space_invaders

Got my CGS-D in the United States. Will have to convert to a PGS-D to take it up in the US. Congrats/good-luck to everyone.

I'm in Toronto, and I just received a CGS M (which I will have to down-convert to a PGS M to take to the US). Good luck to all who have yet to hear!

Statistics and patterns mean nothing this year... even if there were such stats, I'd say ignore them. As I've written in other occasions throughout this forum: this year's admission/grant process is a complete fiasco. One couldn't even expect the unexpected, as one couldn't define what was reasonable to expect this year! *sigh* Tomorrow will come soon enough, mate.

Definitely need to get some backups there... If you're aiming for top 20, definitely pick and choose at least 2 backup schools from the top 50, that would would feel comfortable going. The things I considered when choosing my backups was: city, overall school strength (will it offset their lower reputation in ECE?), and individual stars within the faculty. Don't take anything for granted though... I did that, and got rejected from what I would have thought as "safe" schools. This year and the next are not the most ideal times to be applying for grad school (or jobs, for that matter). My experience this year has been that I heard back positively only from the schools I had a good feeling about my potential advisor. So what does this mean? I looked at how active the profs were, how many students they had (very hard to tell, lots of googling here), and what grants they've been getting lately (that will ultimately define your work with your advisor). Whatever you do, don't apply to a school just to have applied... you'll be almost guaranteed to not get in. Determine your priorities, and then sift through the schools to pick and choose <10 schools (anything more, and you'll be preparing applications 40 hrs a week for a month -- my two cents). I hope that helps!

I'll be in the States... as far as I know, anything "outside of Canada" is valid as long as you graduated from a Canadian undergraduate program (which obviously is the case if you applied ) *crossed fingers for tomorrow*

Just the whole experience. Terrible treatment of prospective students overall. All of my professors were dumbfounded by the updates I was providing them... let alone shocked by the rejections. Just as an example, I received an Open House invitation 1.5 weeks before hearing *anything* about admission in one case. In another, I had phone interviews in which a potential supervisor said he "really looked forward meeting me", and then received a rejection letter 6 weeks later. The story goes on and on. There you go! Gotta love Canadian bureaucracy. No different than most undergraduates -- leaving everything until the last day!

It's still not technically the "end of March" yet. They could be fooling us all. Maybe they're going to randomly pick applicants tomorrow based on some Monte-Carlo AWGN methods. I wouldn't be surprised. :roll: I'll be happy if I hear by Friday. (That's how low my expectancies are after the whole application fiasco this year.)

I have not heard back yet either, but I have friends who have already been accepted, invited to Open Houses, etc. I'm not expecting much to be honest... although they have a really strong team in Control, I do hope you get in!

With Canada Post? Add at least 2 days to your worst estimate

Nothing on my end either...

The department couldn't tell. They probably don't know, but they said that we (as students) would hear earlier than the departments, and that correspondence would be via Canada Post.

I just heard back from my department, and they stated that all applicants (regardless of whether or not they applied through their respective departments) should hear individually through Canada Post. So I guess it's turning into a frantic checking of my "physical" inbox as well as my "electronic" inbox!

That's interesting. This link http://tinyurl.com/c2xsks seems to have been updated on March 9, 2009, and it states that results should be sent out by March 31? I think I'll get in touch with my department as well, perhaps things chance from school to school? Thanks!

I'll be flying in for the Open House. Indeed, it looks exciting!

Has anyone heard from NSERC yet? PGS, and/or CGS? People tend to say that results are published in mid-March, but this year... I guess everything is a gamble?

I called Harvard SEAS last week, and they said that they will be mailing out the decisions early this week (today? tomorrow?). Has anyone had any luck learning about the status of their application through email or phone?

Has anyone had any chance getting an update on their application status from any of the following schools? - Harvard SEAS (Ph.D.) - UPenn SEAS (Ph.D.) - Carnegie-Mellon ECE (Ph.D.) Both Harvard and Carnegie-Mellon are being obstinate about not saying anything over the phone... I have no idea what's going on at UPenn.