SSHRCDreams

My committee to 2A twin! Very close score and both 3/47. Evidently, there is an undeniable causative relationship between being on this thread and being 3rd in Committee 2. @SSHRC frustrations @1Q84 @PhDOG,ESQ I really feel for all of you. I didn't get a SSHRC Doctoral. Some of it was my project. I was told to apply for CIHR, and they said apply for SSHRC, and SSHRC wasn't sure if it should be CIHR, so I stopped applying. The other thing was some laziness in undergrad led to some B's, which took the wind out of my sails as a competitor. Toward the end of my PhD, I worked really hard to get a lot published, in part with the help of one of my committee members. In the end, I got lucky.

Funded in 2B. 3/47, 15.58/18, the last funded award in the committee was 14.80. I had 4 single author articles, 2 under-review, 6 conference presentations. Might have helped that I had just completed my PhD. To add to the anxiety of future applicants, it shows here that all the acceptance materials were added to my file two weeks ago, but they send everyone the account info at the same time. I was stressing out and all this time the acceptance letter was somewhere waiting for me!

Sorry everyone. SSHRC called. I'm supposed to tell you they misplaced all of our applications. We all would have been funded, but, because they lost them, all of our funding is going to that mean kid who called you stupid in senior kindergarten.

How come if I had a six-month runway on a deadline and I didn't keep it then it's an issue, but when SSHRC does it... I feel that! Though, even when I'm not actively thinking about it, I still feel passively distracted by the waiting. It's like I had too much running in the background. But seriously. It is ridiculous that they say "February 2023" and here we are, on the last day of February.

Thank you for the insight! With SSHRC's decision so close, it really is baffling they are so slow. Worse still. They say February 2023, only to push that out to the last possible days. Fine if they want the six months. I'm sure the decisions were made a long time ago and there are technical issues and bureaucracy, but at least give a committee deadline or something! If I hadn't checked when other decisions were sent out, I'd have waited all month for a letter.

I'm relieved to have gotten a back-up postdoc just the other day. But it doesn't start until the fall. I'd much rather start in May with SSHRC, which is also much more flexible regarding time in the "office". Only perk of the back-up is an office.

So, what's ignored and what counts? I understand it to be "let's fund those most likely to eventually get a job," ie. let's get a good "return" on investment in the form of metrics. It skews heavy on publications, obviously. You could have edited 10 journals in your doctorate, but none of that shows on SSHRC apps.

What type of fallback plans do you all have? I was pretty targeted in post-doc apps and keep coming up the runner-up!

@UC-23 Exactly! I have a family. My current contracts dry up at the end of the semester. I need to know sooner rather than later how I'm going to pay the bills when May rolls around. Will I be doing a post-doc in a different country? Will I have to find summer work? I was just informed I was runner-up on an institutional post-doc, so there's a possibility someone will reject that offer, but I'm really holding my breath. How many years post-PhD are you looking at TT jobs? My supervisor told me to teach a few years, get a post-doc, and then apply for TT jobs, but I also hear that adjunct teaching jobs don't do much to improve an application.

Anyone else feeling like they're in limbo? I'm finding it hard to do anything when there's an open question of whether I'll be funded in May or looking for summer work!

What were your apps like?

So, that means two weeks out! @brert

It is a much higher success rate than any other "in house" competitions. The challenge is how arbitrary it can be. For a institutional post-doc, you can get a sense of what they want. SSHRC is arbitrated by third parties, so you never know. @UC-23

@slc4a3 That makes it more stressful! The worst part is I got a book contract and a handful of papers in leading journals SINCE submitting to SSHRC. It makes fear of it not turning out all the worse! At the of submission, I had 4 single author papers (accepted or published), 2 under review, 6 conference papers, completed PhD, and superlative letters of reference from people who have done very well with SSHRC. Even still, I don't know if it is enough.

The funny takeaway from these is how variable it can be. I know it varies by committee, but there are some unsuccessful applicants with far more publications. It might be that their proposed project wasn't very promising, or their letters weren't superlative enough. It is difficult to say.