By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant. Taking a gap year before a PhD is often framed as a risk. Applicants worry it will look unfocused, indecisive, or like a loss of academic momentum. Others assume it must be justified defensively in applications, or…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant. If you are worried about applying to a PhD without publications, you are not alone. Many strong applicants assume that successful PhD candidates already have journal articles, conference papers, or co-authored work. When they do not, the…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant Yes, it is possible to do a PhD after undergrad. But that does not mean it is usually the right move. Applicants searching “phd after undergrad” are often trying to answer a very specific question: Can I…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant If you are asking “should I do a PhD,” you are not looking for encouragement. You are looking for permission to be honest. Most people asking this question already know that a PhD is long, uncertain, and…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant PhD preparation is not about being impressive.It is about being ready in the ways that actually matter. Most applicants assume that preparing for a PhD means accumulating credentials: more papers, more classes, more certificates, more time. That…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant If you’re asking “is a PhD worth it?”, you’re probably not looking for motivation. You’re looking for clarity. This question usually comes up at a very specific moment: when the idea of a PhD feels intellectually exciting,…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant Applicants searching for the UBC PhD acceptance rate are usually trying to answer a practical question: Is applying to a PhD at UBC realistic for someone like me? The difficulty is that no single number at University…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant Applicants searching for PhD interviews Canada often assume the process closely mirrors the United States or the United Kingdom. PhD interviews in Canada are often misunderstood — especially by international applicants. They are frequently described as “similar…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions committee member Many PhD applicants hear the word interview and imagine a single formal event — a scheduled Zoom call after submitting an application, with a list of questions and a clear outcome. That framing is misleading. In…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions committee member A lot of applicants assume research methodology questions in a PhD interview are there to “test knowledge.” They aren’t. They’re there to test whether your research thinking is sturdy under pressure—whether your design holds up, whether…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions committee member Most PhD applicants think “Tell me about your research” is a prompt to summarize. It isn’t. Knowing how to talk about your research in a PhD interview is actually about showing whether you can think like…

Written by Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant Most PhD applicants assume the interview is about answering questions correctly. Most interview advice trains applicants to perform — not to be evaluated. It isn’t. In reality, professors are rarely evaluating what you say in a…

Written by Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant Applying to a PhD in the UK as an international student is often framed as a procedural process: identify a supervisor, secure funding, submit a proposal, and wait. That framing is misleading. In practice, UK PhD…

By Dr. Philippe Barr, former professor and graduate admissions consultant Applicants searching for the McGill PhD acceptance rate are usually looking for reassurance — a number that tells them whether applying is realistic or a long shot. At McGill University, that number doesn’t exist. And more importantly,…

Most PhD applicants assume the interview is about answering questions correctly. It isn’t. In reality, professors are rarely evaluating what you say in a PhD interview. They are evaluating how you think, how you respond to uncertainty, and whether they can realistically imagine supervising you for several…

If you’re preparing for a PhD interview in the UK, here’s something most university websites won’t tell you: Most rejected UK PhD applicants do NOT fail because of their grades or proposal.They fail because they mishandled the interview. As a former professor who has conducted PhD interviews…

If you’re searching for “PhD acceptance rates UK,” you’ve probably already noticed something unusual. No UK university publishes a real, department-wide PhD acceptance rate.There is no chart. No number. No central database. Nothing. And there’s a reason for that: UK PhD admissions do not operate on a…

If you’re applying for a PhD in the UK, you’ve probably already run into a frustrating problem: Some universities ask for a Statement of Purpose (SOP).Some ask for a Personal Statement.Some ask for both.And almost none of them tell you what the difference actually is. As a…

Most applicants think the PhD interview is a final formality. It isn’t. In reality, the PhD interview is where many strong applications quietly fail — not because the candidate is unqualified, but because the committee learns something in conversation that was not visible on paper. As a…

If you’re deciding between a UK PhD vs US PhD, you’re asking the right question — and far earlier than most applicants do. Although both paths lead to the same credential (Doctor of Philosophy), they are structurally different systems, built around very different assumptions about training, independence,…