Fall 2017 Canadian University Computer Science Thread

[Jeffs]

1 hour ago, smfz said:

Well, That didn't end good. Got an email from that professor starting "Unfortunately...."

29 minutes ago, Canadaspirant said:

I know I'm somewhat gonna start getting branded devils advocate here, but this is almost certainly a reject.  

If a professor has decided to accept you, you won't need to ask here, you'll know for sure.  They're busy people so avoid ambiguity when they wanna admit a candidate. If you feel uncertain, it's cos they haven't decided to accept you.  

Everyone who I know that got backed by a professor, the professor in question was very direct. 

#LetsBeReal

 

I thought you were gonna say "release the hellhounds" there. But pooff, that was close. (just kidding).

 

To put it in milder terms, you still have a chance if you have listed/spoken to other professors.

And one more thing about professors. They're really not that busy. Though they have too many people wanting the same thing from them. And that's pretty annoying I think.

[Canadaspirant]

1 hour ago, Jeffs said:

To put it in milder terms, you still have a chance if you have listed/spoken to other professors.

Oh that's totally right.  But I wasn't addressing chances of admission.  The OP asked about possibilities with that particular professor. So I'm just pointing out that if a professor decides to accept you, they make it very clear and not keep you guessing.

So if you're in contact with a professor and you're not sure if he has decided to accept you, it's cos he hasn't decided so. If he has you'll definitely know.

[Canadaspirant]

1 hour ago, guitarHeroAn said:

@Canadaspirant Did you apply to McGill? 

Nah...  Just SFU and Waterloo (CS & ECE). 

I hope you've gotten a positive feedback. 

[guitarHeroAn]

33 minutes ago, Canadaspirant said:

Nah...  Just SFU and Waterloo (CS & ECE). 

I hope you've gotten a positive feedback. 

Not yet man...Still nothing from their side. 

[Jeffs]

8 hours ago, guitarHeroAn said:

Not yet man...Still nothing from their side. 

Hero, AFIK there were no acceptances at mcgill happening yesterday. I want to check a couple of stuff with you to see better where we're standing. Did you mention any people in your SOP?(I did, 2.)  Also did you have contact with any professors? (I did. I think he's waiting for decisions of other students to decide whether to take me or not. I think he was the reason I didn't get rejected)

Also I'm going to mail Diti and ask her a couple of questions. Any tips for how to get a quick response? She usually takes a couple of weeks to respond.

[guitarHeroAn]

33 minutes ago, Jeffs said:

Hero, AFIK there were no acceptances at mcgill happening yesterday. I want to check a couple of stuff with you to see better where we're standing. Did you mention any people in your SOP?(I did, 2.)  Also did you have contact with any professors? (I did. I think he's waiting for decisions of other students to decide whether to take me or not. I think he was the reason I didn't get rejected)

Also I'm going to mail Diti and ask her a couple of questions. Any tips for how to get a quick response? She usually takes a couple of weeks to respond.

I mentioned two professors in the SOP as well, however I did not contact them by email. Even I haven't seen any acceptance in yesterday's wave, so maybe we have a fighting chance. 

I never emailed the graduate department, I always used the chat system in the portal. They usually take too long to reply and they haven't replied to a query of mine which I sent them 4 days back, so I don't know what we can do to get faster response. 

You email them and let me know their response...

[Jeffs]

37 minutes ago, guitarHeroAn said:

I mentioned two professors in the SOP as well, however I did not contact them by email. Even I haven't seen any acceptance in yesterday's wave, so maybe we have a fighting chance. 

I never emailed the graduate department, I always used the chat system in the portal. They usually take too long to reply and they haven't replied to a query of mine which I sent them 4 days back, so I don't know what we can do to get faster response. 

You email them and let me know their response...

2

Yeag, their communication is just horrible.

I'll let you know if I do get a response. Btw you should email your profs and check if they've seen your application and let them know of your genuine interest. It definitely won't do any harm (if you don't send them any sort of creepy email, that is) and most probably improve your chances.

[guitarHeroAn]

1 hour ago, Jeffs said:

Yeag, their communication is just horrible.

I'll let you know if I do get a response. Btw you should email your profs and check if they've seen your application and let them know of your genuine interest. It definitely won't do any harm (if you don't send them any sort of creepy email, that is) and most probably improve your chances.

I'll do that today! Thanks for the advice!

[Canadaspirant]

3 hours ago, Jeffs said:

you should email your profs and check if they've seen your application and let them know of your genuine interest. 

