mudlark

Yes, but the score won't give you any useful information.

I'm wondering the same thing, since I just found out from a friend of mine in the exact same program as me that her CGS-winning score was only .1 higher than my SSHRC-winning score. So I turned to the good old competition statistics spreadsheets. Last year, there were 936 winners studying in Canada, and 82 winners studying abroad, or about 8% of the total pool. There are 21 pages on the competition results for CGS, and 25 for 'small' SSHRC. I don't want to count the damned things, so let's say conservatively 40% of winners get a CGS. Last year, history won 95 awards, 38 of which were probably CGS. Now the question is how many of those CGS awards were won by students studying abroad? 8% of 38 is two. But I'm willing to bet that people taking up awards abroad are probably winning the CGS at higher rates. Say they win at twice the normal rate, and get 4 CGS awards that they have to turn down. I think someone upthread said that each sub-group is under a hundred people (although I don't know where they're getting that from), which would mean two history sub-groups based on last year's numbers (164 forwarded), or around two foreign-held CGS per sub-group. All of which is to say that if all of those suppositions hold, you're right on the edge. Hope my guess-work isn't making you even more nervous. Good luck!

Got my letter today, so here are my stats for posterity: 1. Received doctoral fellowship, score 19.3. 2. Alberta 3. Letter received: May 10th 4. Subject area and/or committee: English lit 5. Applied from within university 6. Year in PhD studies when you would take up the award (so, what you’ll be in Sept/Oct. 2010): 2nd year PhD 7. Taylor, Ross, or Queen's Fellowship?? Nope 8. Anything else you want to include that might be helpful: Applied last year, got a score of 15. One conference, no publications, but great letters a (hopefully) solid proposal, loads of teaching and service, a master's SSHRC, and a very strong record of internal funding.

*jaw drops* Sorry, I'm just such a giant flaming SSHRC geek that I'm always amazed when people ask questions like this. Very reasonable question, though. There are two levels of doctoral SSHRC funding: Doctoral fellowships and Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS). The former is "small" SSHRC, and pays out at $20,000/year up through the end of your fourth year. The latter is the "big" SSHRC, which pays out at $35,000 for three years. You can only win a CGS that begins in your first or second year. So a CGS is always $35,000/year for 36 months, while a small SSHRC is $20,000/year for either 12, 24, 36, or 48 months, depending on where you are in the program. On a side note, if you study outside of Canada and you win a CGS, you have to downgrade it to a small SSHRC. Big SSHRCs can't leave the country. So as people studying abroad downgrade their awards, a bunch of people studying within Canada who initially got small SSHRC will suddenly get big SSHRC as the funds are re-allocated. ETA- Cross-posted with Sempiternipulus, who was much more concise.

That's a great attitude to have. Last year my score was 15, and this year I was funded. You're starting out a little higher than me... maybe next year you'll get a CGS!

I won a small SSHRC!!! Heard from my grad chair by e-mail this afternoon! I'm still dying to know what my score is, so that I know if I have any chance of getting bumped up to a CGS as people studying abroad downgrade.

Congrats, Logicbomb! Yeah, but the point is that $105,000 awards are CGS or 'big' SSHRCs, which pay out over 36 months, not 48. So either the number of months or the dollar amount has to be wrong.

Buttered toast and a term paper on Yeats.

Yeah, I'm in western Canada. Hope that your letter flies through the postal system at inhuman speeds, waiting!

Yes, I'm a grad student. No, my grad coordinator does not get access to the results. The people who have non-academic desk jobs administering awards for your school? Those are the people with access. Whichever office you take paperwork to in order to get paid has the people who know electronically who won SSHRC. The awards admin workers may or may not tell the grad chairs, depending on the school. The grad chairs may or may not tell the students, depending on the department. Make sense? PS- Hi Janna and Gillian!

Yes, I heard directly from someone in my grad studies office that they were released electronically this afternoon. So I don't know my result yet, but I know it's coming soon!

Hypatia, what do you mean by this?

And that's a superstar score! Last year, I think a score around 17 or 18 on 30 got you a small SSHRC, and 21+ got you a CGS.

Dangit, I was hoping to get to be the bearer of good news! It turns out that SSHRC is posting results electronically after all. My grad studies office says they're e-mailing grad chairs this afternoon with results.

They usually release the results to a secure server that awards admin workers have access to. Snail mail is just to confirm and make things official by sending you the piece of paper you need to prove you won. This year, the server is apparently having problems. So much for the reliability of electronic communications!

I am so sorry for you and your partner. That sounds horrible. Dealing with sick parents is always hard. My husband and I were living away from our families one year when both of our mothers developed debilitating chronic conditions. It was so difficult to not be there and offer them support in person. That being said, I'm not sure it's an appropriate reason to defer. If it was your partner, absolutely, but maybe not your partner's parent? If it was me, I would still go, but work my ass off to be as supportive as possible. Can you make plans for ways to support your partner long distance? Having some projects in mind to surprise him/her with might help you feel better about going to school. Bottom line is that there will always be crises, some worse than others, and we all have to do our best to soldier on. You'll find reserves of strength within yourself to make this work. I hope that things get better for your family soon.

I'm a big fan of using etexts for note taking. I work on public domain material, so I tend to read a hard copy, flag key sections with sticky notes, then bring up an etext, search for those sections, and copy and paste them. So much faster than typing out quotes! As an English student, I don't tend to take detailed notes in class. I'm more likely to write down things that I need to follow up on--terms I'm unfamiliar with, primary and secondary sources that might be useful.

