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Please see the steps below for stages of Study Abroad at SOP.
Application process
Each year we organise an introductory Study Abroad presentation for the Year 3 students, welcoming students to apply and undertake their Year 4 research project overseas.
Application is a multi-stage process:
I. Application
First, you need to be accepted onto Study Abroad programme by submitting an application form to the Placements team at sop.placements@ucl.ac.uk. The deadline for this will be determined by the School of Pharmacy and is usually around mid-December. The application form and additional information (such as details of partner universities and feedback from former MPharm students) are on Moodle. The applications process will open as soon as the Study Abroad presentation takes place.
II. Informal interview
When we receive your application form, we will check if you meet the eligibility criteria and if satisfactory, invite you to attend a brief interview with the SOP Study Abroad Tutor (Dr Gary Parkinson) and Study Abroad Administrator (Lisa Weston) in order to discuss any queries. We will want to hear why you would like to go to a particular place (or places) and what you hope to gain from a placement there.
III. Outcome
Based on your application, grades, enthusiasm for studying abroad and your destination preferences, we will allocate you to a particular institution. Unsuccessful applications will not be reconsidered and the decision will be final. There is no appeals process. Successful students will be asked to accept, reject or swap their allocation by a given deadline. During that time, we will also consider any requests to be moved to unfilled places. Students who do not respond to accept their allocation by the deadline, will be treated as those who wish to withdrew from the Study Abroad programme. It will not be possible to re-join the scheme.
IV. Nomination
Once you have accepted your offer, we will send your details to the central UCL Study Abroad Team. They will contact you and send you the relevant information and forms which need completing before your placement begins. We will also send your details to the allocated institution to inform them that you are nominated to apply for a research project there. Once your details are passed on, we will not be able to consider any further requests for changes to your allocation.
V. Project allocation (external supervisor allocation)
It is important to understand that the School of Pharmacy is unable to secure a particular project at host universities; we can only secure a place at a particular destination. The host institutions may not be able to meet all expectations and preferences of the incoming students (although they are always committed to try), therefore, it is essential to be open-minded and flexible.
Your host institution should contact you shortly after your details are passed on to them and inform you about their local admission process and project allocation procedure, which you will need to follow. These processes vary between the universities and may change every year (therefore, we can only advise on what was practised by each partner university in the previous year):
• Some students will be offered a particular project or choice of projects.
• Some students will be allocated to a specific department or a supervisor but the exact project title may not be known until arrival.
• Some students will be expected to directly approach the researchers within their allocated university to find a placement (this usually involves sending a CV, a motivation letter and a transcript of grades, and asking to join their lab for a 11-13 week unpaid research placement, adding that you have been nominated for a placement via the Study Abroad Exchange partnership with UCL).
If the allocated institution is unable to offer any suitable projects or find an available supervisor, the students will be able to choose a different Study Abroad location from a list of unfilled places at our partner universities (depending on their deadlines) or to undertake an internal project at the School of Pharmacy.
VI. Project approval (internal supervisor allocation)
Once the projects are assigned by the host institutions and approved by the Study Abroad Tutor (Dr Gary Parkinson), each outgoing student will be allocated an internal project supervisor at the School of Pharmacy, who they should liaise with regarding working on and submitting their project.