Konstantin

I'm with you on this one. I think that the timing of the budget has little effect on SSHRC's timeliness. But I'd like to know if the 2014/15 budget will affect the number of awards or whether the awards of the current SSHRC competition are funded from last year's budget. I know that SSHRC's budget has been fluctuating, but mainly decreased over the last few years, as were CIHR's and NSERC's budgets.

At least we will all experience anxiety together, not that I don't advocate keeping your mind off the scholarships in the meantime

By the looks of it, my university will be releasing the results of the OGS competition roughly at the same time as SSHRC results are coming out -- sometime in April. Who doesn't love a good heart attack!

Logged into my online SSHRC account today for no apparent reason and noticed that my profile is completely blank -- the 2014/15 application has been removed. Completely forgot that they delete old data from their accounts every year. At least it's a sign than things are moving on SSHRC's end!

Definitely not April yet! Snow is still on the ground where I am

Welcome to the thread, Srevils311! Thanks for sharing your stats. I'll post my stats once the results are released in April. Let's hope that we all have better luck applying this time around!

Couldn't edit my last post for some reason, but I now remember that Nov 2012 competition's direct applicants were informed mid-March whether they were A- or B-listed. Hope this helps!

I was a direct applicant in 2011 and SSHRC notified me at the end of February that my application was not entered into the final round. I believe that this was the initial selection process that direct applicants to SSHRC undergo, which is equivalent to how universities rank their applicants before forwarding their applications to the national competition.

I would speculate that substantial changes include those that would render your proposed project at the time of application almost unrecognizable vis-a-vis your "new" project. I think that changes to methodology, theory, etc. don't count as substantial. If your topic changes completely, then so does your proposal, so that's pretty substantial in my view. Of course, I'd say that it is better first to consult with your supervisor and grad chair before filling out the form and sending it to SSHRC. But I also think that if the subject matter of your "new" research project is still eligible for funding under SSHRC's mandate, there's no reason for concern even if it has been substantially revised. I guess SSHRC doesn't want any surprises when your final product is completely different from your proposed research. They just want to be notified of changes is all. Having said that, I don't really know about the consequences of not reporting substantial changes, but I'm positive that everyone who wants to keep their SSHRC funding would not want to find out the hard way

Congrats surefire! Keeping my finders crossed for all the applicants until the results are released.

Good luck! It might also be a good idea to contact someone in grad studies at your university, since usually they are the ones who determine the rankings and forward the applications to SSHRC.

What I find interesting is that according to SSHRC, the deadline for university applications (applicants who apply via universities) is January 9, 2014, meaning that all the universities with a quota must have submitted their nominees to SSHRC by this time. This still doesn't explain why some universities don't inform their applicants until as late as February.

That is quite late! My school notified me in late December. Usually February notifications are for direct applicants and universities without a quota, according to SSHRC.

I think you're right, and that probably is the most logical explanation. Adding Fellowships and CGSs together will yield the total number of scholarships that are awarded from the pool of A-list applicants. I guess what put me off was that the CGS Excel sheet really doesn't give us any information on the success rate other than indicating the total number of CGSs that are issued, therefore leading us to infer that CGSs are "extra" to the Fellowships.

bentharbour's calculation is for the success rate by institution at the time of application, and a similar calculation can be done for institutions to award the doctorate: (number of successful CGS award + number of successful fellowships) divided by (A-list applicants forwarded by the university). One thing though: I am not entirely certain that CGSs and Fellowships can simply be added together and then divided over the total number of A-list applications to determine the success rate. Could it be that the CGS category is completely separate from Fellowships? The Doctoral Fellowship Excel sheet does say that the national average is 28.2%, which makes me wonder why CGS numbers aren't included in the calculation.

I recall that last year's competition results were released at the end of April (I checked SSHRC's twitter feed). I wouldn't be surprised if this will also be the case this time around.

This morning I received an email from SSHRC acknowledging receipt of my application. Has anyone else received the email?

Thanks for the link wtncffts! The competition stats are quite useful because they include a variety of indicators.

Now you wait until April for a decision from SSHRC. Your application will be adjudicated by an interdisciplinary selection committee that will also have an expert in the field that you are proposing to study. I have heard that once the applications leave the university, applicants will have anywhere between 33% and 50% success rate in the national competition.

I just came back from vacation and found a letter in the mail dated Dec 23 that my app was forwarded to the national competition. I'm at Carleton University.

I was informed by grad studies not to expect notification of SSHRC application status before the holidays. Last year the letters went out Dec. 21!

Congrats, that's great news! I'm at Carleton, we usually have to wait until the end of December (even though grad studies has received all the SSHRC applications from the departments Nov 1st).

I would include it regardless of whether you make a meaningful connection between your proposed studies and the award. After all, not everyone's awards are always in line with what they will be studying. The benefit of including the award in your SSHRC application is that you have some sort of credential supporting your research interests in the Program of Study; and the worst case scenario is that SSHRC will see the award as a filler, which is not a problem and is better than leaving a blank space.

Admission offers to US universities do often include tuition waivers in the form of a TA-ship or RA-ship. I don't think that as a rule they always include a generous funding package on top of that. So, other costs like costs of living, can amount to enormous debts over 3-4 years.

Tuition fees at many US universities are also much higher than they are at Canadian schools, often ranging from USD 35,000-45,000 a year. So a lot of times the cost of tuition by far exceeds the amount that funding packages may provide.