phreeduh

snasser - at least you know you are close! I too wish you lots of luck for next year.

*groan* I am super happy for all of you who got awards, but I can't help wondering when my suspense will be over. Could people please update this forum when they actually receive their letters from SSHRC? For those of us waiting to receive our news that way? Also, do remember to update the SSHRC/Vanier results thread. That information would have been invaluable to us all in our obsessive waiting these past few months..

For those of applying from out of the country (to continue at a non-Canadian school) is there anyone we can call who might have access to the list? Anyone have any ideas?

That is so frustrating. I stopped myself from logging in all morning hoping for good results this afternoon!

How about just asking Major awards received? some students will have received other doctoral rewards in advance of the SSHRC..

I've been pretending that the hold up this year is due to an overabundance of cash available and the extra resources that it would take to give all the short-listers full scholarships.

It's always worth calling and checking. When I was applying to PhD programs I received full funding at a school and was somehow never notified of the fact until I had already accepted somewhere else a full month later! It's rare that these kind of mistakes happen, but they do.

Do make sure you give some notice to the school you won't be attending though! Otherwise you are essentially killing some other poor student's dreams..

Your dream University probably has an international students office. They are the people you will need to talk to first, and will probably provide you with some paperwork to bring to the consulate.

Hunh. Last year I was the only non-married person in my department.. Actually it was pretty lonely.

I started my PhD at age 30.. everyone in my department was my age or older at the time, but all the students who have entered since have been quite a bit younger. There seems to be some kind of drift going on..

At my school these things seem to vary by department. I just received an external scholarship worth about 17 000, which means my school will no longer be paying me a stipend to TA even though I still need to perform that job. I wasn't aware of that fact when I applied for external funding or perhaps I wouldn't have bothered..

Ooo! Seconded! Could people please post where they applied from as well as where they will be going?

This makes sense but also makes me feel kind of terrible. I was pretty naive about the process at the time. ... SUNDAY NIGHT!!!! Good luck everyone in the following week. I've applied from within the United States, so I don't expect to be hearing myself until I receive a physical statement (however long that will take).

I have no idea if it's allowed and it is indeed ludicrous, but the school's have a quote of how many applications they can pass through and it's really up to them which ones they pass. I was told outright by my adviser that there was no way my application would compete within the university if I was changing schools because it was private university policy even though he felt it was a very strong application. I had already received a Master's CGS at my school too. *shrug* I applied anyway and as predicted my application didn't get chosen by my university. I am shortlisted this year from my new school with what is essentially the same writing. There is no way for me to verify why I wasn't selected at my old school.

Incidentally, you can also get screwed applying through a university if you are applying to continue or start your degree at another institution. That happened to me when I was applying to start my PhD. I was told that it was my school's policy to only pass through applications that were to stay at that school. It's SSHRC's policy that you must apply through the school you've been registered at however..

It's making me really happy to read that so many of you got positive results! I know this was expected with the A-list Master's applicants, but it stills feels awesome!

Have you guys read this study? It might be of interest. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w ... JYiDXm3j2Q

One piece of advice, if you are applying to international schools don't assume that they are all as responsive as North American ones. I got in to Queens University of Belfast a couple of years ago, and although the department let me know of my acceptance in a reasonable time the graduate school never informed me that I won a full scholarship. Meanwhile, months past and I accepted a different (funded) offer.

How official was that announcement about a second business-related competition for master's students? I haven't seen any announcement anywhere except through this forum. I'd like to be able to pass that information on to a friend if it's true. Does anyone have a link for me? Also, will there be anything like it for doctoral students?

Actually, if you are looking for housing near Brown one of the best things you could do is sign up now for the grad student listserv there. There are a ton of students posting around this time of year looking for sublettors or people to take over their leases. You could easily find a roomate or an apartment.. http://www.brown.edu/Students/GSC/static/mailing-lists

I'm really interested in this thread. I quit a lucrative career to go back to school and study art several years ago. For the BFA I lived off of savings and wages while I worked the whole time, and I started receiving external funding half way through my master's degree though again I worked through the first year. I'm in a funded PhD program now (a multimedia program centered on music where there is a lot more funding than in visual arts) where I TA for my wages and I'm about to receive an external scholarship that will cut down my job workload. I've been really lucky in that I'm Canadian and school is much cheaper in my country than it is in the US. I still don't think I could have managed this path without careful strategizing. The decisions that I made that turned out to be the most useful to me were to move to the Province where best/cheapest ratio of art school could be found a whole year early to qualify for in-province tuition (I think you can do the same thing in the US with state schools, right?). This also gave me a year to try to set up some job opportunities for myself that I could keep going while I was a student and to set up the cheapest possible housing situation. (Communal grocery/cooking situations sometimes save you a lot of money). Once I was in my BFA I really spent a lot of time figuring out what grants and scholarships I could go for and then worked like hell to get the grades to qualify for them and to set myself up with opportunities and structures that would make me the right candidate for them. Again, this took a lot of time and was a stressful, long term, process, but it did payoff once I was in grad school. Most of my jobs ended up being research assistantships, TAships, working on other people's grant projects, or teaching at art centers. Anyway, I managed to make it through though I still incurred some debt, I shudder to think how bad it would have been had I not been working until my second year of grad school. I don't think I would have fared as well in the US, but some of the strategies I used might still be useful to think about. First, find out what the cheapest living/tuition situations possible for yourself might be and place yourself there ahead of time. (BTW: There are some schools in Canada that wave international fees for applicants at the grad level, making tuition dirt cheap by US standards.. I believe even the international fees are cheaper than a lot of US schools.. and some of the art programs there are quite good). Second, apply to everything you can, funding wise. Third, try to place yourself to receive the funding. Sometimes that means waiting a year, sometimes that means characterizing your work in whatever language is selling. ... ok, Having said all this I fully support people chasing their dreams at whatever cost. I just hate watching my whole generation be enslaved by debt. I am personally very scared of this, because I want to be an artist at the end of this process, and not feel pressured to take a "normal" job to pay my bills.

Just an update in case this info is ever useful to anyone else.. I filed the form and my request was approved. My funding was bumped up to 3 years. It pays to voice your grievances I guess!

Don't forget that this list doesn't count the Vanier awards recipients. If you add them the total awards given out go higher.

Incidentally, I found out last week that I got an FQRSC and have officially stopped pulling my hair out.