Sempiternipulus

I'm a bit worried as well. I'm at U of T, currently 1st year PhD. When I was sent on from my MA university I had heard sometime around late November. Likewise, my girlfriend had heard from U of T that she was sent on around the last week of November. I talked briefly to my department's graduate secretary about it and she seemed to indicate that they were behind this year. That was around December 1st or so. I got the impression, however, that she was avoiding telling me bad news, but that may be the SSHRC paranoia setting in early this year. I think the universities have to send their lists to SSHRC by February 2nd, so we should be hearing either way by then at the latest.

I just got my results, and ended up doing surprisingly poorly. 12.7/30. For context, which may be helpful to others, I'm starting my PhD at Toronto this fall. I was ranked 2nd in my department going into the competition, had MA CGS, "A" undergrad GPA, slightly higher than "A" MA GPA, 2 conferences one of which was a very major one, 1 minor publication. Someone I know working on a similar topic with equivalent grades/experience/references ended up with a 21/30. I have no idea why the SSHRC gods looked so unfavourably upon me.

Does anyone think it's worthwhile calling SSHRC at this point to get results? It seems kind of weird that they'll tell people where they rank on a waitlist, but they won't say whether someone has won or not.

Since I haven't posted for a while, and I no longer have any finger nubs to bite, let alone nails (thanks to my department being one of the ones which refuses to give out any information until the letters are "officially" received, GRRR!) I thought I might offer some consolation to those who have been unsuccessful or are still waiting like myself. From what I understand, the final scores have more to do with the people who adjudicated your file than your impressiveness as a grad student. For example, I had heard that several, or perhaps many, years ago in my discipline (history) no one working on topics earlier than 1800 was funded because one jerk on the panel decided that anything before that point was irrelevant to modern society. Other times apparently people win SSHRC, but don't win OGS (the Ontario funding, which is generally much less competitive). I've also heard stories of people with A- GPAs getting funding over those who had As. In other words, it's a total crap shoot, so don't be disheartened if you haven't gotten it this year. The same application might be funded next year, depending on who's reading your file. SIGH, back to waiting.

Perhaps calling it a SSHRC Fellowship is more suitable (considering that's what it is)? Also, I don't think the MAs really need to worry about results coming out late. From what I understand, the MA competition works differently; virtually everyone who gets recommended at the MA level gets funding because each university gets a fixed quota of CGSs (unlike SSHRC doctoral which only guarantees a number of applicants, not wins). At least at my MA university that's what I was told. Also, congratulations to everyone who has had good news, but for those of us left, hasn't the torture of waiting become so much more intensified now that so many people are finding out? At least for me, I keep expecting the worst.

$35k/year for 3 years is the "super-sshrc". It's only tenable in Canada. The sshrc fellowship is $20k/year for up to 4 years. It's tenable anywhere in the world.

Same thing for me. I haven't heard from either Grad Studies or my department, which makes me think that they don't know because my Grad secretary is really nice. My only hope now is that I'll receive a letter tomorrow, as I'm in Ottawa.

HAHAHAHA! That captures exactly how I feel! That's the funniest thing I've seen in a long time!

It feels kind of like we're a bunch of pigeons. Every time someone gets a crumb of information we get all flustered trying to find a crumb ourselves. If this is their lot in life, it must suck to be a pigeon.

It seems most likely to me that you don't actually have to pay tuition. I would suspect that you're getting $15k standard, plus a top up of $3k. Also, thanks Canuckonomist. I feel less bad about being poor in that case. I have been pretty irritated with the U of T funding structure, however. I'm pretty frustrated that I'll be making quite a bit less money at U of T for my PhD than I am at a mediocre university for my MA. It's quite discouraging.

I see. I have a feeling that I'm being screwed over. I haven't actually seen a breakdown of funding, but I was told that the standard package is $15k for living, plus whatever tuition is (which I expect would put it at somewhere close to $25k over all). I had also seen that TAships were valued at only $8k. Does this differ according to discipline? As far as I know (from talking to people with much more impressive CVs than myself) no one in History this year received a much better package. I know someone who had an OGS in history last year. She was told that if she wanted to TA, she'd be given $15,600 rather than $15,000.

In order to divert myself from waiting for results somewhat. I wondered if any of you U of T people understand how their funding system works? From what I understand, when you get OGS they suck up all of your internal funding, so you're left with $15k regardless. It seems like if you get SSHRC, you still get paid for TAing. Is this the case? So if you got SSHRC fellowship you'd actually receive $28k, but is tuition then deducted from that? Sorry for changing the subject somewhat, but I've been a bit confused (and quite annoyed) over this and it's sort of pertinent to this board.

I assume most of us are living variations on that theme. The only difference for me is that my Honey Bunches are leftover sushi. Here's hoping someone hears something soon!

It's because the quote above refers to the doctoral competition exclusively. The stats you've listed include doctoral, masters and post-doc awards.

Last year they weren't posted on the SSHRC site for quite a while. I think definitely not before the September/October. I think maybe even later than that.