Postgraduate study for international students
Postgraduate study in the UK
There are 2 main types of courses:
- Taught courses such as Masters Degrees or Postgraduate Certificates or Diplomas.
- Research courses such as an MPhil or PhD.
For further details see;
- Further Study – a section of the Careers Service website on Postgraduate study.
- Prospects – Postgraduate study
- Prospects - Already in the UK
You should begin researching postgraduate courses as early as possible. For the majority of courses there are no fixed application deadlines, but popular courses fill up quickly. Check with each University for their individual application procedures.
Student Services Information Desk (SSID)
If you wish to extend your student visa and continue your studies you will need to extend your Tier 4 Visa. For further information on this please visit the Student Services Information Desk (SSID) website.
UKISA
There is also a useful leaflet on the UKISA website called ‘Making a Tier 4' (General) Application) - which includes advice on how to apply to extend your permission to be in the UK as a student under Tier 4 of the Points Based System.
Funding
Fees will vary depending on the University, type of course, length and subject. Firstly check with the Universities and the Departments you are considering whether they have any sources of funding to which you can apply.
Details of some of the sources of funding for international students are below:-
- Prospects website - Further Study
- Prospects website - Postgraduate fees and Scholarships
- UKISA
- British Council Education UK website
- British Council Education - Scholarships for international postgraduate
The latter link gives details of the ‘British Chevening Scholarship Scheme’, the ‘Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan’ (CSFP), the Commonwealth Shared Scholarship Scheme’, ‘Royal Society Fellowships’, and ‘Scotland’s Saltire Scholarships’ etc. It also has a ‘Scholarship Finder’ and a downloadable handout ‘Sources of Funding for International Students’ which is published jointly by the British Council, UKCISA, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). In addition to giving further details of the above scholarships it also mentions scholarships for students from specific countries, European Union Schemes, UNESCO and WHO schemes and Voluntary Organisations/Charities scholarships.
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP)
May be open to international students - they are three-way projects between a graduate, an organisation and a university/research organisation/further education institutions and are mainly in the scientific/ technical/ management/ social science areas.
Postgraduate study outside the UK
If you are interested in studying outside the UK begin your research early as there will be a lot of information to check out such as qualification equivalents, residency criteria, application procedures, possible funding support etc.
myInternational Career
A good place to start are the country guides within myInternational Career which contain a postgraduate study section. Also the Careers Service Library has a wide range of information relating to Studying Abroad and access to other related resources.
