ogopogo
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Posts posted by ogopogo
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Sorry, I didn't intend to confuse. There were six new students this year in the department, 3 in the PhD, 2 in the MA and 1 qualifying but i just mentioned the ones that had a BA or MA in linguistics at time of admission to the program. I have no idea about acceptance rates since I don't know how many offers were made and the acceptance letter just refers to the standard 'dozens of highly-qualified applicants'. Once in the program students have the option to switch degree programs so whether you are admitted to the MA or the PhD doesn't really matter, and certainly the fit of research interests are an extremely important factor in whether or not you get the golden ticket.
The city is great, even in the winter, and a lot of the profs here are really amazing. The first year in any program they torture you a bit with the courses, but good profs make a big difference and, from what I've heard, next year's class is pretty lucky in that regard.
- solairne and psycholinguist
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hmm...it's been a long time since I looked on this forum but now I'm glad I did since I can offer a bit of info on McGill linguistics.
It seems to me like you might have done the safe thing. Last year's incoming class had two people with MAs who went into the PhD program and 2 people with BAs (or equivalent) who went into the MA program (plus 2 others). They definitely used to admit people with a BA directly to the PhD, depending on their background, but not sure if that's common now. PhD and MA students take basically the same classes in the first year anyway, and MA students have the option to transfer to the PhD program later if all goes well.
Hope you both get good news back soon. I got the e-mail feb 16th last year, so probably not too much longer to wait.
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That's bizarre, considering we're both in Canada. I may as well be explicit: TD accepted my funding as proof of income. Did you end up getting approved anyway, ogopogo?
We did get approved in the end and were able to buy the house we wanted, which is good, but it still seemed ridiculous that they wouldn't count guaranteed money coming in as income, and in any other market that would have made things quite difficult for us. Even more bizarre is that I also dealt with TD :? I wonder if there's a sensible explanation, or if there's just a certain amount of variation in the answers you get? Did you talk to TD in Vancouver?
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Interestingly, the two banks and one mortgage broker I asked about this said that scholarship income (guaranteed for 3 years) wouldn't count and they would only consider my partner's income, even though he is self-employed. I also asked about the 5 year funding guaranteed by my department, in case that would help, but they weren't interested in that either.
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Don't forget that as a student you probably won't be paying much (if anything) in taxes by the time you have applied your education (tuition and text book) and personal amounts.
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Has anyone else from Vancouver/Lower Mainland received their letters? I live in Burnaby, and no letter yet! I'm getting really frustrated now.
I got mine on Monday in Vancouver, UBC area.
Also, for those of you with letters lost in the mail, you don't need the letter to accept the award (if you know you got one), but eventually you will need the 'notice of award' that comes with it in order to activate your payments, which you will want to do at least one month before the start date of the award.
I also think that the scores discussion might lead to a few misguided remarks, this is an online discussion forum after all, but on the whole it has helped, since now we know more about how they work (consistent only within subcommittees, constant rate of success, etc.). And this discussion will be particularly helpful for independents applying next year, who will be wondering how reliable an indicator the initial score is when they get their letters next February.
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For all those who are wait-listed like myself, I have some good information about the process.
I emailed SSHRC to find out what, exactly, it means and here was their response. As you can see, there's still a glimmer of hope.
"Good morning,
When applicants apply to a committee in the Doctoral Awards program (National competition), their applications are forwarded randomly to one of the committee's sub-groups (the number of sub-groups varies by committee and depends on the volume of applications received by the committee). Each sub-group is assigned three committee members (normally from different research backgrounds) that evaluate, score and rank all applications in their assigned sub-group. The success rate in the competition remains the same across all committees and their respective sub-groups.
Your place on the waiting list is determined by your score within your sub-group. If an award recipient in your sub-group declines their award, we will proceed through the list in rank order.
Please note, that there will be allot of movement on the recommended but not funded lists this summer. SSHRC plans to let applicants know their final decisions by August 2009.
Thank you very much for your patience with this matter and good luck in this year's competition"
The above post (from pg.73) indicates that cut-off scores will vary not only by committee, but by sub-group.
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I'm pretty sure they don't see your initial score when it gets to the national competition. This is one of the reasons that people say that external applicants have an advantage: they are only scored once.
I apologize if this is pointless arguing, but I still don't understand this reasoning. First, external applicants actually get scored by actual SSHRC committees twice, and as we can see from the posted scores, often get quite different results. University students go through two levels within the university first, but I don't see how this affects your chances of success at all, since the number of applications forwarded by either schools or SSHRC committees is predetermined and that is ultimately what matters. If you have 200 applications and you can only send 60, what does it matter if you cut 100 first and and then 40, or if you do it all at once? The only thing that I can see that would really make a difference is if the quotas represented vastly different percentages of applications that are allowed to be forwarded to the final round.
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Oh dear. The letters are only as far as Winnipeg? Anyone farther west have any news?
At this pace, we'll be into next week in Vancouver....
Actually, I'm in Vancouver and I just (like 5 minutes ago) got the letter. Late in the day mail delivery might have it's advantages after all. So I guess Vancouverites can expect to see their letters soon. It's postmarked the 26th, letter dated the 20th.
