Supporting potential PhD - not confident about it

[kualitate]

I'm new to supervising and have been asked to help support a prospective international student with their application for funding from a highly competitive doctoral scheme. The research proposal/idea is interesting and written well enough with the aid of ChatGPT, but the general application is really not great (vague, emotive, informal and not written in a great standard of English). I'm wading through all the supporting documents and there is a lot that needs to be revised/effectively rewritten entirely to make it more professional/sharper and academic - I'm struggling with feedback as there is so much that needs to be done and it's difficult to convey that things need to be written in a certain way. English isn't their first language so I appreciate how hard it is, plus they won't have the cultural capital of knowing how to frame an application for funders here.

Having had friends funded by the same scheme for their PhD, the chances of this student getting the scholarship seem very low - am I wrong for feeling a bit frustrated with the lead supervisor for not being more up-front with the candidate about how competitive the scheme is and how small their chances of getting it are? Or am I just grumpy and have to accept that these things take multiple revisions/edits?

Its one of the reasons I ensured both my supervisors were very senior , I saw in cohort fellow PGR's with supervisors in their first gig, they were AWFUL.

Perhaps you're projecting your experiences/observations onto the OP, and responding to her in a way that's unhelpful and unfair?

It's entirely reasonable to be unsure about spending lots of time supporting an application that is unlikely to be successful, especially if someone else is supposed to be the lead supervisor.

But that's my point a funding application is nothing in terms of time of 4 long years supervising someone for goodness sake!

Me and my supervisors spent a month max on it !!

It just shouldn't need so much input either the application, or, frankly, the supervision. I would expect a PhD student to have more autonomy than this.

In the prelim stage of course it does! The whole first year the supervisor has to deal with the imposter , I don't know what the fuck I'm doing , I'm out of my depth feeling.

By Year 2 you should be upgraded , with a light monthly meet up and you should be standing firmly on your two feet, of course, but at the start , a year before the start actually, the polished applications needed to win funding , DOES need a lot of input, even if you are a star candidate.

I was a very strong candidate, high distinction, glowing refs and I went on to a very successful PhD journey, juggling teaching and lots of work with my funder , conferences etc, but I needed a TON of help with my funding application, a year before I actually started my doctorate.

Honestly , compared to applying, interview and gaining an offer of place for a PhD, the funding application was a MILLION times harder, at one point I told my supervisors let's leave it, when they told me to revise my application for the umpteenth time.

That's the funding landscape I'm afraid. The deadlines are so short too, you barely get your offer before the deadline is looming , its very very intense, and that's just the nature of the beast.

@Ilikeryebread Sound as though you and your supervision are a good match but it doesn't sound like your situation is at all similar to the student the OP is talking about. In my experience (and I am very familiar with the funding process) supervisors make most effort when fairly confident the student actually has a chance of getting funding.

surely the key point here is that the OP is second or third supervisor to the candidate. it is the job of first supervisor to support the candidate in their application. the second or third supervisor shouldn't be putting in hours of work for something that has a v low chance of success AND a v low benefit to them.

Thanks @parietal and @Acinonyx2 for being the voice of reason here

Sadly, the thread seems to have been highjacked with more than a fair bit of wild and speculative projection unrelated to my original concerns, so I'll leave it here for now. Thanks to all those who read the thread properly and for your brilliant, measured advice as usual - I really appreciate your support.

Good luck OP - it sounds like there might be broader benefits to using this moment to emphasise that you won’t be doing loads of work when you aren’t lead supervisor. Setting and holding those boundaries are a key skill in a dept of strategically-too-busy-to-help men who assume you will always pick up the pieces.
Sorry that this thread went so odd for you.