bentharbour

SSHRC just tweeted that they mailed them out.

In my experience at a relatively big school (Carleton) someone in the Department or, more likely, the grad school office knows the list of the university's winners right before results are sent out (or the day of). I found out from the FGPA's finance official before I received official word from SSHRC. That being said, it may not be a good strategy to annoy your grad school awards administrator. However, it's not like an email is going to ruin your chances for the award. I would probably wait until someone on here posts that their admin told them about the award and then send an email yourself. ..We are grad students. We are supposed to be annoying.

Yeah, I think Kermit was referring to the payments made by SSHRC. You do not get all 20K in one payment, you get two payments of 10K (one in August and one in March).

The public announcement does not happen until sometime in the summer, usually ranging from May to as late as August. There are a lot of moving parts which we do not necessarily see. For example, there is time given for awardees to accept, then there are always administrative issues that must be solved before the final lists can be produced, then the communications team has to make all of the spreadsheets and other data to be released, and finally (probably what causes the most delay) is that they must set up a "Ministerial Announcement" that usually takes forever to organize. This is all happening during a very busy time for all government agencies (annual plans and Departmental Performance Reports are due to parliament in the fall and are worked on extensively throughout the summer). It could happen soon, but it may also happen very late into the summer. It varies year to year.

Sorry, yes! you will get one in August/September and one in February/March.

In the US, you will get it in US funds at whatever the rate is at the time they process your request for installment forms. So it will be less than $10,000, but you get the benefit of a group exchange rate (they process all of the American payments at the same time). You can set up direct deposit to get it deposited right into your account rather than a cheque. I believe going forward this is a requirement, but I could be wrong.

I am sure they are pretty close across disciplines, but from the results of previous years it is clear that there is not a uniform cut off score. I know someone last year (in a different committee) who was awarded a CGS right away with a lower score than mine.

It is not a static "cut off". While I am sure that there is a distinction between A and B based on score, it is largely dependent upon which adjudication committee received your application. For example, the distinction between A and B in psychology could be 14.5/20 whereas the distinction between A and B in sociology could be 13.4/20. Perhaps it is best to ask others who submitted to philosophy (I assume that is what you submitted to) what there score was and what award they were given. But this definitely shrinks the net of possible responses!

I received an email from SSHRC asking if I wanted to accept the CGS in place of the fellowship. The email said that if I accepted (simply by replying to the email), SSHRC would send a new notice of award stating that I was awarded a CGS. I ended up declining the CGS, so obviously I never received a new notice of award. This happened in July I think, although it could have been June.

Sorry to hear, clinicalapplicant. Everyone will tell you that its okay (it's not) and there is always next year (there is), but being turned down for something you want so bad always stings. Use the energy for something productive.

This. Also some have to do a "qualifying year" before fully enrolling in doctoral program. These people cannot hold a SSHRC. I imagine that happens a lot for people who change disciplines from their masters to doctoral work (i.e., organic chemistry --> sociology).

I agree. I do not think many people are turning down SSHRC doctoral awards. I do think that some people have to decline for administrative reasons (they do not qualify, they cannot attend school for personal reasons). Likely, most of the movement comes from people excepting other government/private sector scholarships (notably the Vanier). That being said, I think there may be some people who end up declining for reasons related to international studies. For instance, you cannot accept a SSHRC at an international institution if you completed your BA and MA internationally. I think some probably overlook this policy and have to decline so that they can go to Harvard or Stanford.

I assume this is completely useless information because it is a new year (and further, it is entirely dependent on your particular adjudication committee) but last year I had a score of 12.9, or something like that, and I was bumped from the fellowship to CGS sometime in July. So there is indeed movement somewhere (E.g., vanier winners)

It seems odd that nobody has received a letter as of yet. If they were sent yesterday, I would assume Ottawa-based folks would have it today. Not everyone can be a late afternoon delivery!

I found out last year by emailing the Grad department. They knew before I received a letter. Perhaps some of you feel comfortable enough to hound your admins? haha