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Look at the award's holders guide, as well as in the activation form. The cheque is sent to you directly; nothing goes through the school. What you need however is a signature from your graduate coordinator (or someone at your department) attesting that you are a full-time PhD student in their program; this will, indirectly, let them know you hold this award. Sooo... it doesn't go through the school since it's paid directly to you, but they will know about it at your school since they have to sign the activation form. Also, I guess it would be somewhat unethical not telling them, but I guess that if this was a factor you would have told them about this anywayz.

It's good money, and provides good signal. If I were to apply anywhere, I would definitely let them know of SSHRC or any other form of funds that were awarded.

Here's my tip for a good proposal (among the other excellent suggestions brought up here previously) [it is strictly from my own experience]: Be very enthustiastic about working with somebody specific at the institution you're applying to (for the purposes of the application), explain why you'd like to work with him/her, etc. - then, get him to be one of your referees, and make sure he says the same about you (i.e. he's enthusiastic about working with you as well). This can be your honors-thesis supervisor in undergrad (if you're applying to MA, or straight to PhD), or your MA thesis supervisor, or somebody you worked for as a research assistant. I followed the advice of someone who has been on the SSHRC committees, and done this for both the MA and Doctoral competitions, and I think it made a difference in both times. This is something that goes a bit beyond the good grades, publications, interesting proposal, etc. (that I assume almost all of the final candidates present). It shows the committee that there's a good match presented here (between the student and the potential supervisor), which would possibly lead to productive research (more so than in other cases)

great news!!! excellent... congratssss. this is well deserved (and allow me to assume one of these two have already [or will shortly] accept the vanier; i cant really see how some1 would decline the vanier in this case [in case he/she studies in canada])

A small remark for people here who have already started their program, received an award, and thus had May 1st (2010) as their start date: Not only that you can ask that your award will start at Sep. 1st (2010), but you are in fact ELIGIBLE for it, so that you can simply make a request to change the start date and they'll change it (though I guess this is only relevant for people who are in their 1st year of the program, because those who are in the second, might have their duration of the award changed [in a case of a change of start date], so take note of that).

Oh and here's another interesting thing mentioned in the letter: apparently only 930 awards were made. There were 1942 forwarded applications, which gives a lower success rate than past years (and lower overall number of awards given). I guess Vanier's responsible for that. Thanks everybody for the congrats, and well good luck!!

Sure. As Canuck said, I'm at the Hebrew University (Israel). Since it takes forever for mail to get here from Canada, and since the award starts this May (as I've already started the phd program) then they agreed to email me the result, so I could respond quickly enough to be able to accept the award and deal with all the paperwork. Canuck, many thanks for the all the kind words! I also believe you're presenting a very strong case in this competition, and I keep my fingers crossed for you in hopes to hear some very good news in the next few days!! You're having the comps soon right?? Concentrating on that while waiting for SSHRC is not an easy task.. hope it all works out well.

Oh and my score was 21.1 / 30 if that means anything

Just asked for my result by email, and got it ) i was successful!!!!! yahhhhhhh.... very happyyyyyy!! all letters were mailed apparently today btw

Today is da day ! Good luck everybody (though I guess it'll take a few days for the letters to get wherever). I look forward for updates through this forum (i.e. individual scores [which would be available in this final round I presume], etc.)

Those who study at foreign Universities I believe are getting paid by cheques that are sent by regular mail (to the student's choice of address) twice a year; meaning, each cheque covers 6 months worth of funding. Also, they say the cheque is in the currency of the country in which the student studies (quite convenient isn't it?). The only thing that is done through the University is getting an official there to say you're studying full-time and not working anywhere.

'still' means they told you that today (or at least recently)? If so they should indeed simply pick a date and stick to it. Would be easier to everybody (including themselves I think).

Canuck, your publication is def. noteworthy. It is a peer-reviewed publication, co-authored with a respected professor in our field. I have no doubts this plays a significant role in your application; even more so given that almost no other SSHRC applicant in our field (and in our stage of the program) presents something similar. I can only wish I had something like that under my belt. All I tried to say was that it is very much possible to win this even with no publications (especially in economics); yet having one shows great research potential which is a major booster in this competition. What's a scale tipper by the way?

