Oshawott

As an actual TA in a Psych department, I would like to add that quite literally no one cares about students' essays after the semester is over. If we do care, its because we think they'd be good RA's or project students. And @elemosynarical if a TA is in a bad mood 4 - 5 years later and is still in academia, they'd probably be channeling their inner Reviewer #2 rather than looking up an old essay.

The tri-council agencies look for indicators of academic and research potential, so holding a previous award technically helps in that regard. With that said, I wouldn't really say there's much causal explanation between getting MA SSHRC and getting PhD SSHRC, so much as the fact that if you *had* good indicators of research potential entering your master's to the point that you got a CGS-M, you probably also have them going into your PhD.

I finally got my letter so I'll update on the score for people waiting/wondering what the cut-offs might be: Award: SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship ($80,000 over 4 years) Score: 13.4 / 20 Committee 4: Education, linguistics, psychology, social work Also for people wondering: Deadline to accept is May 23 for people on the wait list wondering how long the wait might be.

Especially since I'm fairly sure the schools get the results by email and I have to confirm everything by email....yet they won't let me activate the award because we have to "go by the book" and I haven't received the letter by snail mail yet.

Considering the late mailing date and the disparity I'm starting to think that SSHRC may have paid extra to mail the letters by courier for out-of-province and international addresses while relying on Canada Post for in-province. Someone mentioned getting their letter in Montreal way before anyone mentioned Ontario.

Now I'm really anxious because I've lost mail before in my apartment. I guess I can always email SSHRC to see what address it was forwarded to :'(

Honestly, I think the only thing keeping you from getting through the door is the GRE's. While schools don't necessarily have an "official" cut-off, if they get a lot of applications, its an easy filter. I would consider using Magoosh to study verbal and quant, and do a lot of practice tests to get used to the testing situation. Even if you are a bad tester now, you can learn to be a better one (especially since Magoosh and other prep materials teach you how to strategically approach questions). The ETS also publishes their issues and analytic type questions. While you don't need to go over every single one, getting used to the structure of the types of essays you are expected to write will help. It's been awhile since I wrote this so I don't recall how to best approach this but they're also pretty formulaic as well. With your experience, if you can bring up your Quant and Verbal to decent levels I'm sure you'd have a good shot at getting in.

The school is really annoying with this....they know who won, but I am not allowed to activate the award until the snail mail has arrived....despite the fact that every other document I sign and send around is being sent electronically. This has got to be some next-level inefficiency and because of how late the mail arrived, I am unable to start it for the summer semester.

It seems weird that people in Montreal are getting it then...unless SSHRC paid extra for out-of-province or sent it earlier.

The notification process seems idiosyncratic between schools and for what it's worth, my student account says I got the Doctoral Fellowship and I didn't get an email, yet people on the waitlist at my school seem to have been notified.

@jennyeee I'm also from Western but didn't get an email. You can go to student center and check under "Graduate External Scholarships" to see if you got the award. I found out I got the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship this way when Erin Daley only emailed me about OGS. Not sure what the disparity is though (maybe they were going alphabetically and clocked out mid-way? Maybe they prioritized OGS and CGS?) @storiesofsnow and @howlx; if you don't mind my asking, did you both get the CGS/waitlisted for CGS or the Doctoral Fellowship? I'm trying to figure out why I didn't get an email (and am really hoping I wasn't accidentally awarded lol...).

I thought you weren't allowed to apply for that unless you were a current SSHRC CGS holder.

I've seen people hold it at the same time--at least in name. According to the Trudeau Scholarship website: "It is permitted if the other scholarships or fellowships allow the accumulation of awards. The Foundation will reduce the amount offered if the total value of those external awards exceeds $10,000 CAD." So if I'm interpreting this right, you'd have the monetary value of the Vanier in full and likely none of the Trudeau Scholarship's (since the Vanier's award is so high) but the Trudeau does come with other fringe benefits that likely stays intact (i.e., the mentorship, travel and research allowance) so if you can get both, get both

I had a longer response full of anecdotes but it can honestly be summed up as this: If you aren't sure, don't go. This is 4 - 6 years of your young adult life that you're investing. Even in the best situations, things can go wrong and remember, people are (mostly) on their best behaviour in interviews. If anything seems suspicious then don't go. But this was also going around on academic twitter: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/opinion/sunday/the-utter-uselessness-of-job-interviews.html (so extrapolate that to graduate student interviews if you wish)

Honestly, I didn't think that the social sciences were so underfunded that SSHRC can't afford email Joking aside, I do wonder why SSHRC is so far behind the times with regards to electronic applications.

