Thursday, 10 August 2017

graduate admissions - Applying for PhD after a poor master's


I am attempting to apply for a PhD but made rather a mess of my masters. Advice from anyone involved in the process is appreciated.



I am applying in the UK, and have a good bachelor's, which is all that is necesary for funding. I worked for 2 years before doing a master's. My field is computer science or bioinformatics.


The master's went wrong - I failed about half of my modules, although I passed them on retake. I produced a good project, but did not impress my supervisor. He doesn't dislike me, I just just ended up looking flaky. Regarding what went wrong, on the one hand, my cohort had an exceptionally high failure rate, but on the other I didn't work hard enough, and got quite depressed after failing some of the first set of exams.


There is a reasonable question over whether I would be suited for a PhD, but you could say that about anything hard that I try and do next.


I need a bounce-back plan. What can I do to mitigate the damage? How bad is the damage? Do you accept candidates with less than ideal transcripts and so-so references, given a good work history and supportive references from earlier supervisors?




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