winter2012
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Posts posted by winter2012
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Does the school rank their applicants when forward their applications to NSERC ?
Yes the school ranks their applicants. The ranking begins from the department and then the Faculty. Let me give you my example.
Total 65 eligible applicants (MSc+PhD) from the department out of 450 MSc and PhD Students (2008 example).
Ranked from 1 to 35 applicants forwarded to the Faculty of Graduate Studies (by the Department)
Ranked from 1-18 were forwarded to NSERC (FoGS).
10 out of 18 ranked applicants were awarded fellowships (1CGS-D3; 3PGS-D3; 6 CGS-M).
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Okay, here is how the scores break down:
There are 4 quadrants (0-25, 26-50, 51-75, 76-100) for each category (academic, research, leadership). Based on how you stack up to the competition, you are placed in a quadrant and given a number in that quadrant that indicates your strength of weakness. That is how there becomes variability. Your scores per reviewer are then averaged (there are 2 reviewers). That score is then multiplied by the percentage net worth it is. All 3 sections are added and your total score is calculated. It is there that you are ranked in your entire committee.
If the 2 reviewers disagree heavily on your position in the quadrants, that is where your file is reviewed in February and the entire panel votes on where you rank. Each CGS/PGS application gets around 5 minutes of time. It is not as intense as you seem to believe.
If you disagree with any of this, feel free to contact NSERC - I did last summer when I thought my score was low (especially in academics). A 51 means you were above half of the population, but you are still far away from the top, and that can sink you. However, if the 2 people reviewing your file like your prof or believe you are in a good lab, your research component can get a great ranking even if you are not the strongest candidate.
So, yes, bias can easily influence this. And matters that are outside of your control (school, prof, tools), can become very powerful.
Best of luck.
Edit: That article does contain everything I wrote (except for the quadrants).
Thank you for the information. Greatly helps.
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I can confirm that Waterloo has the results. My supervisor dropped by my office yesterday morning to let me know.
The department head of my current university (Western Canada) yesterday told me that the result will be available at any time soon (within the next 7 days). I will let you know how my application goes this year; I am very positive (though) that this year my application will be successful.
People who get CGS-PGS scholarships, do not realize (until they graduate) that there is an additional money (e.g., 15K per year from NSERC and 25 K from BC Government per year) that could come from both NSERC and provincial governments, if they try to partner with industry during their graduate study (smart way to do research! in the present context): Your approx. salary = 21K (PGS-D3)+15K NSERC topup+25 K BC Govt Top Up=61K per year for upto 4 years. But I never tried to get additional information about these external funding (instead I spent quite a large amount of time doing fundamental research, and off course made significant contributions; published high quality manuscripts in the Journal of Applied Physics, IEEE, Elsevier science, to name a few. One thing is sure, your supervisor will not let this opportunity know you (I mean partnering with industry), unless you try yourself. And, believe me its easy, once you have money in your head.
In any event, I will let you know how my PDF application goes this year. Good luck to everyone. And, please share your experience as well.
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Since I was addicted to this forum last year, I thought I should contribute this year.
FYI: Last year the budget was tabled March 29th, and I got my letter in the mail (Montreal) on April 5th. My departement was notified the day before I got the letter.
Also, I initially won a PGS-D3, but got a letter informing me it was upgraded to a CDS-D3 on June 11th.
My stats were:
1 submitted 1st authored paper
3 published 2nd authored papers
3 refereed 1st authored conference presentations
3 non-refereed (2 1st authored, 1 second authored) conference presentations
My GPA for my 2 years of my masters was 4.0
Even is not technically taken into account, my GPA for my last 2 years of undergrad was 3.95
I had never won an NSERC scholarship prior to this (not even a summer student award)
This was the first time my application went beyond the university competition
I got accepted for the award during my first year of PhD at Mcgill (Biomedical Engineering)
I did my Masters degree at the University of Western Ontario (Physics)
I did my Undergraduate degree at the Universite de Moncton (Physics)
Thanks for sharing your information. The information will be helpful to many for sure.
I was also addicted to this forum last year. I could not secure more than just a pre-approved IR&DF fellowship for my PDF application. Having IR&DF label in own's head was definitely better feeling than having nothing at all. I have yet to find a company that is interested into hiring an IR&DF fellow. In fact, the IR&DF fellowship seem to offer much more reward as compared to the normal PDF, although finding a suitable company partner is extremely difficult for some while lucky others find it quickly. In fact, some of the companies did contact me via NSERC (even without applying for it) and asked me to send 3 letters of references, which I did. But so far no luck.
I decided to give second try. I wish I knew my score but never tried to contact NSERC. What I think is that people who got scholarship last year they deserved it. People who did not make it also deserved the scholarship but because the funding level was drastically cut down, many highly qualified candidates could not get the award NOT because that their application was poor but because that the funding cap was drastically brought down by the federal government. As some one above mentioned that the funding for NSERC fellowship will go up this year, lets hope that many of us will be able to share good news in this forum soon.
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Finally, we are here!
Any IR & DF holders from the last year's nominations here?
