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Graduate Admissions

For information on graduate admissions in the Department of Medical Genetics or CIMR  Medical Genetics, please see below and contact Tricia Smoothy, Graduate Administrator – ps483@cam.ac.uk Tel: 01223 769085.

A.    Admission to the University 

You should apply for admission to the University using the University’s online GRADSAF (Graduate Admission and Scholarship Application Form) if you:

  • wish to apply for University-wide funding competitions (eg Gates, Cambridge Overseas & Commonwealth Trusts, Cambridge Home and EU Scholarships etc – NB these funding competitions all have very early deadlines http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/gradstud/  
  • have been awarded a specific studentship / programme position in competition
  • wish to apply for a College studentship
  • have an external scholarship; or
  • have your own funding.

BEFORE YOU COMPLETE A GRADSAF, READ THE FOLLOWING:

NB each application made using a GRADSAF will cost you £ 50 (if you cannot apply online, you may apply on paper, but the fee is £100)

B.  Are you eligible to apply for admission to our programmes?

Competition for admission to the University of Cambridge graduate programme is intense. Like all departments in the Graduate School, we require all our graduate entrants to have:

  • at least a 2.1 in an Honours degree or equivalent (eg CGPA 3.5/4.0) in a relevant subject
  • two outstanding references from senior University staff at your most recent University
  • fluency in the English language – recent IELTS test with an overall band score of at least 7.0 with not less than 7.0 in speaking, listening and writing, and 6.5 in reading.

For more details of the University’s academic requirements see the University’s Graduate Prospectus – http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/gradstud/

 B1.  Which qualification do you want to apply for? 

  • MPhil by research (thesis) (1 year) – Course code MDMGM1 – A one year full-time or part-time research course consisting of three (fulltime) or five (part-time) terms. There is no taught MPhil course.
  • PhD (thesis) – Course code MDMG22– A standard three-year programme with flexible start dates (can also be taken part-time over five years).

 B2.  What topic do you want to study and which supervisor do you want to work with ?  (MPhil by research or PhD only)

The first question on the GRADSAF application form requires you to choose a course – for research applicants this means specifying which department or institute in which you wish to work.

 To choose a department, you need to do some serious homework to identify a topic and one or more supervisors in that department with whom you wish to work.

If you have not already decided, you should:

  • Browse our PIs and visit their personal/group page to check details of their research, see if they have any vacancies and make contact with them to discuss your plans:  http://medgen.medschl.cam.ac.uk/groups/; http://www.cimr.cam.ac.uk/investigators/departmentindex.html
  • If you are interested in more than one supervisor within THIS department, you can name them as first and second choice in your application, but if you want to apply to supervisors in different departments, you will have to make separate applications (one to each department).
  • NB Many research topics are also available in other departments of the Graduate School of Life Sciences – browse the Graduate School’s searchable database  -http://www.biomed.cam.ac.uk/gradschool/research.html

B3.  How to apply to the University

 Go to http://www.biomed.cam.ac.uk/gradschool/apply/student/online.html

for full instructions on how to apply online.