Admission and Funding
Admission and Funding for CS Research Students,
University College, University of New South Wales
The college's official information on these matters is held
here.
Funding and Tuition Fees
University College has some scholarships of its own, and also has a policy of
supplementing the normal postgraduate scholarships fairly generously.
Your funding options, and the form of any tuition fees, will depend on whether
you have Australian resident status.
New Zealand residents are treated as Australians for some schemes and as
overseas students for others; you should probably read both pages.
Admission
To set this in context, you should be aware that the higher education system
in Australia is fairly different from that in most other countries. In
particular, research degrees (PhD and MSc by research) have no
course component, the normal admission path being from an undergraduate
degree in which outstanding students undertake an extra (honours) year of
study with a significant (usually 50%) research component. This has an
enormous influence on our admission process, and it also means that if you
come from a different system, you may feel a little that you have been
"thrown in the deep end" when you start your research studies.
You should be able to find the admission rules
here.
In case they move, the critical rules are:
- A candidate for the degree [of Doctor of Philosophy] shall have been
awarded an appropriate degree of Bachelor with Honours from
The University of New South Wales or a qualification considered equivalent
from another university or tertiary institution at a level acceptable to the
Committee.
which unfortunately, is fairly vague. In my experience, it has
typically meant that admission has been granted to students with 2A honours
or better from an Australian university. A UK university may well get
the same level of recognition, because the system (especially in Scotland) is
fairly similar. Most other countries do not have an equivalent honours system,
so direct admission to a PhD from an undergraduate degree is more complex. If
you have a four year degree with high marks (average 75% if the pass mark is 50%, pro-rate for other pass marks), and
incorporating a significant
research thesis, you may well be considered for admission direct to the PhD.
Masters degrees by research from
well recognised universities usually are also accepted for admission to the PhD;
coursework masters may be accepted, if the grades are sufficiently high
(70% where the pass mark is 50%, pro rata for other pass marks),
and there is a considerable research component. Candidates with other four year
undergraduate or master's degrees, with reasonable grades, would usually be
considered for admission to the MSc degree, with
provision for conversion to PhD if performance is
of a sufficiently high standard.
- A candidate for the degree [of Master of Science] shall have been
awarded at a standard not below Honours Class 2 an appropriate degree of
Bachelor from The University of New South Wales or a qualification considered
equivalent from another university or tertiary institution
Again, if you don't have an honours degree class 2, what does this mean? If you
have a coursework masters which is not accepted for PhD admission, it may well
be accepted for admission to the MSc; if you have an ordinary undergraduate
degree, or a Graduate Certificate or Diploma, admission is likely to be
conditional on appropriate attainment in a qualifying programme.
I should emphasise that the prior degree needs to be relevant to
the research programme you are proposing. A degree in Computer Science or
Information Systems would be treated as relevant to most research programmes
conducted in the School, but other degrees may be acceptable (for example,
a background in number theory might well be accepted as relevant to a topic
in cryptography, but not to a topic in information systems management).
Applications
If you are interested in pursuing this further, the next step is to work out
a topic; take a look at the school's
research pages
and see if there's anything that fits your interests. If there is,
email us, and we will put you
in touch with the relevant people (remember that if you are to study under the
Australian system, you will be expected to start your research immediately. It
is best if you have a clearly defined topic right from the start - even if you
end up changing it, as many students do).
Once a topic has been determined, you might want to send in
admission
forms
Email:
gradstud@cs.adfa.edu.au
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03/08/1999