hungryhungryhipster

Well, I'll be honest... How the heck do you do anything at all in neuroscience without calculus? Not even first year differential/integral?

From what I was told during my interview at UofT's computational biology faculty, they said they would be going through them 2-3 weeks from then, which was on 01/27. So you should be hearing soon. Hopefully I will be too, but my interview didn't go as well as I'd hoped (I had fluffed something semi-important up on my CV unintentionally, and the prof basically (though not directly) called me out on it), so I'm not so sure. Then again, the prof did say that he wasn't actually on the committee, so maybe not.

I know it's not on your list, but you can't go wrong with Canada. Except maybe Alberta. Folks there are pretty conservative, but they're also pretty harmless. I think they just try and mimic what they hear on US television or something.

I see you've never met my parents, then.

Well, as far as I can tell most schools; acceptance rates aren't nearly that low. For instance, the University of Toronto only gets a thousand or two applications per year, so if they accepted that few, there's no way they'd have as many students as they do. Now, personally, if a school isn't even in the top 10, they don't really have any right to be that selective. Apply if you'd like, but if they're not even one of the top programs and they want to act like they are, then I say forget about them and apply to the actual top schools, which probably have higher acceptance rates than 10%.

Well, in Canada, I don't think interviews are the norm as they are in the US. The only school that has interviewed me is UofT. The other that I've heard back from just accepted me without talking to me. I see your point though. Even just doing applications is a ton of work.

Very true. It's worth noting that three of my courses this term are project/research related (i.e. write a paper and get it to me in April), so i was counting those. I only have two actual classes, and those are the ones I'm concerned about, simply because I will be missing so much class time due to flying all around the country. It's not really about lack of time, just lack of being present. Being an aural learner, if I miss classes it really messes me up.

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but just for anyone else who searches for Edmonton like me and finds this, it's worth noting that most provinces in Canada (not sure about AB, tho) have a clause in their respective Acts that govern apartments (in the case of Ontario, the Residential Tenancies Act) that specifically voids "no pets" clauses in lease agreements. In Ontario's case, the Act specifically says "'No pets' clauses are hereby void". Now, that doesn't stop the landlord from just refusing to rent you the place, but if you don't tell them you have a pet, they can't kick you out later (and if they do, the Landlord Tenant Board will award you 3 months rent in damages).

Anyone?

I just checked, and apparently in our spam filter there's an option to disable it entirely. It might be worth checking into it on your end as well. I go to the U of Windsor.

So, how much do you think grades in my final term of undergrad matter if I've already been accepted to several schools? The only time they'd see my final grades for this term would be when I submit my completed transcript after graduation. If I get less than stellar marks in a couple courses, could they reverse their admission decision? The letter of acceptance I got stated that it was conditional on receipt of my final transcript showing the conferral of my bachelor's degree. It said nothing about grades. Not that I plan on slacking off this term, but I have so many other things going on, I fear for my average. I've got so many schools wanting me to fly over to different cities to visit them, I'm going to be missing quite a few classes, plus I'm doing so much research and project work I just don't have time for my usual study habits.

Well, I use my university email account for this kind of thing, so I would hope that any emails from official domains such as utoronto.ca or ualberta.ca, etc. would be excluded from the spam filter. Either way, I've now got one more thing to keep checking!

Phew. Thanks

I know this doesn't exactly fit in this subforum, but it has to do with money, so please excuse me. I was looking at the tuition fees for UofT's computer science masters program (yes, a little late, but I wasn't overly worried about the money haha), but I'm not really clear about something: When they quote ~$6600 for tuition, do they mean per year? Per the whole program of 2 years? Per term? I'm assuming they mean per year, because that would put them in line with all of the other major schools in the country (Alberta, McGill, UBC, etc.). I certainly hope it's not per term haha. That would make them triple or quadruple what the other major schools charge. Here's a link to the site: http://www.gradschool.utoronto.ca/programs/Graduate_Units/Computer_Science.htm

Thanks for your reply. I think I did just need some kind of reassurance. Coming from such a small town, the concept of even being contacted by someone of his calibre just blows my mind. I am starting to read up on some of his papers, though I don't have as much time as I'd like. I'm going to bring a copy of the two papers I've had published (one in OC&I - optical communications, and one in RECOMB - a major bioinformatics conference). I think my main strength is that I have been doing graduate-level, novel research in the exact field he is interested in for two years already (since my 3rd year of undergrad), so I'm going to build on that. My biggest weakness, though, is that my background in biology is at about the grade 12 or early first year undergrad level. That said, if he points that out, I will make sure to politely remind him that I never claimed to be anything but a computer scientist, and that I applied to the computer science program specifically, not computational biology, which is his own faculty. Of course, I'll be sure to put it a bit more tactfully than that.

