01What arrives
One address, read by the staff who administer admissions, and no separate form to fill in.
What reaches the admissions address
An enquiry or an application reaches the company at admissions@smartemis.online. The message is read by the staff who administer admissions, and it is retained with whatever the applicant chose to attach to it.
There is no separate application system to register with. An applicant writes, attaches what is described below, and receives an acknowledgement that names the start point the application is being read against. Where something is missing, the acknowledgement says which item it is rather than leaving the applicant to guess, and the application waits at that point until it arrives.
Four items are ordinarily expected. None of them has to be produced to a particular template, because the reading is of the subject and the preparation behind it rather than of the formatting.
Item one Curriculum vitae attached to the message
An account of study and work to date. What is being read for is the preparation an applicant brings to post-graduate level work: sustained writing, independent reading, and any research already carried out, whether inside a course or in the course of employment.
Item two Transcript as issued to the applicant
The record of a prior award as the awarding institution issued it. A copy is enough at the point of application; where a place is offered, the offer states what the company needs to see before enrolment and by when.
Item three Statement of the intended research subject the substantive item
The subject an applicant intends to work on in the independent project, stated as a question where a question has already formed. This is the item the decision turns on most often, because supervision is allocated against it and the working question of the fourth week grows out of it.
A subject that is still broad is not a difficulty at this stage. A subject that cannot be narrowed to something a single candidate can carry across twelve weeks and the months that follow is discussed before a place is offered.
Item four Reference where one is supplied
Where an applicant supplies a reference, it is held with the application it supports and is read alongside it. A reference from someone who has read the applicant’s written work carries further than one that speaks only to character.
02The reading
Two questions are asked of every application, and they are asked in this order.
2questions asked
How an application is read, and in what order
Applications are read as they arrive rather than held to a closing point, and the reading asks two questions in sequence. The first is whether the applicant is prepared for study at post-graduate level, which is answered from the record of prior study and from the writing the application contains. The second is whether the intended subject can be supervised here, which is answered against the subjects the teaching staff work in.
Both questions have to be answered before a place is offered, and the second is the one more often discussed with the applicant first. Where a subject sits close to what a supervisor works in but not squarely inside it, the company says so, and the applicant decides whether to narrow the subject or to take the application elsewhere. That conversation is held before an offer rather than after one.
Where a place is offered
The offer names a cohort and a start point, and the application file becomes the beginning of the cohort record described in the candidate data statement.
Where it is not
The file is closed and retained under the schedule set out in the candidate data statement, so that the company can answer a later query about the decision it took.
A decision is given in writing in both directions. Where an applicant asks what stood behind it, the reasons are given in the terms the two questions above are put in.
03The offer
Everything an offer states is stated in the offer itself; nothing material is left to be settled after acceptance.
What an offer of a place states
An offer names the cohort and its start point, the three modules that cohort will take, the credit weight carried by each, and anything the company still needs to see before enrolment. Where a condition is attached, the condition is written out in full together with the date by which it has to be met, and no further condition is added after the offer has been accepted.
An offer also states the pattern of the twelve weeks the candidate is accepting: four sessions of three hours in each module, a set reading in every week, six pieces of assessed work in the weeks the cohort grid names, and supervision meetings held fortnightly while the taught weeks run. A candidate who accepts is accepting that pattern, so it is set out before acceptance rather than issued afterwards in a handbook.
Deferral is handled once. Where a candidate asks to move to a later start point before the cohort opens, the place is re-dated to that point and the terms of the offer are restated in writing against the new cohort. Where a candidate needs to move again, the application is read afresh against the cohort then open, because the teaching staff and the subjects supervised are not fixed indefinitely.
The first week of a cohort, and what is allocated in it, is on the front sheet
04Enrolment
The cohort record opens on enrolment and is the file everything afterwards is written against.
Enrolment, and what opens with it
On enrolment the company opens a cohort record for the candidate. It carries the name, the contact details given for correspondence, the cohort and its start point, the modules taken and the credit weight of each, and the supervisor allocated in the first week. Attendance at taught sessions is recorded against the same record, because the issue of session materials to an absent candidate depends on it.
Where a candidate declares an adjustment needed for study or for assessment, the declaration is held on the cohort record and is disclosed to the teaching staff who have to act on it. It is better declared at enrolment than at the first submission, since an adjustment to an assessment pattern is easier to make before the pattern has begun to run.
A candidate who needs to suspend study after a cohort has opened is not made to begin again. The suspension is recorded against the cohort file, and the remaining project milestones are re-dated from the point of return so that their sequence is preserved.
What is held, for how long, and who reads it is set out in the candidate data statement