So NSERC applicants have been hearing back at my school. I'm just wondering if SSHRC will take longer because they do it by mail (not sure if NSERC does to or if its online)

Does anyone know how likely it is to get SSHRC once you're forwarded to the national competition?

I know some schools state on their website that the applicants should also apply for external funding as a "condition" to getting internal funding. Not sure how much they actually mean that versus how much of it is just to ensure you apply They may ask you about whether you applied externally for funding, just have a good reason why you didn't. I'm currently at a school where I didn't apply for a tri-council grant my first year and I explained that the reason I didn't do it was because: 1) I am limited to 5 applications for masters (important to mention as this wasn't the case previously and some PI's aren't aware of this change) 2) I was applying for a provincial grant for the school (obviously limitations apply depending on which school you're going to). You're in Ontario based on your profile, so if you had to choose where to take a tri-council grant, choose out-of-province since you are able to apply to OGS. 3) the school has the best funding offer and was a two-year Master's, so I could apply to get the tri-council grant for the following year Just be sure to communicate your reasons well to ensure them that it isn't because you don't want to go to their school. I guess the last two points are situationally applicable, but if you're going to be pragmatic, I would apply based on what puts me in the best financial situation regardless of where I go.

They ask you to specifically indicate peer-reviewed works (as defined by their criteria) with an (R) at the left of the citation, so list them under the relevant headings, and if it was peer reviewed under that criteria, write (R). I'm also pretty sure that conference presentations fall under "other refereed contributions" I had saw the proposal of a previous awardee and they did that.

That moment when you realize that the way you constructed your study design makes data analysis needlessly difficult.

Maybe it's field-specific since you're in Clinical and that's a way more competitive program than my area. It might also be regionally specific, as the vast majority of my applications were top Canadian programs (all specified last two years, and some of those programs are competitive with top U.S. institutions globally) so I may not have fact-checked the American ones properly in terms of GPA requirement since as I noted in my above post, my standing relative to other people GPA/GRE wise wasn't as big a factor in terms of who I decided to apply to (not to say that it isn't important!) After checking a few top U.S. schools, as @The_Old_Wise_One said, they look for major and cGPA, so I would second their cautiousness. Apply for Master's programs where you can get the most out of your research productivity, strong statistical training, and demonstrate your ability to handle graduate-level work.

Regarding your GPA, if your last two years is ~3.75+ GPA and high GRE scores (320+ combined), I wouldn't rule out PhD's in the top 20--however if you want to get a good idea where you actually would rank, some schools post admission information like GPA and GRE averages/ranges of their accepted applicants. If you're within the range or slightly below the average, then I wouldn't shut the door. Research-wise, you've been very productive with 5 conferences, potentially one publication, and have shown that you are competitive for research grants at the undergraduate level. You also have actual I/O consulting experience on top of your research projects. Don't sell yourself short just because you had a rocky start. My advice would be to first look at POI's you're interested in before you look at what school they come from. After you compile a list, narrow it down based on placement rates of your POI's (i.e., do their students graduate with jobs you want) This is a better indicator of how you will succeed rather than looking at the program's aggregate since some faculty may be excellent at placing students while others are not. After that, email the POI's to see if they are accepting students (only take them off the list if they explicitly say no; if they don't respond they may have just lost the email or been too busy). Once all of this is done, look at the school's rankings and find information on the GRE/GPA of accepted applicants, and gauge your competitiveness. Again, being a bit below the average at a top-rank institution is not bad (it is an average so there has to be people below it). Finally, if you're still uncertain about it, ask your LOR writers to assess your competitiveness and give suggestions. Even if they're not necessarily IO, they'd still have a good idea of how students should fair.

Most grad schools only take into consideration the last two years (or equivalent) of undergrad so your GPA is probably fine. The only thing that I would be concerned about with regards to your profile is the one mediocre LOR...depending on what you mean by mediocre. Do you mean that the letter writer can't really say anything good?

After years of working near or below the poverty line as a graduate student, do they really expect anyone to do this? If these unpaid post-docs actually become a thing in my field within the next few years, then that will answer my "academia or industry?" question.

I don't think its too uncommon a route to start at college and then finish your degree at a university. Most graduate schools only look at the last 20.0 FCE (~last two years of study) so your first year won't even be considered when they look at transcripts. As for your CV, list your most current degree first, so your university degree should be on top. I'm assuming you got an associate degree along the way? If not, I'm not sure there would be any point in listing your college on your CV (I don't really see people listing schools that they transfer out from regardless of whether it was college or university).