Canada Chem PhD application opinion

[AnthonyLaw]

Hi everyone. I am a final year master student in Hong Kong. I have contacted a Professor from Mcgill university replying some cliche that my background fits his group and asked me to apply through the chemistry department. Then the department asked for my test scores for preliminary evaluation. Since the professor did not say anything about funding and since I have seen many successful candidates actually have their own funding source before applying, I am pretty insecure right now. Does anyone who has similar situation and succeed(without own funding).

[aberrant]

If you are applying to Canadian programs, you typically don't need to get your own funding to be accepted as a PhD student, especially when you will be having a MS from HK. However, if you are unsure, you can always ask your POI to see if s/he will have funding to support your PhD. Typically the PI would figure things out with the department if they don't have enough funding -- perhaps being a TA.

You can also consider applying Croucher, but my experience is that unless you have a 4.0 and straight As in CE / AL / DSE, otherwise application to their 'scholarship' is a complete waste of time.

[AnthonyLaw]

On 10/1/2017 at 1:44 PM, aberrant said:

If you are applying to Canadian programs, you typically don't need to get your own funding to be accepted as a PhD student, especially when you will be having a MS from HK. However, if you are unsure, you can always ask your POI to see if s/he will have funding to support your PhD. Typically the PI would figure things out with the department if they don't have enough funding -- perhaps being a TA.

You can also consider applying Croucher, but my experience is that unless you have a 4.0 and straight As in CE / AL / DSE, otherwise application to their 'scholarship' is a complete waste of time.

Thank you for your reply. I just got an offer from a professor in Queen's University. They offer minimum stipend at 23,000 a year. This professor seems to have quite good connection to the US which might be great for my post-doc afterward. After the interview, it looks like he wanted to pin me down as soon as possible but I am still keeping hope on other US schools, so a little worried.

Edited January 12, 2017 by AnthonyLaw