wheatGrass

I'm following the GOP primaries. This is remarkably time consuming, even for a Canadian like myself. My favourite commentary sites and publications are having a field day, but there's a fascinating undercurrent of dread running through much of the coverage.

You can check out the competition statistics here http://www.sshrc-crs.../index-eng.aspx broken down by province, institution at time of application, institution at time of award, year of study, etc... If you applied through your institution, you are looking at the A-list only column. The chances seem to be about 50/50.

Stupidly, I scheduled my thesis defense for early December, a few days after all my most important applications were due. So my presentation was a little lackluster. Nevertheless, they all thought it was great and I had no revisions. Prezi was my lifesaver. It is so zoomtastic that no one noticed when I lost my train of thought. Yes. Zoomtastic. I'm not even a comp/rhet person. What am I doing in this thread? Sorry! I hope I'm not making a major forum faux-pas.

I just learned that one of the schools I'm applying to has also lost a LOR. Problem is, the referee is now on sabbatical and I don't know if I'm going to be able to contact him to ask him to resend. Not sure quite what I'm going to do. I think it was a really good letter!

I got an email from SSHRC this morning informing me that my application has been received. Phew! My MA school is trying to build up its doctoral program. I didn't apply and got a lot of tsk-tsks from admin around here. I was worried that the committee would favour students already attending or planning on attending this school's program.

For future reference for McGill applicants: I found out that those text boxes have a maximum of 2000 characters including spaces. You can tell if you look at the application summary and scroll through your text -- it just cuts off after 2000 characters. I also had to send a hard copy letter of intent and research summary, but no writing sample!

Thanks. Turns out third time's a charm. The POI said the letter was very strong and that she would advocate for me in the admissions process. In addition to helping me improve my skill as a writer, the exercise gave me some insight into what it would be like to work with this POI, which might be useful should I be accepted to more than one program.

I can't believe how poorly designed some of the online applications are. The worst for me has been McGill. No back button? No way to retrieve a lost password without starting the whole thing all over again? And confusing, too! The online application has unlimited-size input boxes for ' brief research summary' and briefly described career goals, etc... but they also ask for this information in the 4-5 page research summary and 1-2 page intent letter. Should I copy and paste? How brief is brief? What was your least user-friendly application?

I have not heard yet. I remember hearing from the DGS that the way they notify is by sending an email to everyone who applied listing the successful applicants. So all is not (yet) lost.

I think schools have to forward their nominations for doctoral scholarships to SSHRC by Jan. 9th. At least at my school, it's Jan 9th -- "received by SSHRC by Jan. 9th" is what the notice says, actually. That's Monday! I'm surprised I haven't heard yet. It's bound to be any day. The decisions MUST be made by now. I've checked my email a zillion times. Has anyone heard from their schools about whether or not their application has been forwarded to SSHRC?

This is normal. Schools will accept you on the condition that you maintain your gpa. You'll need to send in your final transcript after your courses are finished.

I have had my 'top' 3 POIs offer to provide feedback on my SOP "drafts" (which of course, weren't exactly drafts....). Two of the three just said it was great and offered very minor revisions. The third has sent it back twice (yes, twice!) with substantive comments/revisions (i.e., this is very strong, but....) . Would you say it's a good sign that the POI is willing to spend the time helping me get it right? Or not so much because it is taking me 3 tries to get there?