The Maze: Navigating the PhD Application Process as a Mature Student

At the time of writing, I have just completed the first year of a part-time, self-funded PhD. Prior to that I had been reading, researching and planning my research idea part-time for the best part of another year. The completion of 12 months as a part-time, mature, PhD student led me to reflect and consider messages that I wish I had known when I began my adventure, so I have written my thoughts down in the hope that they may help others – particularly if, like me, you were just in your 50s when all this started, and had been out of the higher education (HE) system for 13 years. I will start, however, by pointing out that my experience relates particularly closely to applying for a self-funded PhD; the experiences of those applying for funded PhD places will, I am sure, be different.

If you plan to self-fund your study, it is important to be practical and consider how you will pay tuition fees. I planned to work part time as I study, and thus the doctoral loan from Student Finance England has proved a useful mechanism for me. Excellent sources of information about it are available here on FindAPhD and the GOV.UK website.

Once you feel more confident about being able to fund your own area of research, the process of reading around your area(s) of interest and looking for potential gaps in knowledge that your research will address begins. If you are outside of the HE system at the time you are undertaking such reading like I was, getting access to academic articles and books can be challenging. I imagine that this has become even more difficult in a COVID-ridden world, as many HE campus libraries have temporarily suspended loans to members of the public.

That being said, there are reliable free online sources that you can use to begin to search for academic articles to read. I made lots of use of Google Scholar; I also recommend using Google to find links to university ‘Open Access Repositories’ as well as signing up for free to join ResearchGate as another way to access academic articles. If you send them a polite email, either via ResearchGate or to their university email addresses, many academics will also help you access a copy of a few of their papers if you explain your circumstances, and some even offer words of encouragement too!

Having formed an idea of your research focus area, you will begin to search for potential supervisors and universities with whom you will study. On a practical note, whilst finding a supervisor who shares your research interests is highly important, consider practical issues; for example, if you need to attend campus from time to time, you may not want to endure the time and expense of travelling long distances. Living in the Midlands, I felt very lucky as within a 60-mile radius we are well served by numerous universities.

I can recall not being very sure how to find supervisors, but good starting points are the university website for the faculty you are interested in joining, then within that read about staff research interests. Research interests can be investigated further by reading some papers written by the staff that you are interested in working with; and on the basis of their academic work, you can email them to make enquiries about whether they are taking on any PhD supervision at present. Do not forget to keep any initial email enquiry brief, as academics are very busy. If they are interested in your idea and would like to hear more about your research ideas, they will ask you for further detail. Following academics on Twitter and LinkedIn is also a useful way of gaining insight into the kind of academic debates which potential supervisors are engaged with and thus can help you connect with them.

Investigate PhD entry requirements carefully. Not all universities require you to have a Masters degree to enrol for a PhD – sometimes a 2.1 or a first-class honours degree will suffice, especially if, like many mature students, you have years of professional experience as well as a degree. I had a level 7 qualification, but it was not a Masters degree, so checking entry requirements helped me identify those universities which had more inclusive entry requirements and saved me wasting valuable time.

It can be useful to phone postgraduate research admissions (PGR) offices of your target universities too, in order to find out information about how many times a year they enrol PhD students and how long, on average, their application process takes from start to finish.

This kind of practical information is not always available on university websites as the length of the application process can vary between faculties. PGR offices that I spoke to were usually very helpful, encouraging and lots more useful than the university website. The most inclusive universities understand that for those of us in our 40s and 50s, we cannot wait six months until the following April or September to enrol – once we are ready to apply, we need commence study sooner rather than later as we have less time left in our career spans.

Inclusive universities also will be aware that mature applicants need an indication of application-to-offer (or rejection) timelines in order to arrange our work lives to fit around our part-time study. I had a bad experience with the first university that I applied to. They started to take longer to process my application than they originally indicated and proceeded to fudge excuses when I subsequently emailed or phoned them, eventually admitting to academic staffing issues causing delays. I decided that they were wasting my time and withdrew my application, following up on an alternative university that I had on my shortlist instead.

If universities will not be transparent with you from day one, do not engage with them… it is their loss, not yours. There are universities out there (such as the University of Wolverhampton, where I now study) who make their application process very quick, efficient and transparent, because they understand the importance of students ‘knowing where they stand’.

As things worked out, having to revisit my university shortlist and apply to a different institution worked to my benefit, as I found a Director of Studies and a supervisor who not only share my research interests, but who are really supportive and encouraging. Therefore, if the path to your PhD is not totally smooth, do not be put off. It is worth persevering. Que sera, sera!

Alison Etches is studying a part-time PhD in Education at the University of Wolverhampton. You can find her on LinkedIn.

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