jasper.milvain

In my experience, simply telling a grad chair that another school was outbidding hers was enough to get me multiple thousands of dollars added to my offer. She knew that grad students don't like talking about money, so she asked me outright for the details of my other offer. I think it's expected. Be tactful, but at least try.

I vote for #3. I would also ask some pointed questions about the likelihood of funding. How many people got funded last year? What are your odds? You can seek out sources of information other than the grad chair at the schools. Are the TAs unionized? If they are, e-mail the union and see if they know what the normal income was for students in that department, or if there is any priority language about who gets TAships that works in your favour. Usually the collective agreement will be on the union website, and will have the priority language in it. Figure out who the woman in charge of administering graduate awards for your department is. Be extremely nice to her, ask her for info, and then bring her chocolate if you accept. I'm obviously an information junkie, but it worked out for me. I received a formal letter of funding with a first year that was worth $15 000 LESS than the informal e-mail offer the grad chair had sent me. When I asked, she said that I was waitlisted for a $15 000 award that "almost always" went to a waitlist and that it was a "near certainty" that I would get the money. Of course I wanted to be a little bit more certain than that, so I e-mailed the awards worker who administers my department in the faculty of graduate studies, and asked her how likely it was the award would go to the waitlist. She confirmed everything the grad chair said. Huge for peace of mind! And admin workers usually have more free time than grad chairs.

HAH! Well, you see my dear, graduate school is a trade. All of these fellows have got the silly prejudice in their heads that one mustn't write a dissertation save at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, but I mean to make it a practicable trade. If I could write trash, I would out-trash the trashiest novelist writing today, but my talent lies in a more subtle direction. With apologies to George Gissing, who believed in art for art's sake, led a miserable life, and died of syphillis.

This is totally, completely, absolutely incorrect. If you go look at the stats that everyone keeps linking to, you'll see that the MA success rates are in the 90s. It's PhD rates that are 50/50.

Is it wrong that my immediate reaction is that this will mean slightly, slightly less insane competition by the time I'm on the job market?

Ah- I wasn't thinking about TA work, just awards. Many awards specifically state that they can't be held by someone with a "major award" (ie SSHRC). The terms of reference will usually say. Seems like teaching positions are still offered, just fewer and possibly beginning later. The SSHRC-holders in my school teach one term a year instead of two. Now I need to force myself to leave the house and go to campus, instead of waiting around for the mail to arrive first. Leaving now. No really. Getting up and leaving.

I can't do better than fuzzylogician's questions, but I did only apply to one school for my MA, and it worked out better than I could possibly have imagined. I chose it for totally non-academic reasons-- I didn't want to move, and I didn't want to stay at my undegrad school, the only other university in town. Since there's not a whole ton of weight placed on the MA in Canada, I figured I could get away with the slight reputation hit I was taking. When I got there, it turned out that it was an amazing, collegial, engaged, wonderful department and that I had an amazing cohort. I don't regret not shopping around one bit. It was the right place for me to be at that time.

I hated it and it made me crazy. I DID really love the grant writing part of it, though. I got a week's notice that I had a long shot at additional funds that never came through, but I got to spend that entire week drafting and redrafting and redrafting exactly what I wanted to write about and talking with professors and classmates about it. The intensity was oh so fun, and it was great to have a chance to really get into what I want to do with complete freedom.

Bumping this thread because it was really interesting before I crashed it by bragging. :oops: I feel kind of sheepish that I'm at the top of the second page, and hope that I haven't made anyone feel self-conscious about less-than-stellar results. I know that I am insanely lucky more than anything.

Seriously! I was congratulating myself on being all zen about waiting this year, and now that's all out the window! If you were passed along for an MA by your school, you can count on getting it. Not that I was able to take my own advice when I was waiting on my MA SSHRC letter, but you're almost certainly in. As for success rates, that's an interesting question. You mean students in SSHRC-eligible programs, yes? At my MA school, about 4 or 5 of the 20 MA students each year got SSHRC over the course of their degrees. We tend to do really well generally... I know 3 out of the 6 incoming PhD students came in with SSHRCs, and one more of that cohort got forwarded this year. 5% certainly sounds too low based on my own department. At both of the schools whose funding I'm familiar with (the one I came from and the one I'm going to) SSHRC completely wipes out any internal funding except for any SSHRC top-up they may offer. In my case, this means I'm in the very weird position of getting LESS money if I get the small SSHRC, since $20 000 plus the $10 000 top-up is less than the recruitment money they offered me.