I'm a proponent  of contacting potential supervisors. Most people don't realize how low the chances are without this. 

 

On another note, any one got any info on SFU or Waterloo(ECE)? 

[batman232]

Any PhD applicants here who have not heard from McGill or Waterloo? Or Master's applicants?

[guitarHeroAn]

On 01/04/2017 at 3:28 PM, Canadaspirant said:

I'm a proponent  of contacting potential supervisors. Most people don't realize how low the chances are without this. 

I beg to differ. The fact that 4 out of 5 programs that I applied to clearly mentioned on their page that contacting faculty is not required and that the supervisors will be assigned to you according to your profile by the admission committee. In the last program, the professors to which I expressed interest working with had clearly stated on their homepages that they will not entertain any graduate position request via email, and that if you are interested apply via normal method and they will review your application that way. 

One professor had a PHP form embedded on his homepage for students to fill, which when submitted sends an email to him. He replied to me in positive, and encouraged to apply, even though our research matches perfectly. 

It is NOT always the case that NOT having a faculty connection and communication will certainly mean low chances. Not by any means. 

So if you haven't contacted faculty, its fine, chances are a lot of people haven't and they expect it that way. 

P.S No news from Waterloo, SFU, UBC, UofT, McGill. 

[Jeffs]

1 hour ago, guitarHeroAn said:

I beg to differ. The fact that 4 out of 5 programs that I applied to clearly mentioned on their page that contacting faculty is not required and that the supervisors will be assigned to you according to your profile by the admission committee. In the last program, the professors to which I expressed interest working with had clearly stated on their homepages that they will not entertain any graduate position request via email, and that if you are interested apply via normal method and they will review your application that way. 

 

That's true. But only if you got a resume that shines on its own and so gets noticed quickly. Otherwise you'll fall in the later batches of admittees and naturally you'll have a lower chance. A friend of mine did have this bright resume and he was even contacted by professors who he hadn't listed as potential supervisors. Now I had listed one of these professors as a potential supervisor and he hadn't heard of me until I contacted him a couple of weeks ago. So it definitely does make a difference. But you sound like you're gonna be ok guitarHero.

[guitarHeroAn]

32 minutes ago, Jeffs said:

That's true. But only if you got a resume that shines on its own and so gets noticed quickly. Otherwise you'll fall in the later batches of admittees and naturally you'll have a lower chance. A friend of mine did have this bright resume and he was even contacted by professors who he hadn't listed as potential supervisors. Now I had listed one of these professors as a potential supervisor and he hadn't heard of me until I contacted him a couple of weeks ago. So it definitely does make a difference. But you sound like you're gonna be ok guitarHero.

I agree with you... It's a paradox. They tell you not to contact personally, but to improve our chances it always helps contacting. What a conundrum...

Did you contact McGill? Any response so far? I'm still at "Submitted" ?

Edited April 2, 2017 by guitarHeroAn

[Jeffs]

1 hour ago, guitarHeroAn said:

I agree with you... It's a paradox. They tell you not to contact personally, but to improve our chances it always helps contacting. What a conundrum...

Did you contact McGill? Any response so far? I'm still at "Submitted" ?

 

I did send them an email. Though I doubt there will be a response before the end of the week. We're probably gonna have to wait till the end of the week(friday) for news on the decisions. Maybe even next week.

Any brave souls volunteering to call them up?

[guitarHeroAn]

3 hours ago, Jeffs said:

I did send them an email. Though I doubt there will be a response before the end of the week. We're probably gonna have to wait till the end of the week(friday) for news on the decisions. Maybe even next week.

Any brave souls volunteering to call them up?

It's going to be a very sad, anxious week for me if it comes to this. I am praying if the acceptance is on the way then it comes on Monday their time. 

I'm not local so the very idea of calling them is not something that sounds obvious to me. I'll have to wake up in the middle of the night to be able to talk to them, and the bills to call internationally, can only imagine. However I've seen a lot of people on the forum call up schools and inquire about their application. Heck they even get phone notifications that they are accepted/rejected. I don't think you need to be brave to call them, isn't it like...normal stuff for domestic or in-country applicants? 

Edited April 2, 2017 by guitarHeroAn

[Jeffs]

36 minutes ago, guitarHeroAn said:

It's going to be a very sad, anxious week for me if it comes to this. I am praying if the acceptance is on the way then it comes on Monday their time. 

