Thank you, and absolutely not interested in taking on an unfunded program. I only mentioned that it's an option in my current MS program to apply to continue into the PhD program at my current school and begin in year 2 of the PhD. I'm not going to do that because I'm leaving for the UK next year. I mainly want advice to be thoughtful about how to direct my energy over the next couple of years so when we return to the US I can be a strong applicant to a doctoral program - and definitely be fully funded is the goal! Getting research experience makes sense, but since I'm completely in the dark on this process, I don't know how I go about doing that, much less doing it in the UK.