Student review [#28479] for Applied Economics
at University of Cambridge

If you put a gun to my head, for undergraduates, I would guess that about 5% of students regret going to Oxbridge. Oxbridge is an extremely intense academic experience. Lots of people think that they want it in the abstract, and most of them are perfectly happy. But a small but statistically significant chunk get there, realise that they may have bitten off more than they can chew, and have a pretty miserable experience, and/or drop out. Many of them end up getting stigmatised with a low degree from Oxbridge whereas if they had attended another university with a more measured pace, they might have been a high flyer there. It is one of the (many) reasons why admissions tutors take so much care to try and scrutinise applicants for people who they think are likely to thrive in the environment. But sadly no application process is perfect.

Many years ago I got a PhD offer to study biomedical sciences under a very renowned prof (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) at Cambridge. I was at that time completing my MSc from the U of Toronto in Canada and was also given an opportunity to further on my PhD there.

Initially, the department I applied to at Cambridge convinced me that I probably would get a good package of scholarships likely from the Gate Trust plus some assistantship supplemented as a stipend from my supervisor. So as an international, non-EU student, I would likely be able to fund my very high tuition fee and living expenses there, like what I received in Toronto.

But when I received the offer letter in the summer, I suddenly found out the funding given to me could barely pay off my tuition fee due to a sudden fee increment for which the department and my supervisor forgot to put me in the waiver programme which could lift off the extra fee imposed to non-EU students.

When contacting my professor again to ask for a higher stipend, he was hesitating to do so but he promised he would increase my stipend if he was able to secure another operational grant expected to come in next year. I was told by my colleagues there’s no way a research student should use their own resources to fund their PhD studies which itself makes really no sense as apparently, we are already in a wage loss venture having to take up the graduate program subsisting on minimal allowances.

I ended up declining Cambridge’s offer and continuing my PhD in Toronto on a full scholarship, but in a different field. I still cannot fathom why the UK universities, as well known as Cambridge, still are not able to give full scholarships to their research students like most other good universities in the world do.