Diakonos

I can try to answer Question 1. My understanding is that they will only pay from the start date onwards — never retroactively unless you were on the wait-list and magically got the SSHRC later in the year. (This happened to one of my friends; he was waitlisted for the MA SSHRC and found out in December that he was bumped up. So he got Sept.-Dec. all at once.) They will not give you money for the time you've already studied before officially receiving the award on the specified start date. Unfortunately if you're graduating in August 2015, I am quite sure the funding will stop when you cease to be a full-time student. If someone is a 4th year student, I assume that means that by Dec. 31 of the year of application they would have finished 40 months of full-time study (3*12 + 4 fall months), and the website says that the person would be eligible for 12 months of funding. But if the person ceases to be a student, it seems to me that the funding would not go for the 12 months. It would likely be the 4 months. Sorry if that's bad news for your scenario!

This is very helpful indeed, bentharbour! Thanks. I know people won CGS last year with 16, so if somehow I get bumped up it would be amazing. Haha, I almost shudder to share it. I got a 7.7/20, which means my score this year is exactly DOUBLE last year's. But SSHRC's not a crapshoot, right? ;P No major changes except I reworked the proposal and now I'm actually in the program rather than applying to it. I've maintained my GPA. I wonder if I made some sort of error last year, because the application was ranked #1 by my department last year and the SSHRC score was obviously quite low. But to me the take-home message was: don't let SSHRC determine your evaluation of your work or your worth as an academic. It's alarmingly random, both for these awards and for the Insight Grants. A professor I know told me that she applied one year and got rejected, applied the next year with an identical application and got 500k+. I let SSHRC ruin my summer last year and I just would hate that to happen to anyone here.

I second Konstantin. Last year I received a pretty miserable score and was rejected. Today (in Montreal) I got a letter for the B-category, which is great. (The score was 15.4, and I don't know how close that is to the CGS range this year, but I sure wouldn't turn down a bump-up!)

Mhm. I don't think there's much to be done aside from "seeking further information about the review" from "the SSHRC program officer identified in the letter of decision." I suppose I'll talk more to the grad chair and see what he says. Luckily I can still apply next year, and I probably will end up doing just that. Congrats to the successful applicants!

[Conspiracy Keanu] What if external fellowship officers know when SSHRC results will be released And plan their ACEFGAC during that week? [/Conspiracy Keanu]

Just emailed the external fellowships officer at my school... got an automatic reply saying she's out of the office until next week. Talk about cruel and unusual! edit:/ unless it is common practice for fellowship officers to do this when awards are being released?

Congrats Bentharbour, Pbaid, and Surefire!

Mhm, I agree. I'm just thinking that if part of SSHRC's (publicly-funded) mandate is to support and sustain good research and researchers, then it would make sense to do anything possible to allow doctoral students to make a good decision for school. I can't imagine it would be so difficult to have results released in March, for example, given that most universities submit their recommendations in January or even earlier. They are certainly sticking to their policy—it's just not the best one.

This. Honestly, what are SSHRC's priorities? Doctoral awards are kind of important, as they greatly determine who can go to do their PhD and where they will do it. I got university acceptances in early February; they wanted an answer by the end of February and March. If the financial packages are not substantial, how can someone make an informed decision about whether undertaking a PhD is financially feasible? It's criminal. /rant

I should not have checked this forum before sleeping. Geez. Nothing from my school.

I'm convinced Shakespeare has something apt to say in any circumstance.

To pass the time, here's a sonnet Shakespeare wrote while waiting for his SSHRC letter: That god forbid, that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure! O! let me suffer, being at your beck, The imprison'd absence of your liberty; And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check, Without accusing you of injury. Be where you list, your charter is so strong That you yourself may privilege your time To what you will; to you it doth belong Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime. I am to wait, though waiting so be hell, Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.

Putting on my logic and reasoning course hat here. Technically, only two students from any tri-council agencies have to have been notified for the statement to be true. But yeah, the phrasing is misleading, especially to us poor souls who will reach at anything that suggests results.

I'm more nervous about this than about PhD applications... I feel like my program proposals were actually stronger than my SSHRC proposal, if only because they came later. I got into all my schools, but now I wonder about this. I seem to recall hearing from a grad director that the process would be different in future years—something more akin to the new master's CGS method of determining winners. Anyone else hear anything like this? (Not that it will matter for us, because we will all win CGS doctorals, of course.)