Sounds like you're in excellent shape. I think SSHRC people are experienced enough to know in which disciplines it is more common to publish and in which less so. I can tell you that in economics for instance (which is what I'm studying) it is also quite rare to have (noteworthy) publications at the time of application, and people still win this award. My guess is that this rather depends much on your research proposal, and to a lesser extent on the letters of recommendation as well.

I was told a few weeks back that we should hear at the end of April. That's why I do think they should be mailed out either this week or the next. This week is a definitive possibility.

What does it mean "results came out May 12th" and "letters were mailed May 26th" ? I am not sure I understood that. Dosn't an applicant get his/her results through the mail? (so that in last year's case 'may 26th' was the date to look at). Meaning, what does the 'May 12th' date mean? If the results are out 2 weeks before the letters are mailed, where is it possible to view them? Are they posted online or something? Thanks!

You can't both.. it is not possible to concurrently use two provincial/governmental awards. You'd have to accept only one of the awards; this goes the same for people who won OGS/SSHRC or OGS/FQRSC and so on. As you said, since SSHRC gives out more money, it is better to accept them; it is the more prestigious award as well, so perhaps that's another reason why people decline the provincial ones over it.

Got in touch with them by email. I wasn't too happy about that piece of information as well, but perhaps there's still reason to stay optimistic as you said, who knows. I actually believe that if they say things should be out towards the end of the month then it probably means we should expect to get news some time in May. Oh well.. couple of weeks and it's all done.

Just heard from SSHRC that results should be out towards the end of the month. This means there's still time. I'd say in approx. 3 weeks we'd all have the final decisions with us.

I actually believe that grades matter a lot, though maybe I am not that familiar with the process. Isn't academic merit the most important factor in the process? This is measured I believe by awards received previously, letters of reference, but also by grades.

Yeah, definitely. One shouldn't feel too bad if he's/she's not funded by SSHRC. Their selection method is far from perfect. This is the first time I apply for doctoral funding, though I did go through this process once before for the MA (even though there it was somewhat different, since when I heard the application was forwarded I pretty much knew already what the final outcome would be, as opposed to our case here). Still, the waiting game is not easy..

Well, I find this to be a key issue actually (background of whomever judges your file). From what I gather you can choose which sub-committee will read your file (from the 5 committees mentioned in the application), but then in this sub-committee you have people from multiple fields, so it's not really read by people from your field specifically. This is in fact why a siginificant portion of the outcome depends on 'luck' and randomess; you might have people from other fields reading your file, and they'd have no idea what you're talking about in your research statement, and will not know your referees or your department that well (and of course, it could also be the other way around). This is why I tried to write my propsal as simple as possible without too many technicalities, so that pretty much everybody can understand it (they actually mention it somewhere that it should be done this way). I hope it would help somehow. We'll see shortly I guess.

Now, this is indeed the real question! This process involves much randomess and luck, and this is where that enters. If the readers are somehow well acquainted with your referees then it will naturally help you a lot; same with your department. This is not to say that strong letters from unknown Assistant Professors wouldn't be of help, but if it would be a strong letter from a well respected Professor who's really known in his field then the letter would be very credible in the eyes of the reader I persume. Also, they say that points are given to having an 'appropriate' program of study; what does that mean? Part of it means that you're doing a PhD at a well respected department in your field (if it is outside of Canada). This is where much of the randomess of the process lies (together with trying to impress them with your research proposal), which is why we'd have to keep our fingers crossed up until we actually get the letters.

Yes you should contact them. This is far from nagging. It might be that the letter got lost in the main somewhere. Anyhow, they're in a position to send you the decision by email (since you didn't get your letter), so just write them about this. They're pretty quick and efficient with this actually.

Well, to be precise last year only 126 were forwarded (out of only 386 applications), out of which only 82 won an award (this was 65% success rate for forwarded applications last year, but if the same number of awards stays this year [82 awards] we'd have only 35% success rate). The numbers presented in the former message were taken from tab #2 (institution to award the PhD) whereas we (external applicants) should look at tab #1 (institution of affiliation at time of application). Under tab #2 (in the foregin column) are also applicants who initially applied through a Canadian University (but have mentioned they want to take the award at a foregin university). We can see from the above that this year the number of applications (for external applicants) doubled, and the number of applications forwarded was doubled as well. Let's just hope that the number of awards will double also (to around 160s) so the success rate will be maintained; otherwise we'd land somewhere around the 35ish% success rate, which is the lowest ever.