Admission and Funding

Disclaimer

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:


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.


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