How to Secure a Funded PhD Scholarship

This post is about for only those who are looking for opportunities to study abroad and How to Secure a Funded PhD Scholarship. All these points are based on my experience.

MY PROFILE:

• Bachelors in telecommunication Engineering from UET Taxila with CGPA: 2.98
• Masters in Electrical Engineering from NUST with CGPA 3.65.
• My masters thesis was in Machine Learning and Signal Processing.
• No Research paper.
• An extensive experience In ML and DL projects.

I got two fully-funded Ph.D. offers: (Alhamdulillah)

• ETS Montreal, Canada.
• Tampere University Finland.

As some members requested me to write some guidelines about scholarships so I am writing some points. I am not a professional consultant so all these things are based on my thinking.

Six step Process for PhD Scholarship:-

1. Select universities.
2. Find the right faculty
3. Contact professor
4. Appear for interview
5. Apply for university
6. Apply for a study permit

SOME IMPORTANT POINTS:

1) One of the biggest mistake students make is that they always target the top-ranked universities. The professors from these universities are very demanding. Its good to target top-ranked universities but professors of these universities are very choosy in hiring Ph.D. students and it is not always the best decision. Always put more focus on mediocre universities as they have funding and professors are willing to take students.

2) Another advice is to target young professors who have just started their academic careers. The reason is that since they have recently started their academic career, they will put more focus on research to polish their own profile and if you are lucky enough, this young blood will guide you in your Ph.D. better. Moreover, based on my personal experience, young professors who have just established their labs are always looking for Ph.D. students and they are not so choosy as compared to other big professors.

3) If you are looking for Ph.D., make a list of universities in different countries where you want to apply i.e. a list of universities in Quebec, a List of universities in Istanbul, etc. It will allow you to target mediocre universities in each country. Moreover, go to every university website, shortlist all the professors related to your field even if the count of all professors go to 100. The thing is, if the professor is interested in your profile, he will arrange a skype interview. You don’t have to pay the application fee for all the universities because you are just looking for the professor. Once the professor is agreed to supervise you, then you are going to apply to the university and pay the application fee. If the professor has accepted you as a PhD student, your admission is 100% secure in case of most countries. Even if some document is missing in the application, you will be granted conditional admission letter.

4) For most universities, you don’t require GRE. However, you need to take the IELTS exam before start applying for Ph.D. or even you can take the exam later while applying for university admission. Most of the universities also accept English Proficiency Certificate. But you have to check the English language requirement for each university.

If you don’t have many research papers or your paper is submitted/Under review, your hands-on experience on the skills and knowledge gained from online courses will be a strong point especially in an interview.

Securing funded Ph.D. is not difficult but you really have to put the effort into reaching a professor and convince him to take you as a Ph.D. student. If you are lucky enough, you will get a reply from the first professor you are writing to, however, if you don’t get a reply, try try again Believe in Allah and then in yourself.

Good luck.