About PhD Scholarships at Melbourne University
Like most academics, I get an enormous amount of emails from students
asking for a PhD scholarship. Here are some things that you should
know:
- It is very unusual for mathematicians in Australia to have their own
funding for PhD scholarships.
- Almost all PhD scholarships are awarded by my University. Most are
directly funded by the government or by university money. A small
number may be available for applicants from specific institutions or
countries, due to special programs or agreements.
- My faculty ranks applicants using a complicated formula that
involves, but is far from completely determined by, merit. I am not at
liberty to say what else in involved in this ranking. Furthermore, my
school (department) has no power of veto with this process. Neither do I.
- The result is a score. The cutoff for getting a scholarship is
surprisingly high, especially for international applicants, and is not
consistent from year to year or even across the two rounds advertised
each year.
- So if you want to apply for a PhD under my supervision, you are
really applying to the University. This requires you to get some
"in-principle" agreement from me. To get this, you'll need to send me
your academic transcripts, not your CV/résumé, any theses
that you have written, and a specific statement addressing why you wish
to work with me. Make sure you read my research page first, especially the part about maths.
- I need these because I need to judge if you are serious, if you have
the background required, and if you are likely to score high enough to
have a chance at a scholarship.
I am sorry to say that if you send me a generic enquiry that doesn't
help me with this judgement, then I'm extremely unlikely to respond.
It's nothing personal — I just get so many generic enquiries that
even copy-pasting a generic reply is beyond my patience threshold.
Home.