clinchemguy

You're right about subjectivity and we all have similar stories. But objectively speaking, there's no reason to score 3.6 given aiden87's academic record. And I think that's the problem that being highlighted here, which is that sometimes the scores are unreflective of the candidate especially in areas where subjectivity isn't an appropriate excuse. I do believe that Vanier is much less subjective given how they score the candidates - it goes through two rounds of review and each round is headed by a committee of professors (fortunately not just based on the scores of two professors). Also, it is much more difficult to judge the subjectivity of the Vanier process given that they release very little information to applicants in terms of the specific scoring in the different areas (they only provide an overall score in academics, research, and leadership without the specific breakdown unlike CIHR).

Totally agree with you!!! I'm in the same situation as you. I got a Vanier for this year and got rejected for DRA. I was completely killed by one reviewer who essentially hated every part of my application while the other reviewer gave me a really high score. As with you, I don't need the DRA but I would be pretty upset if I wasn't lucky enough to get the Vanier this year too. I actually emailed CIHR asking them to give an explanation of how they deal with discrepancies and it turns out the good reviewer put me above the cut-off but the other reviewer put me far, far, far, far, far below. I'm going to keep inquiring with them because I think it's really unfair to everyone who applies that the process can be so subjective. I would suggest you email them too!