therapist. 7. Avoid discussing your students online, or even in person, unless it's in the most vague terms humanly possible. A complaint about a student who's needy or who doesn't do the work could be identifiable to someone. Yes, it's your job and sometimes you'll get frustrated, but avoid gossiping about your students. Approach this like doctors do for their patients. 8. Remember that your students might have quite different goals, and don't assume you know what those are. Not everyone is aiming for graduate school or academia, not even the top students. Industry shouldn't be an alternative, it should be on equal footing as academia. 9. You will get tired. Starting to TA at the beginning of term is easy, but once it gets near the end you're going to be bogged down in your own work and with little energy left for neurotic undergrads and their final exams. So just be aware that any standards you set at the beginning (e.g. in providing extra tutoring sessions) will need to be upheld for the entire term, even when you have more important deadlines to worry about. 10. Take notes at the end of every session/tutorial for what worked and what didn't, plus any relevant notes about specific students (especially if you have to provide individual reports to them). You won't remember to do it tomorrow or next week. You won't remember to fix that example problem that didn't work out.

It really depends... Remember that astronomy as a whole is the same as "astrophysics", which is just "the physics of things in space". You need a very strong physics background for an Astronomy PhD, and if you don't already have the equivalent of a physics major or close to it, you'll have to spend another couple of years catching up on that. I'm assuming you don't have extensive research experience in astronomy either, so you'd likely have to do a Masters first before applying to PhD programs. Astronomy is a hugely competitive field.

I wrote up a blog post about my experiences a while back, hopefully the link is allowed here (I gain nothing from it, not even ad revenue): https://www.paytonelyce.com/blog/2019/4/17/a-guide-to-graduate-scholarships/#the-interview