Allie.Bee

Unfortunately that would violate the bylaws of the scholarship. Did look into it though ;)! The Scotish University (U of Glasgow) is a great university for my field, which is management, so I will just suck it up if it comes to it. Maybe Cambridge works out as well... the waiting game continues. I appreciate that you read through my long post!

Hello fellow brains, I am in a REAL pickle: I am desperately hoping that my application will be rejected in the last round of a research council competition.... Sounds insane?! Well.... here is the backstory: I applied to my dream school in Scotland for a PhD program and got accepted right away. I also applied to Cambridge (which is my #2 choice... I know.), also got accepted. So far so good. BUT WAIT! I applied for ESRC (research council) fee-only funding with both universities. According to the Scottish university, my 2-year MA does not meet the requirements in term of methods training, thus they want me to go for another 1-year master's program. Thus, my application to the ESRC there is for a combination of MA+PhD (4 years total). I reluctantly agreed, hoping that it would never come to that because MA stipends are notoriously hard to come by. Surprisingly, I did meet the requirements for the Cambridge ESRC just fine and got fee-only funding for 3 years aka PhD-only, without any "gotta-get-another-masters-young-lady" BS. In the meantime, I won this really prestigious scholarship from the Scottish university. It covers both fees and a stipend. I was over the moon! Years of uncertainty: GONE! .... But that really only lasted for about three days until I realized that the bylaws for the scholarship state that any ESRC funding would take priority over said scholarship. Which means: If I do win a fee-only stipend with the Scotish ESRC, and it looks like it, I will have to accept it. And remember: The Scotish ESRC requires me to do another master's. Would I be opposed to do a few courses to meet any outstanding requirements while I pursue my PhD in Scotland? No, I would happily do it. Would I be opposed to going 10+K into student dept just to maintain myself in Scotland while I get *another* master's degree! Absolutely! Because that sounds insane to me! I just don't get how Cambridge is a-ok with the 2y master's that I worked so hard towards but the Scots just aren't having it. It's the same PhD project for both universities for crying out loud!!! What do you think? Am I petty? Am I a real crybaby? Should I just go into more student debt? I promised myself to not go into more debt and accept that my application was just not competitive enough to get funded. Never in a million years could I have ever imagined that that would entail that I turn down a prestigious scholarship AND ESRC (fee-only) funding! Honestly, I am really sad about the whole situation and don't know what do do or think. If you can give me your thoughts on this, I would really appreciate it. xoxo, your sad postgrad