CrazyPugLady

The Vanier CGS site still doesn't have a site, but apparently ResearchNet has a date...? I really hope it's early April. Last year it was end of April, near May. It nearly killed me from the suspense. I'm jaded this year after being waitlisted... and I'm so busy elsewhere in life I don't have time to think about this award as hard as I did last year. I hope we find out sooner than later!!!

I'm so burned out. I really tried my best. I think getting waitlisted truly had a negative impact on my confidence, and subsequently, my performance. I am just not as motivated (ironically enough), as I was the first year I applied for Vanier. I was so confident last year it was a huge kick in the ego. I really hope this year is the year, but who knows. I'm gonna set my expectations low. It'd be nice because I am miserable in my current job and would love to devote my full time to doing my PhD.

The shortness makes it challenging! I won OGS this past year and I basically took the important bits of my SSHRC / Vanier application. Good luck.

Long time to speak everyone! I got forwarded to Ottawa and my application is under peer review. I forget what the next step is, I guess I'm so traumatized by last year, lol. Do we know at this point if our applications don't make through the binning process? It's killing me I have to wait until April again for this torture. I really beefed up my application. Have a forthcoming academic publication this month, I presented two papers at International Sociological Association, did invited talks about my research in colloquiums and radio, and I won OGS. Compared to last year's application, this is strong. But it is a crapshoot. At least if I don't win again and get waitlisted AGAIN this year, I can say at least I did everything in my power. Last year I was filled with regrets because I had no grant awards, no publications, and only minor conference activity. Good luck to everyone.

I wish that were the case, I'm literally having anxiety and bouts of depression because of the uncertainty. My department is not giving me any answers either. It is a simple yes or no. I'd obviously be upset if it were a no, but at least I don't have to have this weighing in my head. That system is a lot better than what we have. At least we don't waste time preparing an application at the department level. Basically if you are nominated, it's a green light to prepare an application.

No. It does NOT guarantee national nomination. ONE candidate per department is nominated, gets forwarded to the graduate awards committee for the entire institution, there they decide which applications go national. The process at my school is stupidly convoluted and thinking about it is making me upset hahaha

Ugh, the process at my institution is SO annoying. :| Departments can only nominate one candidate and they must not have completed 20 months of their doctoral studies by May 2019. I qualify despite being 2nd year PhD. Since I got nominated last year, the chances of my department renominating me is in the air. I had conversations with the grad chair and the department chair who gave me diplomatic but canned responses of, "you are such a strong candidate, you should be happy being waitlisted for Vanier! Not many people make it that far!" and then telling me because of my performance in the Vanier competition, I would be a strong candidate for the SSHRC Doctoral CGS. I also get bulls*it responses about how not everyone gets their SSHRC in their first and second year as if that's a consolation prize. In any case I do not agree with at all because I scored pretty high in Vanier and basically failed the rankings on the SSHRC Doctoral. It's like comparing apples to oranges - the Vanier is based on community involvement and leadership much more than SSHRC, which seems to be purely academic. So this is pissing me off. They sent calls for nominations I believe and I got two faculty members to put my name in. But it is still in the air. By the time we find out who is nominated it'll be late-August to early-September which is what f*cked me over last year giving me a month to prepare to submit an application! If I had known publications counted for that much I wish I knew before September so I could have at least made a manuscript to submit to a journal. Sigh. Do I seem bitter about it, yes I am, because I was so close and now due to stupid politics at my institution, I may not have a chance at Vanier again even though I made many strides into improving my application for next season, such as actually submitting stuff to journals and doing high-level conference panel talks.

Congrats! I am putting two and two together and I think I know who you are on the winner's list, haha.

I presented at ISA last week and was approached by Canadian faculty to apply for the Trudeau. To be honest I never considered it because I didn't think my research was compatible. I am interested to see the new criteria. I am working to get nominated by my institution.

You should have gotten it from the letter you received from SSHRC.

It makes no sense!! My friend who won Vanier this year did not win SSHRC doctoral. Flat out rejected like me. Last year, another friend of mine who won Vanier didn't even get forwarded to the national competition. These friends of mine go to the same school as me.