Did you apply for NSERC PDF this year?
Budget announcement on March 21, meaning results should be out by the end of March this year.
Good luck to every one
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Thanks. But this is for last year not for this year. This is the scholarship distribution for Jan to March 2012.
You may be right, but interestingly, the PDF scholarship has been distributed as late as April 1, 2012.
In my IRDF letter, they mentioned that "Since you indicated an interest in the IRDF on your PDF application, your name and application information will be included in this inventory, posted on NSERC's Web site."
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I agree, how did you find the list?
Please search NSERC "Disclosure of Grants and Scholarship" in google, and find the list in PDF as well as in Excel. It lists only 49 PDF award holders. Thanks.
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Hi winter2012, how did you calculate the number of PDF holders this year ? I believe the official results have not been posted on NSERC's website yet: http://www.nserc-crs...t/index_eng.asp
Somebody in this forum asked by telephone an NSERC agent about the number of PDF for this year competition (2012-2013), and she said around 100.
They have published list yesterday. Available online. Thanks.
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Hi Guys, I counted the number of PDF holders this year (2012) and found the total number of successful applications 49 (as of April 20, 2012) as fourty nine only!). Now I know why I was awarded Industrial R&D Fellowship instead of PDF. The IRDF fellowship does seem not bad as I thought earlier. All the best.
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Thank you. For a pre-approved IRDF applicant, I just found that NSERC pays 30 K and the candidate has to find a compnay need to pay 10 K minimum. The file will remain active until March 30 2014, (pre-approved).
Some one asked me if my background is semiconductor or not? My background is in semiconductor field but my proposal was at the time fo application was about biomedical applications.
Sorry for typos.
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Sorry to hear about that. If a referee can not write strongly then he/she should tell the applicant about it before writing the reference letter. However, I believe that you will get whatever you deserve. Congratulation on your awarding PhD and wish you all the best.
Thank you. For a pre-approved IRDF applicant, I just found that NSERC pays 30 K and the candidate has to find a compnay need to pay 10 K minimum. The file will remain active until March 30 2014, (pre-approved).
Some one asked me if my background is semiconductor or not? My background is in semiconductor field but my proposal was at the time fo application was about biomedical applications.
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Does it mean that one of your referee was not well known or high profile? Or the referee did not write strongly to support you. I am again afraid. First of all both of my referees are from outside Canada, they are not well known. Also, I do not know what they wrote?
:( However, I hope I will receive my letter by coming Friday.
The referee did not write strongly, but I asked him anyway. I think that was my wrong choice. A good thing is that now I have this IRDF offer. Doing postdoc is definitly not always exciting job. I will seek what I can do out of this Industrial Pre-approved Fellowship and if not will try to apply to companies. After all, we have to work and make money. I defended my PhD a week ago and succesfully passed, and today I submitted my PhD theis and I am graduating in May this year. Thanks.
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Does this mean you had 8 first author published journals and you still did not get in the waitling list!!!!
6 as a first author in IEEE Inc. and American J. of Applied. Physics (both journals are considered good) and remaining papers have second or third authorships. I did not have a lack of publications I guess. Not sure what took away my points.
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Your profile looks very strong too me. If I compare my profile with yours then my application is not even worthy for IRDF
.One of my references was not very powerful. That might have played some role in my nomination. Please hope for the best.
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Congratulations!! An IRDF is also good. Can you please tell us your stats?
Thank you. I had 4 published and 2 submitted papers in my PhD. 4 published papers prior to PhD study. I had my PGS-D3 in my PhD. I thought that my proposal was very powerful. The letter indicates that "because you have also indicated for IRDF.......". Not sure if that played any role in my selection or not ...". IRDF pre-approved and it will remain active until March 2014.
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I got a letter in BC today; I was hoping for the PDF but just IRDF pre-approved. It took so long to get this letter. Best of luck to those applicants who are still waiting for their results.
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Waterloo. IRDF Pre-approved.
What would be your next step, as now u have IRDF is pre-approved? Can you share some info? Thanks.
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It's a good university and nice city/cities.
How far is ur institute from UMN Twin Cities? Are u planning to stay there too?
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Hi dhanson,
It’s good to hear that I am not the only one who does the taxes for the husband too:-)
How far is ur institute from UMN Twin Cities? Are u planning to stay there too?
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no, Rochester. You?
I am planning to work as a postdoc at UMN Twiin Cities.
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Thanks winter 2012. I am not sad though, as I decided not to pursue a post-doc anyways. I was just hoping that they included some information about the IRDF in the letter (I was looking forward to that).
I am doing my PhD in pure math.
Thanks for the information. Mine is electronic engineering. We have not yet recieved any letter from NSERC here in BC. As soon as I recieve a letter, I will update my status here. Thanks and please keep up the good work. Hard work will finally pay off!
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mail came today but no NSERC letter in Minnesota
Are you in Minnesota University, Twin Cities?
NSERC 2013 - 2014
in The Bank
Posted
Interesting. I remember getting a letter from NSERC before getting an email from the graduate office. That was in 2008 though. Congratulations.