RE: having old or current friends or advisors on the selection committee: SSHRC has a very strict conflict of interest policy. If someone knows you, they won't participate in the discussion about you. I know because I may have... um... read through some policy...

I absolutely agree! I started the year too proud to wear a backpack, until I got wicked lower back pain from hauling around books in a tote. I got a great Mountain Equipment Co-Op bag. Way better for my health, and somehow, people still recognized that I was a grown up. I did just pick up a big, cool shoulder bag. Like a portfolio bag, maybe? I use it when I'm not carrying much, and I think I'll use it when I teach next year.

Ooh, not sure. It probably goes by how long you're registered as a full time student. If you graduate in May, are you still registered until you complete? Well normally I would say go ask your awards admin folk, but since you're in the US, that won't work. It might be worth e-mailing SSHRC and asking them these questions. They are pretty responsive over e-mail. I know that when I won my MA award, my grad studies office actually went in and changed the start date without telling me--changed it from Sept to May. But that was to help me get my full award, so I'm glad they did it. (I showed up all anxious to change my start date, and they were like "We did that before we forwarded you!"). If I win, I'll be talking to my current office just to make sure that I can keep my summer funding and start in Sept. But yeah, I'm pretty clueless about non-Canadian payouts, so you should check with someone who knows better!

Ah, that makes sense! The people you should really be asking are the awards workers at your faculty of graduate studies. You don't get a paycheck directly from SSHRC. They give the money to your school, who then doles it out. Different schools have different set ups. My MA school paid you bi-weekly, while my PhD school pays monthly. If you win a PhD SSHRC, it will support you up to the end of your fourth year of study, so you might want to set your start date to make it last right up to that date. Forgive me if the following is obvious, but it sounds like it might be helpful. It helps not to think of SSHRC as a set amount, but as a promise of financial support for a set period of time. SSHRC supports graduate students up through the 24th month of their MA program (to a max of one year of funding) and through the 48th month of their PhD programs (to a max of three years of funding for the 'big' SSHRC ($35,000/year) and four years for the 'small' SSHRC ($20,000/year). So you can get big SSHRC for years 1-3 or years 2-4, and you can get small SSHRC for years 1-4, 2-4, 3-4, or just 4. The amount goes down with each passing year, since the yearly payout remains the same, but you're not eligible for as many years of support. So if you won small SSHRC for year one you'd receive a total of $80,000, and if you won a small SSHRC for year four you'd receive a total of $20,000. Ok, so the timing thing. For example, I'm in my first year now, and would be picking up a PhD SSHRC for my second year if I won. Again, SSHRC supports PhD students up through the 48th month of their PhD programs-- in my case, with my Sept 2009 start, that's August 2013. The trick is to match the date at which you're no longer eligible with the date at which your SSHRC runs out. Now, if I hypothetically started getting payments in May 2010, then I would run out of SSHRC in April 2013. But if I start getting payments in September 2010, then my SSHRC doesn't run out until August 2013. Since I have good funding for this summer, I could hypothetically gain an extra summer's worth of funding by timing my SSHRC out properly (I'd have to give up this summer's funding if I started on SSHRC). Since a lot of scholarships and other funding opportunities are only available up through your 48th month, when we're all *supposed* to finish, it's smart to max out what you're making in those first four years and make sure you're covered right up til the end of them. Of course, my program has an average completion time of 5.5 years, but funding gets scarce for 5th and 6th year students. Hope this is helpful.

Wordbird has it right, although if you're an ongoing student you usually have the choice of whether to start in May or September. That is, I don't think it was unusual for her to have the choice. If I win, I'll hopefully start in September, since I have another scholarship to get me through the summer, and I want to stretch the funding as far as possible. May means May 2010. Of course, by the time we hear and the lucky winners get all their paperwork in, a big chunk of May will likely be gone. That means that people with a May start will get their May 'paycheck' along with their June paycheck. Not sure what you mean buy "does it mean they pay over 3 times". Clarification?

Ah, that's too bad. I have a friend who works in university admin and handles some SSHRC stuff. She said that this year there was no secure server access for the Vaniers, but she was hoping it'd be up for the main batch. Crappy that it won't be! This is completely insane! Crazy lady! I will be ripping the letter open as soon as I see it. I doubt I'll have time to process the "ooh, a letter from SSHRC!" thought, let alone the "let's see... three random strangers on the internet said 8.5 by 11, but two others said it was legal size... if I do a weighted average...." That being said, I was forwarded but not funded last year, and the envelope was still huge. Like, folded in half to fit in my mailbox huge, if I'm remembering correctly. All at once. Honestly? Wait for my university's top-up award to come through and put several thousand dollars extra towards my mortgage. God, the thought of that is like better than sex...

The fact that you'd rather have a high GPA than a rigorous program suggests that you're not interested in grad school for the right reasons.

Another +1 to sciencegal. A lot of schools don't worry so much about making sure the perfect person is around for their MA students, because MA students often don't have super strong commitments to specific topics, and their interests often change. I know tons of people who started their MA as a Shakespearean and ended it doing graphic novels, or started as a theory geek and ended up doing the 18th century. The question that you really need to get answered is not the general one in your title, however. It's "Are you, my intended supervisor, going to be present and willing to supervise me?" And that's something only that prof can answer.