How competitive is the Ontario Grant Scholarship (OGS)

[pianoplaya94]

I was just rejected for the OGS and I'm feeling pretty down. I thought I was a good applicant. I had a fair bit of research experience, good GPA, and my proposed masters advisor even helped me with the research proposal (I haven't officially been accepted into a program yet).My average may have been holding me back (I think I had an 82% in my 3rd year and 84% in my final year).  So I'm just wondering, what do the stats of the students who win it usually look like? 

[Sundaythecat]

I know that previously I’ve been told everyone who was awarded an OGS had a gpa higher than an 11.  This probably varies at each institution and department though. 

[GuelphArtHistory]

From my experience it's fairly competitive, but it even depends on the year. I was awarded an OGS last year, but this year I was waitlisted. My application only got better for this year, but I was told that the pool of applicants at my school had much higher GPAs this year compared to last (closer to 90s).

[TakeruK]

The OGS is less competitive than the NSERC/SSHRC/CIHR grants but not that much less competitive. In my field, since the NSERC CGS-M is for one year only, many CGS-M holders apply for and win the OGS for the 2nd year of their Masters study. So, even though it is technically a lower tier award than the CGS-M, you end up competing in the same pool as previous CGS-M holders and therefore I don't think it is that much less competitive than a CGS-M.

As others said, it's a hard thing to pin down because the applicant pool varies from year to year. In addition, there is indeed a two-step selection process, since you must first pass your school(s) selection committee to be forwarded to the provincial committee (someone please correct me if this has changed). Therefore, this is dependent on the applicant pool at your school/program too (i.e. it might be the case that you did not progress to the provincial competition but if you were applying through a different program with a different applicant pool, you may have made it). 

Finally, although this is easier said than done, don't take the rejection too personally. Rejection is a common and normal part of academia. Most academics emphasis and discuss their successes but you can pretty much bet that every success came with several failures. The OGS, as with many other prestigious awards, always has way more qualified applicants than available awards. So, a rejection isn't an absolute determination of your ability. It just means that there were other applicants that fit the award better than you did. Moving forward, I would not worry about things you can't change (e.g. GPA) but you can work on things that will change for the future. For example, both co-authored and first-authored publications count towards the evaluation criteria. 

[CrazyPugLady]

To be honest I think it's more competitive. You are applying against others from different departments. I am not sure if the pool is divvied into different streams like the tri-agency (NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR), so you would be competing against everybody?

Even then, it is highly competitive within your department especially if you are a MA. You stand to compete with PhDs for the same prize. At least that's how it works here, according to our department.

[TakeruK]

1 hour ago, CrazyPugLady said:

To be honest I think it's more competitive. You are applying against others from different departments. I am not sure if the pool is divvied into different streams like the tri-agency (NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR), so you would be competing against everybody?

That's a good point. But also, with the OGS, you are only competing against others at or applying to Ontario schools, whereas the tri-agency awards are a national competition. One way to quantify these numbers is to look at how many applicants and how many awardees, but I don't know those numbers.

I'd say these are just more statements in support of the difficulty of quantifying which awards are more/less competitive. I'm not really sure how to answer that or if it's even that useful to know. Instead, I'll just reiterate for anyone without an acceptance/award this year to remember that this is not an absolute judgement of you as a person, nor your future career trajectory. All prestigious awards are somewhat stochastic/random, and many deserving applicants are rejected from many awards!

[java_beans]

Like people said, it depends on your school/faculty/etc since they are allocated by the university. I think that OGS is slightly less competitive than national awards (Tri-Agency) only because it's one year instead of 2+ for PhD and you may have people applying to both so those who are top-ranked may be offered an OGS but may not accept it if they accepted a Tri-Agency award. I would imagine that the same people apply to both, in fact, international students may apply to OGS who cannot apply to most national awards (though there is a set quota of awards given out to international students so that the two pools are not in competition).

I understand your frustration. Scholarships are in high demand and it sucks to not get one when you are working so hard.

[eternallyephemeral]

20 hours ago, TakeruK said:

As others said, it's a hard thing to pin down because the applicant pool varies from year to year. In addition, there is indeed a two-step selection process, since you must first pass your school(s) selection committee to be forwarded to the provincial committee (someone please correct me if this has changed). Therefore, this is dependent on the applicant pool at your school/program too (i.e. it might be the case that you did not progress to the provincial competition but if you were applying through a different program with a different applicant pool, you may have made it).

They have changed the award model since you left, as the awards are only handled within the school now. The government gives out the number of awards to each school in advance, and there is no forwarding process outside of the school now. However, at each school it may differ in terms of how many steps you go through within the school - I think in my program there are two steps, department and then faculty.

As with most (all) awards, those who have already won continue to win. However, don't get discouraged OP, as once you start the program that will help with your competitiveness. There are many things you can do to improve your chances, so make sure you get started on those once you begin the program!

[manuella56]

I agree with OP. I don't have figures but I suspect that more and more students are competing and that there aren't more awards being given out. For OGS it'll depend on your school, faculty, and how competitive the year is, at my school it seems like it was extremely competitive.

I got rejected for both master's CGS NSERC and OGS/QEII, but it's very strange for me to see because my marks are extremely high, I almost won the award for highest average (my school ranks students each semester, and I'd usually be top 3), and I have a lot of extra honours on my degree like dean's honour list, etc. I've done a lot of unrelated work (restauraunt etc) for money during school semesters instead of doing research at school, so that's my weakness, but I still did industrial NSERC's during summers and I even hit the 3-time limit on industrial work NSERC's. I also don't have any journals or presentations, so that's another big weakness.

I know I have a lot of room for improvement, but it's shocking because at the master's level at least I know they put a big emphasis on the grades instead of research in contrast to doctoral awards, where's it's majorly your research work that determines if you get it. But in the end I really do think it's getting more and more competitive each year.

[p(ache)d]

I got rejected for OGS twice and won a Vanier, so don't worry too much about it. It's all stupid.