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No new PhD students in Asian Studies were accepted this year at the University of British Columbia due to lack or funding. This thread is for all those who wish to talk about and work towards receiving a refund of the application fee. The University of Columbia was in a similar position this year and not able to secure funding for new PhD students, so they did not accept applications. Be it that this decision was only made recently at UBC, I still think that it is not right for them to keep everyone's money. I think the best approach is first for everyone to request a refund via email, replying to the letter of rejection. I have already done so.

Hi everyone! I'm planning to apply to the MA in Political Science at UBC for the September 2021 intake (I've got everything ready but the three recommendation letters but that shouldn't be a problem) Here's my "stats": GPA of the last two years (BA degree): 3.73/4.0 and 3.8/4.0. My final grade was 110 cum laude which in my country (Italy) is the highest you can get TOEFL: 107/120 Extra curricular: sadly not much except for the fact I've spent a semester in China (my BA is in East Asian studies, so I want to conduct research into Asian politics at UBC as it's one of their strengths) and that I've done my internship abroad (Taiwan). Also my final dissertation centers around Asian politics I also hold an HSK5 for Chinese and a N3 for Japanese so I have a certified intermediate level for both languages I have no idea about my chances of being admitted tbh, so if anyone could help me understand what my chances are and/or give me some heads up I'd be extremely thankful!

Hi, I would like to know if there are any current grad students from UBC Vancouver here. I will be starting my PhD in linguistics at UBC in fall 20, and would love to get in touch with the current/upcoming students beforehand! Cheers! -Aaditya

Hi all, I officially committed to UBC today for my PhD in Geography. As I'm an international student from the United States and won't have any close family or friends in the Vancouver area, it would be great to start building a network of ALL UBC Masters and PhD students. Comment here to connect and share what you'll be doing at UBC. This would also be a great place to share housing, neighborhood, activities and such. A bit about me: Married, have a dog, enjoy hiking and the outdoors, looking forward to Vancouver coffee culture. Cheers, C

Hi! I have accepted an offer from UBCO for fall of 2018. I would love to connect with some other inbound students. I did not see a topic for the Okanagan campus, so I thought I would start one up! I will be new to the area, so it would be wonderful to know some great people when I get there. Please feel free to contact me here or via PM. I would be thrilled to chat with currently attending students as well. Thank you!

I would like to provide some information regarding the reality of getting admitted to top 5 ranked Canadian graduate schools in the Computer Science Program. I work in the field and it appears to me that many applicants are not aware of some of the basic requirements to be admitted that are not overtly stated but definitely required. Unfortunately, I am unable to reveal my university or position as I wish to remain anonymous. Most of the time, you MUST have previous degree from a top school of your country, especially for students with a degree outside of Canada/USA/UK. This is extremely crucial for international students and unless you meet this requirement, it is extremely difficult to be admitted. For most countries, you will need to be in the top 5-10 universities in your country (excluding Canada/US/UK/India). For India, UK, and Canada you will generally need to be in the top 20 universities and for the US, top 50 may be considered, however, top 20 has a greater chance of being admitted. One of the first considerations of the reviewer is the school in which you graduated and how that school ranks in your country. To elaborate, having a degree from a top university is important because this is the only sure way to prove that you are performing well academically because the teaching standard and research caliber of top schools are widely recognized and can easily be compared top Canadian universities. It is impossible for each top Canadian university to understand the teaching, grading and research standard of hundreds of thousands of universities in the world, including many in a foreign language with public and private systems and most reviewers will not dig around for information regarding unknown institutions. For example, there are some universities that give a grade of 75% or above to only one in a few thousand students, whereas another university can have a graduating average of 3.7 GPA. With variations like these, unless you graduated from a top university in your country where the general grading trend and teaching quality is recognized by the Canadian school, your chances of admission are slim to none. Furthermore, the other reason a top university is important is that reviewers want to see reference letters from colleagues or faculty they know and value the opinions of. Since most top researchers in Computer Science meet in major conferences, presentations and events around the world, they are aware of each other’s work, reputation and standards when writing and reading reference letters. Most of these outstanding members of the academic community are also positioned in top schools coinciding with the reviewer’s search applications from top schools. The top Canadian graduate programs in Computer Science receive over 1000 and sometimes even over 2000 applications per year, with three reference letters per application this is an astronomical number of letters to read. Taking this number into account, while the content of reference letters matter, the respectability of the reference writer is arguably even more important. For example, a reviewer reading 100 applications a day would have to read 300 reference letters, 100 of them may indicate that the student is in the top 10% of their program. In the end, being top 10% may not mean anything because there are too many top 10%s and it does not indicate the quality of the student or education. Moreover, there have been examples where the same reference writer indicated that three different students from the same year and class were the number one student in their class. In cases like these, reviewers go back to looking at the top universities, since the caliber of education is known, and they may know the reference writers, therefore, ensuring the letter is reliable. If you believe that there are many exceptions to the rule, consider that the admission data from the previous year from one of the top Canadians schools: only TWO offers out of more than 100 offers made were outside of the guidelines above. Of course, an excellent statement, GPA, reference letters, GRE, and English proficiency are also required even from a top university. Moreover, other factors such as publications, conference experience, research projects and work experience, other achievements are also considered, however, if you do not meet the top university requirement, you will likely need astounding achievements in the other factors to even be considered for admission. The information provided refers to research Master’s and PhD programs in top Canadian universities and does not necessarily reflect industry targeted master’s programs in Computer Science. I am happy to answer any questions or clarify any points, feel free to contact me or respond to this post.

I love doing research, no doubt about that. I have 4 publications in international journals by the time I finished my Bachelors of which two were first-author. However, I realize the cost of a PhD - in terms of the time - that I cannot afford. Instead I have chosen Masters for probably having my last official research experience (though I am sure I would continue that independently later). So, I want to do research in Masters, but settle in the industry later as opposed to going for a PhD. With these possibly conflicting issues, I had applied to MSc at UBC and MSc AC at UofT. What do you suggest? If the UofT brand largely shadows UBC later for jobs, I would rather go there. Also, if the MSc AC included research component that is more of fundamental than applied, I would be okay. Since I would be going for a job for sure later anyhow (but applying to have my last dedicated research experience - to which I am fully committed), let me know what you would do if you were me? Thanks.

Hi all, I would like some assistance in deciding on whether to attend the University of British Columbia or the University of Alberta's political science PhD program. UBC has offered me 5 years of funding and a tuition waiver for all five years. On paper it looks smaller than what UofA has offered, but I got an entrance scholarship, RA position and there's the possibility of extra funding through more TA positions. UofA has offered a larger initial funding package, but I have to pay tuition out of it, they offered funding for only four years, and I cannot pick up extra TA positions to supplement my income because they are already included in the initial funding package. I know that Edmonton is cheaper to live in than Vancouver, so a bit of a smaller funding package may not be the worst thing. They also say that UofA gets a lot of outside funding for the PhD students. So based on this, program prestige, and the cities themselves anybody got any suggestions?