janelane2

FYI for those at Western, this morning I was moved off the wait-list and offered the award. I am now the second person I know to have gotten off the wait-list so it seems to be moving along fairly well.

This is a super long winded explanation so I can save you the heartbreak of making my mistake of applying to too many programs.
A lot of (most?) programs won't let you apply to more than one program in a given year unless it is two very distinct degrees. For example, you may be able to apply to an MA/PhD in Art History and an MFA in Painting (for example), but they may not let you apply for both an MFA in Painting and an MFA in Sculpture (for example). I think I only applied to one place that explicitly allowed you to apply to more than one program in a single year (SAIC). UIUC and a couple of other places I saw allowed you to select an option to potentially be considered for a different area if they thought it would be a better fit but they didn't allow you to apply for these other areas even if you filed multiple applications. 
After finishing my first round of applications earlier this year I would seriously recommend applying to fewer programs and focusing more on the quality of each one. The multiple essays for each program will take quite a bit of time to do well from the initial writing phase to proofreading and editing. While the statement of purpose could be recycled from school to school with only minor changes (for my SOP I had one paragraph that I tailored to each school and the rest was left mostly intact) the other essays will be completely unique to each school. It is also not uncommon for schools to ask for up to 3 additional essays (especially if you want to be considered for any funding). Plus there's the time required to do the administrative tasks like filling out the applications, uploading the portfolio, requesting recommendations, and dealing with the inevitable glitches. There's no getting around these time commitments. I ended up applying to 8 schools (I intended on 12 but ended up cutting 4) and spent last fall semester either working, going to class, working in the studio, working on the first draft of my thesis, and working on grad school applications. I had no free time, no social life, and my studio practice ended up suffering because I had to dedicate so much time to my applications.
Yes my story is meant to be a cautionary tale because I only ended only being accepted to one program that I ended up turning down. That one program was one of two schools I ended up applying to that I had a good deal of contact with.
tl;dr: Grad apps take way too much time to complete, applying to too many will hurt your applications and therefore your chances of getting into a good program. Try to connect with faculty who will be making the decisions and really focus on perfecting each application. Work smarter not harder. That will get you in instead of using the spray and pray method.

That's not what I meant. I meant if your practice changes drastically then the ideal program for YOU may change as well.

damn. i feel like you might be better off heavily researching schools and faculty members to see where you might fit in best, and focus your energy more narrowly towards those? although it could be an interesting experiment to apply to so many and see where you get in... haha

welcome to our club haha

OGS applications used to be reviewed by a central provincial board but for a number of years now it's the school itself that decides. The province allocates a certain number of awards per school and the school can distribute as they please. I would imagine most schools internally decide to allocate X awards per faculty rather than per department. I also know somebody who did not apply as an existing master's student and who was offered an OGS scholarship with her acceptance letter. So that means some schools could use OGS scholarships as bait for high quality students (in that case there would be no application at all). Hope that helps confuse even more

Also your entire undergrad GPA is not considered. I belive it is just your average of your most recent two years-worth of full time study (either most recent 10.0 credits or just average of last two Fall/Winter semesters, I'm not sure which). 

Yes, thanks fingers crossed!

Thank you! So excited.
Thinking mostly of applicants in future years who might trawl through this thread, I hope it might be useful to document my "journey" with SSHRC.
2014-15: SSHRC CGS-M Waitlisted, unsuccessful.
2015-16 SSHRC CGS-M Successful: Rewrote application entirely.
2019-20: SSHRC CGS-D Rejected: Direct applicant, not yet accepted to school at time of application.
2019-20: OGS Successful: Using trimmed version of CGS-D . 
2020-21: SSHRC CGS-D Successful: Institutional applicant, applied during first year of doctorate. Rewrote application entirely, this time with help from many profs in my dept and university SSHRC-writing workshops. In terms of CV changes since previous application, the only major change is that I had won OGS and been accepted to my program. Score of 17.5/20 - but last year I got 9/20!
I was really crushed by those past rejections, and things could have easily turned out differently this round if my adjudicators had had a different food for breakfast. It's all a roll of the dice, except that no matter what we get stronger, more confident, and more fully formed as we go through iterations. For those who have gotten (or will get) rejections/waitlisted, I feel you so so keenly and I hope my data points are another assurance that your work will ultimately pay off.

It's dependent on whether or not those who were given initial offers are just going into grad school (i.e. do they have offers from other schools?), and whether they have been offered tri-council awards (NSERC, CIHR, SSHRC) which may force them to decline OGS. Unfortunately it seems the numbers vary by year, by faculty, by department, by school etc. and almost no schools release info about the size of wait lists. Just a waiting game or time to look to improving for time I would argue.

asking in earnest--what are you doing right now to transform society? (other than trolling this forum). besides abandoning the cult of academia or whatever, what kind of practical collective action do you suggest artists engage in? should we drop our paintbrushes, band together and go burn down some banks? alright i wrote that last sentence in jest but it doesn't sound bad upon second reading...
i've lived abroad for the last few years making paintings alone in a shack by the sea, and i'm from a hinterland city in canada with a tiny art scene, so the ego and money-driven NYC art thing is foreign to me... but i also have zero desire to go to the US and play that game, i guess for essentially the same reasons you mention. i just want to make paintings, and a funded MFA seems the best way to do that. i think there is value in spending time developing my craft and trying to produce something that might be resonant with others, even though whatever benefit art might provide is abstract and impossible to quantify. do you think it's ethically irresponsible in this global context to want to pursue any kind of higher studies and we should focus our efforts only on organizing? 