For those interested in scores, I got 29.4 in the first (external applicants only) round and a final score of 24.
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I'm getting the sense that a lot of people are just getting their actual letters now.
I got the news about my Doctoral SSHRC back in mid May but still haven't received my letter from SSHRC. Is this typical?
yep, that's pretty typical. a bunch of people have their letters, but a bunch of us don't. not surprisingly, distance from Ottawa seems to be a factor.
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Ah, yes. SSHRC notification in JUNE!! Weeeeeeee!!!
On a good note, we have almost proved ourselves more compulsive than the yanks. One more page and we'll pass the Fullbright thread!
Well, I think I'm pulling my weight in the compulsive department, and we have way more views than they do, just less posts and pages. Anyway, I'll bet that gradcafe's canadian count has gone waaaaay up this year due to SSHRC's lateness.
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Could be ogopogo, that's a better idea than I could come up with anyways! As for your letter, hang in there and try to enjoy the weekend!
Thanks, I will get out and enjoy this beautiful weather we are getting this weekend. I'm just grumbling because it'll be JUNE before I get the letter now, and because I can get away with grumbling a bit here. It's much worse for the people who don't know yet, at least I can be pretty sure it'll be a good letter whenever it eventually comes.
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Successful/unsuccessful: Successful
MA/PhD (if PhD, specify SSHRC/SSHRC CGS/Vanier): PhD CGS
# of years into program: Starting in the fall
MA Major Awards & Value: NSERC PGSA, $34,000 over 2 years
Undergraduate GPA: close to or above 4, depending on how you count an A+
Graduate GPA: same
Research contributions/Publications so far: 4 in solid peer-reviewed journals + some abstracts and proceedings papers, all co-authored.
Strengths of application: Letters of recommendation, research contributions, GPA, and how my background relates to the proposed research.
Weaknesses of application: My proposal felt a little under-developed to me, I've been out of school for quite a while, and I didn't know switching from NSERC to SSHRC was bad, but I guess I did that too.
Level/Form of Departmental Support (i.e. SSHRC workshops): I got some help from the two people at my former school who were writing references for me.
University at the time of application: none
Scores: initial score 29.4, final score 24
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YAY! I just got an e-mail from my department saying I am officially on the good list - CGS for me!
And for those of you dealing with McGill not wanting to tell you, the DGS has now sent out an e-mail authorizing departments to tell students the results and confirming that letters will be sent on the 25th.
Also, I really want to thank everyone who has contributed to the board by sharing info, sharing the frustration, and helping to pass the time. It's been so good to know that I wasn't going crazy alone, I just wish everyone could have gotten good news.
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That's what the DGS at McGill told me as well, but I'm pretty sure they were just wrong on that one. Based on when the MA people got their letters and what the people at SSHRC were saying at the time, McGill must have been confused about which letters were going out last week. Canada post is slow, but not nearly that slow.
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Congratulations to everyone who has won a SSHRC!
I'm so jealous of everyone who has had news. UofC is still holding onto the results and have no intention of letting anyone know anything anytime soon. What is there to "go through?" It's a list of names.
Totally jealous too. McGill was giving me nothing until I begged (and I do mean begged) and then they told me they felt bad about the stress the late results were causing for students and grudgingly admitted that they will tell the departments tomorrow, or maybe late today. I'm going to call my department in a couple minutes but I'm annoyed that I have to bug people I'm going to want as my friends before I even know them, unless I want to wait for Canada Post. It's so hard to just sit here while everyone else is getting news and it's making me really grumpy every time I think about how much of a mess this whole process has been - it's SSHRC's job to notify us, not our schools, but why should we have to wait and wait and wait to find out while information about us is available to others. It's so needlessly stressful - why not have a secure site we could check? Then we wouldn't annoy anyone.
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OK, I'm at U of T and I just got an e-mail inviting me to a reception in honour of the 3 Governor General's Gold Medals Winners...with this heading...
To the Recipients of the 2009-2010 Graduate Awards i.e. NSERC, SSHRC, Canadian Institutes of Health Research Fellowships & Canada Graduate Scholarships, Masters:
The only one I applied to was SSHRC...is this U of T's sideways method of notifying me that I won something?
I would guess that it is, I mean, you made the list right? Tentative congrats!
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You can add McGill to the list of schools that won't take pity on their students, at least, unless I'm talking to the wrong person. I got 'Unfortunately, we don't have result information for sharing with applicants. My understanding is that the agency mailed results to candidates yesterday, so one could expect to have a result letter in the next week.' from the DGS external fellowships people. Note the nice ambiguity in the first sentence - she didn't exactly say she didn't have the info, she said she didn't have it for sharing with students...
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I have no idea what your application looked like of course, but since you always seem so sensible and articulate on the message board I figured you probably had the best chance out of anyone.
McGill
in Linguistics Forum
Posted
I wouldn't expect it to be common. I don't think they have 'places' so much as a finite amount of funding for students that they can offer, and since they only admit as many students as they can reasonably expect to be able to fund for 5 years I guess that results in small cohorts. And on the whole, I think they care more about picking the students they want in the department than which program they apply to. It sounds like you have a pretty good fit with several of the profs and any of the people you mentioned would be great to work with. Here's hoping you'll be joining us soon!