I totally hear you. I got two acceptances off the bat- one at my current school and one in the city where my parents and in-laws live. Since my mother-in-law is convinced that my husband is absolutely perfect and I'm an evil harpy for stealing him away, I really didn't want to deal with the inevitable guilt to return to our hometown, or her horror if I chose to pass up on a chance to reunite the faaaaamily. This is a really sore spot between us (according to her, I "don't DO family". According to me, she's insane.) so I very deliberately protected myself from a potential fight. As much as she's crazy, we do usually get along well, and I don't want to start waves where I don't have to. My husband and I agreed to keep the news from his folks for a couple of weeks so that we could think through the options on our own. When I decided to visit our hometown, we let his parents know that I had an offer and was visiting. However, I deliberately made the trip short to avoid having dinner with them. I felt like a gigantic bitch for a while, but restricting contact and information really helped us make the decision in peace. When we eventually DID decide to move to the city where they live, we got to tell them the news as a big, happy surprise, without any angst or guilt messing with our clarity. I strongly recommend taking care of yourself by backing away from your family, just temporarily.

Fair enough.

I have. There are a lot of people who take the small SSHRC to other countries. People studying in the US probably get lumped in with the non-affiliated folk who are applying through Ottawa. I don't know what percentage make it to the 'final 250'. From looking at the SSHRC competition statistics linked to upthread, I think that 250 finalists figure you were quoted represents the quota for both A and B lists. 79 were A-listed in 2008, and only 41 were successful. All of which is to say I'm really sorry that you didn't get through. I know amazing researchers who never got a drop of SSHRC funding. I don't think it has to do with studying in the US, I think it's just the craziness of the process. ETA: This doesn't sound right to me, either. I'm betting it was a late notification that they weren't FORWARDED, not a rejection at the national level.

Work!

Given everything that's gone wrong with York this year, I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't on the ball, admissions-wise.

Neither did I!

Yipes! Guess it's time to start obsessively checking mailboxes. I have two friends who were waitlisted for MA SSHRCS and ended up getting them. Don't give up hope!

I did WAY better than I thought I would, mostly because over Christmas I got incredibly paranoid and depressed and convinced myself that I was an absolute fraud and nobody would take me. I blame the insomnia. Feeling much better now! I got in at all four schools that I applied to, and had started a bidding war between the first two before I even heard from the others. I also did way better financially than I was expecting. I was hoping for a four year package between $80 000 and $90 000, and ended up with an insane package worth $127 000. I cried when I saw the funding offer. Life is good!

The Commercial Drive area is fairly grad student heavy, and a fun place to live. Noisy and not the safest, but tons of bars, restaurants, parks, little stores...

You'll be fine on 20K as long as you keep your rent down. That's what... $1600 a month? So if you have a room mate and pay $600 in rent and utilities, you have $1000 to live on. Even paying tuition out of that, you'll still be able to go out for beers and live fairly well.

Yup.

In my program, there's one professor who is THE person to ask about professionalization/job market/PhD questions. She landed an insane post-doc and actually turned down three tenure track positions before she found her dream job (she fully acknowledges how crazy this was). She's also an academic guide book geek, and looking to write her own. She's absolutely incredible and was an invaluable resource during my applications. Her favorite book is _Graduate Study for the Twenty-First Century: How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities_ by Gregory Semenza. I found it really helpful, especially when the author writes about which CV building activities are worth putting your energy into. Things like looking for departmental or senate rep positions instead of student union roles may seem obvious, but his strongly written rationale for being careful about how much you invest in committee work really woke me up when I was getting bogged down in it. The book also gave me the push I needed to say no to a local grad conference and go for a 'grown up' conference instead. I'm presenting in June! Overall, I feel like I'm using my time and energy much more productively since reading this book. amazon.com/Graduate-Study-Twenty-First-Century-Humanities/dp/1403969361/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237825903&sr=8-1

You don't need to leave school to gain 'life experience'. There are lots of grad students who went straight through and have full lives, with relationships and non-school interests and a real sense of how to live in the world as an adult. On the other hand, there are lots of grad students who went straight through who are incredibly naive, stunted people. I'm 24 and starting my PhD in the fall. I started my BA at 17 and my MA at 22, with one year off during my BA. During that year off, I got an office job. I was terrified that all of the cliches would be true and I wouldn't be able to handle 'the real world'. Turns out that the time management, communication, organization, and public speaking skills I picked up in my undergrad were all totally applicable and I had a blast. I also unexpectedly met my husband, who has never been to university. He keeps me grounded through this whole process. All of this is to say that if you're living intentionally, trying to build a life outside of school, and honestly pushing yourself to learn and grow, you're not at a disadvantage to people who took time off. I have friends in my program who are also 24, and some who are 35 and even 55. Some days I wish I was older, and some days the older students wish they were younger. Everyone has doubts. You're not the only one who feels like you're feeling now.

Guess it's not so different after all! The sections I was taught to include were: 1. Identify your primary material 2. Identify a research gap 3. Describe your methodology 4. Outline your project 5. Fit paragraph I think that in the humanities, methodology is extremely important. It shows that you know *how* you want to read, not just *that* you want to read, and separates people who know what larger debates are happening in the discipline from people who just really really love reading.

It can't hurt to ask politely. I would just mention your competing offer and health care situation, and see what the response is. I was deciding between two schools, one with a much lower offer. When I told them what the competition was, they upped their offer by $8 000 per YEAR. Maybe your first choice school won't have the wiggle room, or they won't want to change their offer. But you never know until you ask!