oxforddphil
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Everything posted by oxforddphil
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SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship/CGS Doctoral Scholarship 2014-2015
oxforddphil replied to Konstantin's topic in The Bank
Success! 12.9 out of 20. Category B. Best of luck to those still waiting. -
SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship/CGS Doctoral Scholarship 2014-2015
oxforddphil replied to Konstantin's topic in The Bank
Still waiting in the UK. Very frustrating, esp. considering how fast the letter came after round 1. -
SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship/CGS Doctoral Scholarship 2014-2015
oxforddphil replied to Konstantin's topic in The Bank
External applicant (Oxford, UK), just received notice that I qualified for the national round. Letter was dated 11th of Feb. Final results due in April. 242 application recommended out of 676. -
Mail has come and gone and it didn't come. This is insane. I'm going to call SSHRC later to see if I can get them to spill the beans.
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When I checked half an hour ago (1pm) the mail hadn't arrived yet. I'm going to check back in half an hour or so. I'm guessing you haven't received anything yet either?
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That's a stratospheric score! Congrats! I'm surprised you didn't get the Taylor fellowship...
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I'm doing my PhD in law at Oxford at the moment, and I'm also a qualified lawyer who's worked for a few years. Without knowing more about the nonprofit, the nature of the work you'll be doing there, or your prior credentials, it's hard to say. As a general matter, if your goal is to practice human rights law, and you're having a hard time breaking into the field, the MSt in IHRL is probably a smart move. The Oxford name will open some doors, and it's a great networking opportunity (Oxford has a huge law faculty--the biggest in the UK--and both the student body and the academic staff are very international). You'll also learn a lot, since it seems to be a good program. Many of the people I've met who are doing your degree were current practitioners who were taking time away from the ICRC or NGOs, or planning an academic career in human rights law. So, if your current position isn't bringing you any closer (from a CV standpoint) to doing the kind of work you want to be doing, the MSt sounds like a good bet. That being said, human rights work is notorious for being badly paid, unless you're lucky enough to land a cushy (and tax-free) job with an international organization like the UN or the OECD. So the debt could be an issue.
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Nothing in Oxford either. Why oh why did I not have the letter sent to my parents in Ottawa?!?!
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Tell me about it.
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No news for me in Oxford either. :-(
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Mail has come and gone in Oxford and still no news. This is torture. SSHRC will be getting one very angry letter of complaint, no matter what happens.
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checkeredBlanket is right. I also had to click on 'create new forms' before it appeared.
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Mystery solved: there are actually two different ways to log in, and you get different results. The one I tried first (second link) doesn't show your CV. Online Forms Application and CV forms for grants and postdoctoral fellowships Application forms for master’s and doctoral scholarships and fellowships
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You can see your CV? I was just referring to the form we had to fill out as part of the application.
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I actually haven't logged in since November when I printed off my application. I was just curious about my whether I had put something on my CV and logged in to see if it was still there. My CV is gone, and the only thing I can do now is fill out an application for this Michael Smith thing. I'm in the UK and kind of losing my mind waiting for my results so thought this might mean something.
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Random question: I just logged into SSHRC to see if my CV was still available. Once inside, I was given the option to fill out an application for the Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement, which is only available to CGS or Vanier winners. Is this standard? I.e. are non-CGS winners, or those having been rejected, still given the 'option' to do this?
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I hear ya. But these things are always a bit of a crapshoot, and really excellent people get turned down all the time. It's really hard to do (and I haven't even got my results yet since I'm in the UK), but I'm trying not to take the whole thing personally.
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I got my info from a friend of mine who has been involved in helping McGill applicants to prepare. She seemed quite certain that there is a fixed quota of awards for each 'year' of the PhD. The upshot from a practical standpoint is that the further along you are the higher the score you need, because the people against whom you're competing will have stronger files and a better proposal. PS I seem to recall reading something similar on this board as well. PPS Of course, I could be wrong.
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@Andsowego: Don't forget that applicants only compete against people in the same 'year' of the PhD as them. Since you are (I believe) going into your fourth year, you would have needed a higher score in order to win an award than someone going into their first year. I don't know what year wheatGrass is in, but this could explain the discrepancy.
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@cathaea: You're probably correct. My understanding is that SSHRC has a quota for each year of the PhD, meaning that 1st years only compete with other 1st years, while 4th years only compete against each other.
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That was a very weird post. Anyway, my point is simply that the evaluators do not have the discretion to give preference to publications over the proposal even if they think the former demonstrate strong research potential. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that out of a total score of 30, the proposal is worth 10 points, and publications are worth two. Even if you 'max out' on the available points for publications, you still only get two points, no matter how strong the committee things that aspect of your application is. Obviously every single element of the scoring system is aimed at assessing a person's research potential. However, what I was given to understand, and what I trying to communicate here, is that the evaluators are not free to determine what 'counts' towards that assessment, or how much it counts. Yes, there is going to be an element of subjective judgment involved, but I never claimed there wouldn't be, merely that the weighting of various factors is not left up to the judgment of individual evaluators.
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@NeedFunds: Of course publications will help. There's no question. But my understanding is that the evaluators are required to use a standard marking scheme, with a fixed proportion of the marks for each element of the application. I can't recall the exact weight of it anymore, but my understanding is that the proposal makes up a huge chunk of the overall score. Given that most people who make it to the A-list have comparable grades and CV's, what will determine (in most cases) whether a person gets it is the strength of their proposal (relative to everyone else's). This isn't because of some holistic grading philosophy about what a good proposal does or doesn't indicate a person's research potential*, it's simply baked into the mathematical cake that the evaluators are forced to use. *Obviously, the fact that SSHRC assigns so much weight to the proposal is the product of such a philosophy. But evaluators are not engaging in a case-by-case subjective evaluation of the candidates' research potential.
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For what it's worth, my understanding--from speaking to people involved in the selection process in the past--is that the proposal is far and away the most important part of the application, based on the weighting scheme they use. In any event, as a general matter, virtually everyone will have a GPA in the right range (north of A-, assuming your uni has such a grade), and unlike in the natural sciences, it's normal to have few (if any) publications at this point (although if you have them, great!). Some people will wind up getting short-changed by their referees, but most will have solid references. (Having had to select people myself in an 'elite' context, I can say with some confidence that a bad reference can hurt you, but good references are standard and will never set you apart, no matter how florid they are). So the only way for people to distinguish themselves is the proposal and the CV. In my view, the CV is not likely to be a big factor for most people. A few, like me, might have relevant work experience or some teaching under their belt, but it's probably not common enough to affect the overall balance of awards. So, everyone should stop freaking out about publications! Though if your proposal was crap, worry... :-(
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Amen to that.
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Keble. You?