I'm not local so the very idea of calling them is not something that sounds obvious to me. I'll have to wake up in the middle of the night to be able to talk to them, and the bills to call internationally, can only imagine. However I've seen a lot of people on the forum call up schools and inquire about their application. Heck they even get phone notifications that they are accepted/rejected. I don't think you need to be brave to call them, isn't it like...normal stuff for domestic or in-country applicants? 

 

Hate to admit. But it's the same here. It's like everything's on hold.

 

I have no idea whether that's normal for a domestic applicant or not. It's like we're walking around an alien and we're afraid he might eat us because of something random we do cause he just hates it for no reason. Nonetheless is it ... normal to call them up?

[Jeffs]

And do they actually give reasonable non-general answers to the "am I admitted?" sort of question? They always seem to avoid the question when it's asked.

[guitarHeroAn]

I think we should brace ourselves not just for one week, but four of them. As they say, it's not over until the bird sings. May 1 is the deadline by which all decisions from Canadian schools should be out no matter what. Between that and today, we have 4 weeks so let's put on our glasses and prepare for the anxiety storm that's gonna hit us hard 

(I just ordered pizza to soothe my anxiety down)

AFAIK, it's common for phone conversations to happen between applicants and graduate offices. However I don't believe they'll answer directly if you're admitted or not. They can probably give you some date by which we can expect a decision, or some other insight like if our application made it past the initial review or not. It's basically on how well you can communicate and how much you can get out of the person on phone. 

For us international folks though, it's fairly uncommon, but people tend to call when they have urgent matters (like some problem with the application or such). 

[c2121]

Did anyone hear anything today? I'm waiting to hear from UofT and Waterloo.

[Jeffs]

On 4/2/2017 at 11:08 PM, guitarHeroAn said:

I think we should brace ourselves not just for one week, but four of them. As they say, it's not over until the bird sings. May 1 is the deadline by which all decisions from Canadian schools should be out no matter what. Between that and today, we have 4 weeks so let's put on our glasses and prepare for the anxiety storm that's gonna hit us hard 

(I just ordered pizza to soothe my anxiety down)

AFAIK, it's common for phone conversations to happen between applicants and graduate offices. However I don't believe they'll answer directly if you're admitted or not. They can probably give you some date by which we can expect a decision, or some other insight like if our application made it past the initial review or not. It's basically on how well you can communicate and how much you can get out of the person on phone. 

For us international folks though, it's fairly uncommon, but people tend to call when they have urgent matters (like some problem with the application or such). 

I called them yesterday, they didn't pick up. I'll try again today and see what happens. It looks like they're reviewing applications and sending decisions as they go based on the fact that I'm seeing people having gotten rejected yesterday. Though it might be that they're only sending definite rejections right now.

 

[mahsa188]

3 minutes ago, Jeffs said:

I called them yesterday, they didn't pick up. I'll try again today and see what happens. It looks like they're reviewing applications and sending decisions as they go based on the fact that I'm seeing people having gotten rejected yesterday. Though it might be that they're only sending definite rejections right now.

 

 

about what university are you talking about? 

any news from SFU,Saskatchewan,Ryerson,York,UOIT,Concordia,Western Ontario? 

[Jeffs]

28 minutes ago, mahsa188 said:

about what university are you talking about? 

any news from SFU,Saskatchewan,Ryerson,York,UOIT,Concordia,Western Ontario? 

Sorry it's none of those: mcgill. 

[guitarHeroAn]

14 hours ago, Jeffs said:

I called them yesterday, they didn't pick up. I'll try again today and see what happens. It looks like they're reviewing applications and sending decisions as they go based on the fact that I'm seeing people having gotten rejected yesterday. Though it might be that they're only sending definite rejections right now.

 

Do share the number with me. I'll try calling them too sometime. I saw another rejection (though from MSc in EE). They're are definitely holding on acceptance notifications at the moment. They'll probably send them once they're done with the review (which they don't seem to have completed yet).

Any reply via email? 

[guitarHeroAn]

13 hours ago, mahsa188 said:

about what university are you talking about? 

any news from SFU,Saskatchewan,Ryerson,York,UOIT,Concordia,Western Ontario? 

We were talking about McGill. I only applied to SFU from your list and haven't heard anything. 

[Jeffs]

9 hours ago, guitarHeroAn said:

Do share the number with me. I'll try calling them too sometime. I saw another rejection (though from MSc in EE). They're are definitely holding on acceptance notifications at the moment. They'll probably send them once they're done with the review (which they don't seem to have completed yet).

Any reply via email? 

 

Called them yesterday again. Didn't pick up. No answer for the email either. The number can be found here. https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/people/staff. Call Diti.