Lymrance

SSHRC results are in Winnipeg! My grad chair actually found out before I did. Apparently schools have access to a secure online site where they can go to view results. She received an email about an hour ago telling her to check the site and my result was on there. After she told me, my partner checked the mail and the letter was there. So either way I would have found out today. I won the CGS ($35K) SSHRC award. I was one of 2 students in our school to be forwarded and was the only one successful (it's a small uni). Stats for the curious: - First time applying (I'm currently finishing a 1-year MA) - Received SSHRC MA funding - Have no publications - Had no conference history at the time I applied, though I do now (still, only 3-4 by the time I start my PhD) - My score was 21.7/30

Okay, so far people from Ontario, Quebec and the US have received letters. Congrats to you all! (Especially those who get to choose between the two types of SSHRC -- that's awesome. Although, I still think you should be able to take either SSHRC outside of Canada.) Anyways, has anyone received anything from BC to Manitoba? Or in the Maritimes? Post if you you have, please! I wonder if all of the letters went out at exactly the same time...

Totally agree with this suggestion! I did this last year. I contacted a school to which I had not originally applied at the end of August (i.e. 2 weeks before the start of classes) and they admitted me -- almost certainly only because I held an MA SSHRC. Go for it! If you play your cards right, I don't doubt you'll get into one of the schools you wanted.

I'm sorry to hear that, Ludwig. And wow, I'm not sure why your score was lower (though only by a few points, it seems) considering the other factors you mentioned. Do you have any ideas on what might have made the difference...? Sometimes it can help to at least have a reason. That way you know what to change for next year if you decide to apply again, right? Anyways, seeking solace in chocolate sounds like a good plan!

First -- Congratulations to all of you who received the awards! It must be a fantastic feeling to know all of your work and worry have paid off. So far it looks like all of those who have received results so far have been in Toronto and Ottawa, right? If anyone from further (much further, ideally) West receives any SSHRC news, please update the rest of us! I will do the same as soon as I hear anything. Thanks, guys!

Whoops -- just realized this is for your MA degree. If it's for your MA, I would pick U Chicago. Unless you don't want to have to move twice in the span of 1-2 years. If you think you could/would transition from Oxford's MA program into their DPhil program, then you might want to factor that in.

Hi Abraxas, I'm in the exact same boat, trying to decide between McGill (fully funded) and Oxford (no funding). It is such a hard choice to make. All of the profs I've talked to have stated they believe Oxford would be worth attending, regardless of the debt I might incur because it is such a rare opportunity. Also, my advisor studied at Oxford his DPhil and said the opposite -- that it is actually quite difficult to get into UK schools as international applicants. He believed the same as you for a long time -- that they might just be milking us for the international student fees. But he went, had no funding his first year, got funding in his second and third years, and came to realize that this was not the case. Good luck deciding...

Here is the response from SSHRC I received just a few minutes ago (this is a direct copy & paste): Description : FW SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship Results 2011 Dear ___________, We are pleased to inform you that your request has been completed. Resolution: Hi, The Doctoral results will be mailed near the end of April 2011. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Fellowships and Institutional Grants Division, quoting the reference number above. Thank you, Fellowships and Institutional Grants Division Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Fellowships@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca

Ok, I decided to email SSHRC this evening, too. I figure duplicates of the same answer will only make us feel better at this point. I'll post when I hear from them.

Too late. I am beyond the point of anxiety and into the stage of frantic nail-biting. Thanks for posting! I think we've seen enough posts by this point to suggest that this year we may indeed find out sooner rather than later. Great user name, btw.

Honestly, my experience was the same as LemonPepper's. When I called my university's award office in March to check on my MA SSHRC application they told me "off the record" that I would certainly be getting one -- and I did. But I think that they must have been basing it off of past success and not necessarily due to any special information from SSHRC. I think they must have had such a strong success rate that they were taking it for granted that I would be approved based on their recommendation. Perhaps other universities don't have as high a success rate...? I've seen a few posts on here from people claiming that if you get an MA SSHRC you are much more likely to get a doctoral SSHRC. Do you think that's true...? Anything to back up the idea...? Obviously I have an invested interest in hoping so.

Speaking of the waitlists, how exactly do those work? Can SSHRC put you on a waitlist after your school has forwarded you? I know that your institution can waitlist you. But I thought once you'd been forwarded to SSHRC for consideration, you were either rejected or accepted. Yes...? No...?

Nice. It would be great to hear by the end of April this year, instead of the end of May like last year. And re. calling again -- Agreed! I will try to remember to call in a week.

Wannabe Dr., Awesome! Good for you for proactively checking the facts by actually calling SSHRC. Thanks for doing so and and for telling us what you found out. Very much appreciated.

Yeah, in Ottawag's defense -- I was talking to some fellow grad students today. One of them applied directly to SSHRC for the doctoral awards (she is not currently affiliated with a university and so she applied as an independent). She said that she called SSHRC last week to ask when to expect the results and was told that they were being sent out by mail after April 15. I am actually starting to wonder if -- miraculously -- they are going to be releasing them in a timelier manner this year... One of us could actually call or email SSHRC and inquire y'know. I might do that tomorrow. I just got back from a conference and need a nap.

Ah! Good to know. Thanks for the correction, Ryan.