So yesterday I got an email from a top professor at UofT's Ontario Cancer Institute asking for an in-person interview. As an undergrad, I have been doing research for 2 years on pretty much the same topic as he is (protein interaction networks), although I tend more towards the comp sci aspects of it than he does. My bio background is admittedly pretty weak, but as I applied to the Computer Science department, and my degree would be strictly a Computer Science degree, even though I do bioinformatics, I would think that would be expected. In truth, I didn't even apply to his specific department. I just applied to the general CS program. Anyway, his inital email was like this: "After reviewing applications for the University of Toronto Computer Science graduate program a few of the computational biology faculty including me were very interested in your application. I am therefore following up with a request for an interview. Would you be available for a meeting this week? Idealy Friday. We can setup skype or webex call. Looking forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, --First name only (followed by a lengthy signature with his full name and like 10 pages of distinctions, but he typed his first name as the signature, the rest was just added by his email client)" Any thoughts? Should I be overly worried? I made no secret of the fact that I am predominantly a computer scientist rather than a biologist, and my transcript would have shown that as well (all I have is an intro organic chem course and a genetics distance ed credit, and nothing in high school after grade 10). Should I voice my hesitation in that I don't want to be in over my head? Just in case you aren't familiar, this professor is in computational biology, which, as opposed to bioinformatics, focuses more on biology than algorithms. Also, I actually proposed that we meet in person, as I was going to be visiting my folks in the same city this weekend anyway. He said that would be even better. I was not even aware that grad schools interviewed people until now. U of Alberta and every other school in the country (I applied to all the top schools) accepted me without an interview, and their website said nothing at all about interviews whatsoever. Overall, my impression is that things in Canada are much less rigorous. For example, undergrad admissions are based solely on high school grades. That's all the universities can even see before admiting you. Contrast that with the American process of taking standardized tests and writing essays and such. Anyway, I guess I should actually ask something lol. I get the impression that my qualifications are not in doubt (I actually had a glowing reference letter from a pioneer in the field, one of the founding members of SHARCNET and the IEEE floating point specification, as well as the inventor of paging, along with my current supervisor of two years who seems to like me on a personal level as well). So, should I just play it cool and make sure I'm likeable enough or should I still worry about being "good enough" in terms of qualifications? I don't usually have any trouble thinking on my feet, so I'm thinking of just winging it (I know my research like the back of my hand anyway, and besides they only gave me a couple days notice). People say I speak like Obama, in that I give the impression that I'm thinking everything through before I say it. I think my biggest weakness is cutting people off in conversation. Unfortunately, it's a classic symptom of my ADHD, and often I don't even realize I'm doing it.

Do you think it's worth attaching a "special circumstances" section to my application just to explain a dropped course in Fall 2009? I was taking 4 courses at the time and caught mononucleosis a month before the final, so I dropped the hardest course and somehow managed to finish the other three (I had like 2 hours a day where I could even move, that disease is brutal). Also, the instructions say to only attach a separate page for this section if you're applying for the PDF, and that PGS-M applicants are supposed to put it on the application form itself, but there isn't a place for it on the form.

Oh, duh. Sorry, I figured he was a visa student or something. I know they have the National Science Foundation over there, but from what I gather they're a little tighter on the purse strings these days. Of course, that doesn't help for English anyways.

