ERW

Hey Fazi, There is no straightforward formula for the number of things you need. I think MakeitRmakeit has given you some good advice. Like any academic application, the assessment of your application depends significantly on the committee. I applied one year and was not even close 110ish/200 applicants at the national round, and then the next year I received an award and was highly ranked with a mostly identical application. There isn't much use in comparing your application to previous scholars; the weighing of things tends to be holistic and the reasoning of the committee members is inscrutable beyond what is outlined in the publicly available guidelines.

Thanks. Yeah, that's what they communicated to me when I asked. Apparently the graduate studies office were just sitting on the funds because I hadn't completed some paperwork nobody ever told me needed to be completed.

I'm not sure that this would work if the intention is as you describe. Community involvement does not straightforwardly track congeniality, and I'm not sure that there is an effective way of judging students' character prior to admitting them. A similar phenomenon occurs in job hiring: you just cannot tell who is going to be kind and nice to work with until they're hired since everyone puts on their best face for applications and interviews. I don't know how admission committees work in other locales, but in Canada the academics on the committee have a lot of latitude. Some consult CVs and documents about extracurriculars, others aren't interested. So I don't know that requiring more documents of this kind would matter for institutions where academics are disinterested in them.

Do any previous Vanier scholars know when funding is typically dispersed, or how the funding schedule works? All the documents I've seen say it starts on May 1st, but nothing has come through yet, and nobody really explains the disbursement process. Maybe it's taking longer this year because of Covid-related logistics.

I only had three publications at the time of application (I have six now, but presumably they couldn't have known about the newest three). I'm in the humanities student and my impression is that it's less expected that SSHRC students have as many publications since it's relatively rare to be published in those fields before getting your PhD. I've volunteered in a lot of roles since highschool, mostly with government or human rights organizations. Municipal and provincial advisory committees, food banks, student unions, human rights NGOs, that sort of thing. I don't know if that's helpful, but there you go!

I just got the results as well, and they gave me an award. That was shocking enough, but the decision document also said my application was ranked 1/195. I didn't come here to gloat or make anyone that didn't receive an award feel bad though. I wanted to encourage anyone who is still eligible next year to apply again. Last year I applied and was pretty far back in the pack (150/200 or something) and so I polished up the same application and didn't expect a different result this year. After not receiving the award last year I was pretty distraught, but I just wanted to tell you guys that it'll work out - reapply to the Vanier, and even if it's not the Vanier keep going and your ship will come in!

Depending on your situation, I generally wouldn't advise attending an MA program without funding of you have an alternative. Plenty of excellent and reputable MA programs will fund you, so unless your really struggling for admittance or have your heart set on an unfunded program I would not recommend attending. Regarding your experience and interaction: if the funding letter does not guarantee a certain level of funding, you shouldn't expect that they will come through with some. Of course, there are plenty of well meaning Program Directors who will try to get their students (extra) funding, but as it stands you cannot expect that any will be forthcoming. Many offers include guaranteed TAships as part of the funding package (e.g., guaranteed one per year, but can apply for additional ones), but you are only guaranteed what is in your funding package. If they can only offer you the hope of a TAship, it means they might not be able to secure one for you, which is odd, but might be a matter of enrolment or demand for courses in your area of expertise.

The descriptions people are giving of their successful qualifications are honestly discouraging me. My academic record is basically similar to your, I had less than five non-A+ grades in undergrad, and only A+ (or A at McGill since there are no A+s) at the graduate level. Yet my score is 4.0 lower than yours on a 9 point scale? What? Similarly, someone mentioned getting a 5.5 on research potential with one publication and one conference. I have two publications and over twenty conferences. Maybe I didn't sell them well enough, but what the hell? Maybe the expectations are different for the SSHRC Vanier? It all seems pretty arbitrary. Gah, I have to stop coming on here, it just makes me hate myself.

I had it explained to me today that this system curves the scores, adjusting them to match your final position in the ranking. So grades near the top are increased to match their high position and grades at the bottom curved down to reflect their position. I'm not sure what the rationale is supposed to be there.

Thank you, that's very kind. It just doesn't seem close, I would have had to be ranked a hundred spots higher to just barely make the cut. I don't know how I'd even begin to close that gap.

My scores from McGill (Ranked 5/23): Academic Excellence: 8.30 Research Potential: 7.40 Leadership: 8.17 My National Scores (Ranked 153/179): Academic Excellence: 4.00 Research Potential: 4.80 Leadership: 2.10 I honestly don't understand. I don't mean to throw a pity-party for myself, but I don't understand.

All of the pages on ResearchNet and the Vanier CGS site still list the April 7th release date. That could change, but if they were planning on releasing the results this week, I'd assume the peer review portion was already complete. Though they might still decide to bump the release, who knows.