For what it's worth, the older models of MBP can be easily upgraded to more ram or an SSD. I have a 240gb SSD on my MBP 2011 and it runs quicker than any mac I've seen without flash storage. As well, whatever you end up going with, consider using Scrivener for your writing projects. Besides the fact that it's a much better processor than Word or Pages or anything else that I've used, it also is much less demanding on your system, so lower ram would be fine and battery lasts longer.

That sounds awful, Safferz. We'll likely hear before then. If they keep saying mid-April to end of April, then I assume they're giving safe estimates and people should start seeing letters by the third to fourth week of this month. Last year, folks started hearing on Friday April 26.

Graduate director at my school says he has no idea when SSHRC will release results. In fact, he says I'll probably find out first, and he asked me to let him know! I had very conveniently forgotten about worrying for SSHRC results until a few of my MA friends heard about their CGS-M. I resent them for this.

Ah, I see. I was looking at the CGS statistics, which doesn't include those. Unless I'm understanding it wrong, some of these statistics look pretty dismal. In the 2013-2014 competition, for example, McGill sent 111 A-list applications and only 23.4% of those were successful (26 candidates). And the overall success rate of Canadian A-list applications was 27.9%. That's a fair deal lower than 40-50%. This morning I too received notification that SSHRC had received my application. Now the fun begins.

Those forwarded to SSHRC from McGill just received notification. A little late, I guess, but good news nonetheless! I've heard it said often that 45-50% is the number. Any way to confirm this?

Mhm. Unfortunately you just won't know if/when you'll get one. I was an alternate last year and I just never heard from them. It's really quite an unfortunate system. Yes, this is what I did too. I asked a friend who won it last year and she said that's what she did, too. Thanks for your response. Congrats! I put September 1 2012 as my start date, since that's when I started my degree program. I don't know about scanning or mailing - I think it might depend on the university. I scanned Form 1 part 1 and Form 1 part 2, along with my Notice of Award, and sent it to the Graduate Studies faculty. I haven't heard any response yet. But my understanding is that they complete the rest of form 2 and send it to SSHRC, yes.

Cordyceps, I think that would depend if you were an alternate. If you are an alternate, there is no set deadline. I have heard of people getting the reward even in December. But if you were sent forward with no strings attached, I imagine you should have heard by now, and you might want to email SSHRC. Stupid question, perhaps: is the "award number" the same thing as the "file number"? I cannot, for the life of me, find this "award number". I received exactly 3 sides of paper in the mail: a NOTICE OF AWARD listing my file number, start date, duration, and amount; a letter telling me to indemnify SSHRC and telling me how to start activating the award; and the congratulatory letter from the Director. Would appreciate any help!

So, it turns out that SSHRC had sent out my letter to my old address, though I had changed it well in advance. But I got it! Yay. Yellowfish, I think they mean you shouldn't go out of your way to announce it to the world, especially in written/published form. But I honestly don't know how serious they are about this. I mean, I'm sure most people on this thread have notified their facebook worlds of the fact that the government just gave them $17500. Go ahead and tell your loved ones; shout it from your proverbial mountaintop. It's celebration time!

Thanks for letting me know! I still haven't received any letter, and am pretty nervous. Congrats! I live in Burnaby, which is right next to Vancouver proper. Still haven't gotten mine... I see. Let me know how it goes! Tri-council funding is always a plus for these kinds of things!

This is very strange. You should absolutely email them, letting them know you have external funding (especially if they are Canadian schools). From what I've read on other threads, departments will often reconsider and offer admission. And by the way, your stats merit heavy consideration for entry in your program -- I have no idea what those admissions committees were thinking. Maybe your reference letters weren't as strong as they needed to be...? But I'm confident that if you talk to them, they'll think hard about accepting you. You are clearly accomplished and pay for much of your own studies. Good luck! I got an email from Graduate Studies today telling me how to activate my award "if have received an award offer", and yet within that same email it congratulates me on my SSHRC. So it seems like a yes? No letter mail for me today in BC, though two others got it today -- congratulations, by the way! I won't celebrate mine til the piece of paper tells me so. My stats at time of application: GPA: 4.30 during last two years Graduate RAships A few minor scholarships (ranging from $500 - $6000) Hopefully I'm put out of my misery tomorrow!

La Marquise, you are attending McGill in the English program? I feel like... I should know you?