Well, I'm no expert in English (I'm a CS major), but I would apply for SSHRC (not sure if they cover English, as it's Social Sciences and Humanities) and OGS or whatever the equivalent in your province is. They're both very competitive, especially SSHRC because, let's face it, research funding for non-science/engineering majors isn't easy to come by. Also, if you're in Ontario (and I think other provinces have similar programs), afaik OSAP is still available at the graduate level. Given your background, I'm assuming you're familiar with it by now. That leads into my next point of advice (and this is just my two cents, please don't take offence): Unless you're considering a career as a professor, I would caution against throwing even more money into education in a major whose job prospects are very limited. I understand that money isn't everything and that loving what you do is very important, but given your background I don't think spending tens of thousands of dollars on a degree that more than likely will leave you no further ahead than you were with your BA might not be such a good idea. Of course, if you can get enough scholarships and pay the rest yourself, by all means, go ahead! Edit: Also, keep in mind that the school may offer you a stipend (up to $20k/year typically) as well, but there's usually no way of knowing until you get accepted. Following the usual theme these days, science/engineering departments tend to be well funded, waiving tuition most of the time and offering generous stipends, but English... not so much. You may get something at the bigger schools, but it's not something I'd count on.

I guess you can't really speak for the grad program. I probably wouldn't go there anyway, just because I haven't heard much coming out of there either in terms of CS research. The major players in my field are of course UofT, Waterloo, McGill, and UBC.

I see you're at Alberta. What are your impressions of it? I'm going to apply there, but it's not like I can go see the place because it's so far away.

Thanks

Thanks for your help At least I'm a little less worried now. On a side note, I got the whole form filled out using a PDF editor (which took forever because you have to line up the text by hand as if it was in photoshop), then I realized it's the 2010 form and the new one isn't even out yet... Looks like in the 2011 competition Windsor got 7 CGSM's and no PGSM's. They seem to be giving out mostly CGS's. Also the success rate fell to only 50%!

There can't be too many people applying though, right? I only know a couple people planning to go the academic route in my department. I guess the real competition would be from people applying for the PGS-M to get them through their second year of masters (though I'm not sure that if you can do that).

My GPA is 12.6/13 for CS, and 11.9/13 overall. Looking around me, it's certainly good within my department (last time I applied for NSERC the department head personally recommended me, or so he told me, but the university bumped me down to the waiting list as they don't always follow the departmental recommendations. I got it eventually though.) I know of a few people with 13/13 in electrical engineering, though, and they would probably be under the same review panel. I also have a conference paper of which I am second author, but it's in a different field (it's in network topology, while I'm in bioinformatics now, but the linear programming methods it is based on are used in both fields). I was under the impression that GPA didn't matter so much as research ability, but that may be more true of grad school admissions that NSERC. The thing about my school is that it's reputation on a national level is not exactly stellar. It's in no way deserved, but people from bigger schools like Waterloo and Toronto like to look down their noses at Windsor. I would hope the guys on the review panel would know better, and obviously at the university selection level it wouldn't matter, because they're all from the same school. About the USRA, I'm pretty sure the way it works is that each school is allocated enough funding for X awards, then each departments makes their recommendations to the university, and the university makes the final allocation. Also, if anyone would like to let me look over their "Applicant's Statement" section, I'd greatly appreciate it. I promise I won't plagiarise (not that I could, as it's about me, not you), but I just need somewhere to start. I found it easy to write the research proposal (I already have a project mostly done, but it's never been published yet, so I'm just basically writing it up as if I haven't started yet), but the whole personal thing is not my strong suit. Finally, does it help if my proposed project is novel? I've basically come up with an improved method of predicting protein-protein interactions, and from a search of the relevant journals it doesn't look like anybody's done it before. As I understand it, novelty is generally expected of Ph.D. students, but not so much for Masters. I feel like this could give me an edge. I put it under AI (2800) for the NSERC subject code, because it mostly uses pattern recognition algorithms, but more than likely the people on the review panel won't have any clue about the biology stuff. Edit: One more thing. How am I supposed to highlight communication and leadership skills in the "relevant activities" section? I quite literally haven't done anything in my four years along those lines. The only thing I have is that I TA'd a course last year. I was going to keep TA'ing, but budget cuts nixed that. I will be acting as a mentor for first year students, but that won't be starting until September. I suspect there has to be many more people in the same boat, as someone who gets a high GPA is not usually a social butterfly.