asking in earnest--what are you doing right now to transform society? (other than trolling this forum). besides abandoning the cult of academia or whatever, what kind of practical collective action do you suggest artists engage in? should we drop our paintbrushes, band together and go burn down some banks? alright i wrote that last sentence in jest but it doesn't sound bad upon second reading...
i've lived abroad for the last few years making paintings alone in a shack by the sea, and i'm from a hinterland city in canada with a tiny art scene, so the ego and money-driven NYC art thing is foreign to me... but i also have zero desire to go to the US and play that game, i guess for essentially the same reasons you mention. i just want to make paintings, and a funded MFA seems the best way to do that. i think there is value in spending time developing my craft and trying to produce something that might be resonant with others, even though whatever benefit art might provide is abstract and impossible to quantify. do you think it's ethically irresponsible in this global context to want to pursue any kind of higher studies and we should focus our efforts only on organizing? 

asking in earnest--what are you doing right now to transform society? (other than trolling this forum). besides abandoning the cult of academia or whatever, what kind of practical collective action do you suggest artists engage in? should we drop our paintbrushes, band together and go burn down some banks? alright i wrote that last sentence in jest but it doesn't sound bad upon second reading...
i've lived abroad for the last few years making paintings alone in a shack by the sea, and i'm from a hinterland city in canada with a tiny art scene, so the ego and money-driven NYC art thing is foreign to me... but i also have zero desire to go to the US and play that game, i guess for essentially the same reasons you mention. i just want to make paintings, and a funded MFA seems the best way to do that. i think there is value in spending time developing my craft and trying to produce something that might be resonant with others, even though whatever benefit art might provide is abstract and impossible to quantify. do you think it's ethically irresponsible in this global context to want to pursue any kind of higher studies and we should focus our efforts only on organizing? 

asking in earnest--what are you doing right now to transform society? (other than trolling this forum). besides abandoning the cult of academia or whatever, what kind of practical collective action do you suggest artists engage in? should we drop our paintbrushes, band together and go burn down some banks? alright i wrote that last sentence in jest but it doesn't sound bad upon second reading...
i've lived abroad for the last few years making paintings alone in a shack by the sea, and i'm from a hinterland city in canada with a tiny art scene, so the ego and money-driven NYC art thing is foreign to me... but i also have zero desire to go to the US and play that game, i guess for essentially the same reasons you mention. i just want to make paintings, and a funded MFA seems the best way to do that. i think there is value in spending time developing my craft and trying to produce something that might be resonant with others, even though whatever benefit art might provide is abstract and impossible to quantify. do you think it's ethically irresponsible in this global context to want to pursue any kind of higher studies and we should focus our efforts only on organizing? 

who hurt you?

who hurt you?

i'm bored stuck at work with nothing to do because everything's mostly shut down due to the virus... would anyone be interested in making/joining a discord server or something for artists/mfa students? i kinda looked around for one but found nothing. 

i'm bored stuck at work with nothing to do because everything's mostly shut down due to the virus... would anyone be interested in making/joining a discord server or something for artists/mfa students? i kinda looked around for one but found nothing. 

Lol. Dude. 
Don't trash the school cause you didn't get in. If you applied to the wrong school that's on you. 

 

Agreed. If it continues into the fall, then something has really gone wrong and we'll have other things to worry about rather than school haha 

i didn't consider that the next academic year could be cancelled/online... it seems like in china, the outbreak peaked after about a month and a half/two months and now appears to be leveling off. if it's the same in other countries i don't think the fall academic year should be affected, but i suppose that depends on how different countries handle the situation and whether the cases will follow a similar timeline as china...

a worldwide pandemic was the only thing that managed to take my attention off the application process for a few days looool 

congrats on your acceptance! 

OMG seriously? adfasfasdfsafjljfasj that's hilarious??? 

There's definitely a trade-off, like, live in a small town? But have a decent standard of living. Vs paying absolutely ridiculous amounts of rent. My part of Hokkaido is incredibly remote, so I'm also ready for a change. 
I'm trying to go for a happy medium and live in a small city. 

 

hokkaido person who works in fibre.... i think i follow you on instagram!! hahaha
having also lived alone in a fishing town in the middle of nowhere for the past two years, i really don't want to live that life, even though i love toronto/big cities. i would much rather live in a smaller town nearby and just drive into the city for openings or whatever.

"but i really can't afford toronto rent and would ideally not want to live with 10 roommates in a basement eating nothing but oatmeal for 2 years... lol..."

This is a BIG MOOD, @janelane2, I relate so hard. This whole process has made me realize how unwilling I am to live like that. 

all schools in canada: first western, second york. also got waitlisted by the university of guelph. york has great facilities and really kind faculty members--everyone i talked to at my campus visit there was so nice and the vibe was really good. their funding package was also not bad, but i really can't afford toronto rent and would ideally not want to live with 10 roommates in a basement eating nothing but oatmeal for 2 years... lol...

all schools in canada: first western, second york. also got waitlisted by the university of guelph. york has great facilities and really kind faculty members--everyone i talked to at my campus visit there was so nice and the vibe was really good. their funding package was also not bad, but i really can't afford toronto rent and would ideally not want to live with 10 roommates in a basement eating nothing but oatmeal for 2 years... lol...