I would ask the schools that rejected you for their reasons. Usually schools will have no problem giving you some indication of why they had to deny your application. And if they all mention the GRE and you truly believe it was your only weak area, then re-take it and improve your score. However, if the GRE is only part of their reason for rejecting you and you can't get funding from the one school to which you were accepted and the school is a low-ranked institution from which it would be hard to go on to find employment, then I would consider changing my plan -- period.

So, who else is waiting for a college decision from Oxford? Will funding from a college make or break your decision to attend the university? Did you put down a college preference? I went with no-preference as the entire thing was a gamble for me and I wasn't going to make a fuss about which college they decided I fit with. I've scoped out the colleges info page on Oxford's site to get a rough idea of how funding could vary depending on which college I get into. It seems like it could potentially vary quite a lot -- $2,000 pounds versus full room and board for the term of your degree in some cases. If this thread is redundant or if there is another site from which to monitor the college situation, please feel free to redirect me. I will say that when I emailed my department last week to ask what the approximate time-frame might be, the department secretary responded that it could be the end of May or even later. Obviously, this was not exactly encouraging. But I am trying to be patient.

ROFL. I wish that were true. They told us the same thing last year and then no one was notified until almost the very end of May. But we can cross our fingers... NSERC applicants always hear back sooner than SSHRC applicants. Our grad secretary was telling me that she'd already received the NSERC results last week, but she wasn't expecting the SSHRC ones until May/June.

Actually, I thought I'd add another note -- that this was my experience at not just one school but two. I actually planned to take up the MA SSHRC at one institution but changed to a different institution (in the same city) at the last minute at the beginning of September 2010. Both institutions had already told me their plan to pay out the SSHRC in exactly the same way -- as two payments. In fact, the institution I ended up leaving actually deposited the first payment in my account in error and I had to go through a whole rigmarole to refund it to them so that the institution at which I was really a student at could pay it out to me. Again -- 2 universities. At both I would have received the full $17,500 paid out in two installments.

Ludwig, Your post is really setting off a lot of alarm bells for me. Perhaps this is what happened to you at your school but it does not happen to all of us. I am a current SSHRC MA recipient and... 1) My school paid the $17,500 out in full in two lump payments -- one in September and the other in January. The award is for a set amount. If my school had attempted to cut short my award, I certainly would have disputed this with them. 2) Secondly, it would be impossible to accept the SSHRC award in May of this year (2011) for the simple reason that SSHRC will not be notifying anyone until the end of May. Last year (2010) no one received their results until the end of May -- which made it impossible for anyone to activate their SSHRC payment until September 2010 at the earliest, unless for some strange reason they were prepared to wait a full year until starting it in May 2011 (unlikely). For all of you who have read Ludwig's post, you may indeed want to discuss the terms of payment with your school, but please do not think that this happens to everyone who receives a SSHRC. And again, good luck trying to take up your SSHRC in May of this year when you are not likely to hear back from SSHRC until the end of May or early June. For specific terms of the MA award, I would suggest you check out the actual Award-Holders Guide: http://www.sshrc-crs...nts-eng.aspx#a2 Good luck.

Logaritym, You've been unsuccessful in receiving funding from the department, but what about from your college? Have you even been assigned to a college yet? In the UK, you can be funded by the school, the department, and/or your college. Just because you haven't received a funding offer from the department, doesn't mean -- from what I understand -- that you won't be successful in getting funding from the college that selects you. My advisor told me before I applied that it is not at all uncommon to not receive funding or to not receive it the first year but to receive it in subsequent years. I certainly wouldn't consider this a "rejection."

Whatshewrote, Same here. My letter gives me until June 1, though! Which is great, as our SSHRC results won't be in until then. I am actually really crossing my fingers for college funding. I'm going to ask my prof how hopeful I should be (he attended Oxford for his PhD). We're going to be studying the same periods, btw! I'm doing Medieval & Early-Modern. Oh, and I also considered Leeds. I'm going to be there in July for the Medieval Congress. Don't suppose you are going...? I'd like to try to make some contacts before I go!

I checked my email this morning. There was an email from Oxford. I assumed it was a rejection as I've been expecting the worst. But it was an acceptance!!! They also stated the results of the Clarendon, AHRC (which I don't qualify for anyways), and the department studentships -- I didn't get any of them, but my advisor had already well-prepared me not to expect departmental funding as it is supposedly really scarce. Plus, he says lots of people are successful in getting other types I'm still waiting to find out which college I got into and whether the college is able to offer funding. Plus there's still the SSHRC competition (that's the Canadian equivalent of the AHRCs) results -- which won't be out until the end of May. Remember, I did email the department about 8 days ago to ask for an update. I don't know if this made any difference whatsoever to how fast they responded to me, but perhaps it did...

Poliscijunkie -- I don't think you should assume the worst, but I think you have a legitimate right to expect an update by now. Have you been checking the survey page to see whether other people have heard back from those schools? http://thegradcafe.com/survey/ (go to the page, enter your school name and the program -- e.g. "University of Toronto" "political science") At this point, I don't think there would be anything wrong with sending polite notes to each of the departments asking for a status update. You could mention that you have already heard back from all of the other places to which you applied and will need to make a decision soon (whether or not this is exactly true). I contacted the last three schools I was waiting to hear from and received positive responses within 24-48 hours. In one case, an acceptance; in another, waitlisted; in the last case, a note saying they would try to rush my application. Good luck!