I got 9.5/20 which is hilarious since I scored relatively well enough for the Vanier to be waitlisted. SSHRC and all these agencies is literally a crapshoot and sometimes makes no logical sense. At least that's what people have been telling me to make me feel less bummed, lol!

Your support means a lot! I am sad too. Gonna go mope about it at home, lol. I won OGS I guess... I will take my Vanier waitlist as a loss because I doubt at this point until the next fiscal year (March 2019) that 3 people from SSHRC Vanier will drop.

Welp, I got the response from another person in our graduate awards department. I wasn't even waitlisted at Carleton. Flat out rejected! I don't know my scoring, so when I do I'll update.

I've seen tenure-track faculty (this is in sociology and women's studies) not have SSHRC, but to compensate they have done many conferences and have some publications under their belt. If you have other awards like OGS that could help you. I mean, you could always apply for a SSHRC Post-doc fellowship down the line...

I think you have a good shot if someone won the Vanier. Depends what school you're at and committee, I think?

Look at you, superstar! Congrats to you. You could at least put on your CV you declined that.

Carleton.

So annoying! The Graduate Awards officer at our school is away on holiday until next week!!! I tried emailing others in the graduate affairs and they said I'd have to wait for her. I am anxious to know if I got a letter today. I am in Ottawa. This is killing me because I'd definitely have to wait until next week!!!!

Thanks for this! I guess we'll be getting the results next week then...

I mean, it's not too early to start. You can look at the previous year's guidelines and start drafting your research proposal and leadership statement. Trust me. The more time you spend refining it, the better. Do not be like other people who start at the very last minute. You're going to want all the time and help you can get (people to proofread and edit your proposal)! I started two months in advance -- the result was that my proposal was "good" as I think research potential counts for the proposal (I scored 6.75) ... you will be less stressed out and you will have a foundation from which you can craft your SSHRC and provincial funding agency applications!!! Anyway, good luck to the people applying this period. I am still waiting on my SSHRC Doctoral. If I don't get that I have to convince my department to nominate me again (which I've never done before, lol) and then go from there.

I noted it above. You don't know if in the next years you will win Vanier anyway. Or if you will win SSHRC Doctoral again. When you're in your upper-years, I believe evaluations are more critical in terms of what you have accomplished academically and otherwise. There is no guarantee you will win Vanier in the next year or even score higher the other years. In previous Vanier threads here, people have scored lower in some parts of their application than in previous years! Different committees and such.

To be honest I think it's more competitive. You are applying against others from different departments. I am not sure if the pool is divvied into different streams like the tri-agency (NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR), so you would be competing against everybody? Even then, it is highly competitive within your department especially if you are a MA. You stand to compete with PhDs for the same prize. At least that's how it works here, according to our department.

If you could defer, I definitely would. I don't think that's possible. While my chances of getting Vanier next year may increase (given that I will have publications, won OGS, and am attending major conferences and presenting my papers this summer), since my big area of improvement is "academic excellence" (my GPA wasn't enough, even though on my school's GPA scale I have 11.5/12. Also, I did key invited presentations as a MA graduate at my department, a speaker series usually reserved for doctoral students who graduated, among other things). Yet if I were offered a SSHRC... I'd take it. You don't know if the next time you apply for Vanier if you would get it. I am still eligible next year at my school, but the year after I am no longer since they have some rule. (People in their first and second years can apply only). I would kick myself for potentially failing to get Vanier again and perhaps even failing to get SSHRC doctoral in the subsequent years. What I'm saying is, you never know if you will get SSHRC again if you decide to decline and take your chances for Vanier. As we've all discussed here, the evaluations are arbitrary and can change from year to year. It's better to get 75k than to get nothing at all.

I was in contact with people at Carleton. The people seem to be nicer to doctoral students than MAs. But keep in mind they just recovered from a strike like a month ago. The contact person said that I would likely know the results beforehand before they do. So at this point I will just stop asking them and be patient.