NSERC PGS D 2021-2022

[MarleyBarley]

22 hours ago, Pouty_Scouty said:

I thought the same - that it usually comes out mid to late-March, with last year being the exception due to Covid. I actually don't expect to receive an award as this is my first year applying and I've been away from academia for 6+ years. But I sure would like to know either way! Oh well, I guess it's back to the waiting game...

me too, its my first time applying and i have been out of school for 2 years. I was already planning how to write a better research proposal for next round... lol 

on a side note, we finally reach april !

[aenzenh]

It's especially frustrating to everyone who's been out of school for a few years and for whom funding is a major part of the decision whether to start a PhD or not (like me). On top of that, the universities' offer of acceptance deadlines are usually on April 15 and many funding notifications for external scholarships come out later than that. Not very well coordinated if you ask me...

Edited April 1, 2021 by aenzenh

[Pouty_Scouty]

1 hour ago, MarleyBarley said:

me too, its my first time applying and i have been out of school for 2 years. I was already planning how to write a better research proposal for next round... lol 

on a side note, we finally reach april !

LOL! I too have been thinking about where/how I can make improvements to my application for next year. Good luck to you! ☺️

[BittersweetHaiku]

I have also been refreshing my inbox impatiently every few minutes!

Does anyone know where we will be able to see the results? I know CGSM was on  the portal (https://portal-portail.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/s/login.aspx), but I don't have an account set up for this portal. Am I missing something?  

[Crawn]

13 minutes ago, BittersweetHaiku said:

I have also been refreshing my inbox impatiently every few minutes!

Does anyone know where we will be able to see the results? I know CGSM was on  the portal (https://portal-portail.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/s/login.aspx), but I don't have an account set up for this portal. Am I missing something?  

Last year we got an email to login to an ExtraNet account. I assume it will be the same this year, but who knows!

[dehafa]

no update yet. Good luck everyone! I wish we could all just win

[MarleyBarley]

10 hours ago, aenzenh said:

It's especially frustrating to everyone who's been out of school for a few years and for whom funding is a major part of the decision whether to start a PhD or not (like me). On top of that, the universities' offer of acceptance deadlines are usually on April 15 and many funding notifications for external scholarships come out later than that. Not very well coordinated if you ask me...

I hope you get it ❤️... it definitely sucks that they didnt think of people who has to accept/decline US schools by 15th april. 

well  got to keep expectations for government services abit low... 

[MarleyBarley]

13 minutes ago, dehafa said:

no update yet. Good luck everyone! I wish we could all just win

of course, i think we are still 2 weeks away. 

[aenzenh]

On 4/1/2021 at 10:32 PM, MarleyBarley said:

I hope you get it ❤️... it definitely sucks that they didnt think of people who has to accept/decline US schools by 15th april. 

well  got to keep expectations for government services abit low... 

Thanks! Hope you too

Even Canadian schools (e.g. McGill) adhere to the April 15 deadlines btw. Not sure if they can be extended but I'll try.

[abdelrahmanayad]

Hi everyone,

While we're waiting here (hopefully not for too long), I thought we can share our profile so can get to know each other and see who's in the same committee. 

I'm a 1st year PhD student at McGill, and doing research in power systems planning, my committee would be Electrical and Computer Engineering. I had one year experience before starting the program, 3 publications, and high GPA (undergrad in Egypt and Masters in Waterloo). 

Best of luck to everyone here

[MarleyBarley]

8 hours ago, abdelrahmanayad said:

Hi everyone,

While we're waiting here (hopefully not for too long), I thought we can share our profile so can get to know each other and see who's in the same committee. 

I'm a 1st year PhD student at McGill, and doing research in power systems planning, my committee would be Electrical and Computer Engineering. I had one year experience before starting the program, 3 publications, and high GPA (undergrad in Egypt and Masters in Waterloo). 

Best of luck to everyone here

Hey similar profile too ! I m in ULaval, did my masters in UWaterloo. What year were u in UW?  also are your 3 publications first author? Are you a PR too if i may ask?

Edited April 4, 2021 by MarleyBarley

[Pouty_Scouty]

13 hours ago, abdelrahmanayad said:

Hi everyone,

While we're waiting here (hopefully not for too long), I thought we can share our profile so can get to know each other and see who's in the same committee. 

I'm a 1st year PhD student at McGill, and doing research in power systems planning, my committee would be Electrical and Computer Engineering. I had one year experience before starting the program, 3 publications, and high GPA (undergrad in Egypt and Masters in Waterloo). 

Best of luck to everyone here

I’m in the ecology and evolution stream. I’ll be starting my PhD in the fall. I’ve been working for government as a wildlife biologist for the past 6 years (since finishing my masters), so have lot of practical experience. Have 2 first author publications, plus numerous technical reports from work. Terrible grades during my first 2 years of undergrad, but decent grades in my last 2 years. High GPA from my masters. Was involved in student governance during my masters. While I have decent experience, I don’t know that I sold myself as well as I could have in my application. I’m therefore not expecting to have much success this first round, especially since I was waitlisted for an OGS (thought I was a shoe-in for that one). Good luck to everyone. Hopefully we hear soon!

[MarleyBarley]

Forgot to add

5 hours ago, MarleyBarley said:

Hey similar profile too ! I m in ULaval, did my masters in UWaterloo. What year were u in UW?  also are your 3 publications first author? Are you a PR too if i may ask?

Forgot to add im in Statistics (so mathematical sciences committee) 

[MarleyBarley]

1 hour ago, Pouty_Scouty said:

I’m in the ecology and evolution stream. I’ll be starting my PhD in the fall. I’ve been working for government as a wildlife biologist for the past 6 years (since finishing my masters), so have lot of practical experience. Have 2 first author publications, plus numerous technical reports from work. Terrible grades during my first 2 years of undergrad, but decent grades in my last 2 years. High GPA from my masters. Was involved in student governance during my masters. While I have decent experience, I don’t know that I sold myself as well as I could have in my application. I’m therefore not expecting to have much success this first round, especially since I was waitlisted for an OGS (thought I was a shoe-in for that one). Good luck to everyone. Hopefully we hear soon!

wow you seem to have a very strong profile (2 first author pubs) + bunch of work experience... 

I only have 1 first author pub + 2 as co-authors.... hahahaha i expect myself to be on the waiting list for nserc...  

seems like the bar for all these scholarships are getting higher and higher . can only hope for the best... 

 

[abdelrahmanayad]

10 hours ago, MarleyBarley said:

Hey similar profile too ! I m in ULaval, did my masters in UWaterloo. What year were u in UW?  also are your 3 publications first author? Are you a PR too if i may ask?

Hey there! I have 3 first authors (1 journal, 2 conferences), and 1 co-author (journal), I was in UW from 2017-2019. That's funny we might have ran into each other at UW  . Yes I am a PR. you too?
I'm applying to FRQnt too, but I guess we have to wait until the very end of April for that  

[MarleyBarley]

56 minutes ago, abdelrahmanayad said:

Hey there! I have 3 first authors (1 journal, 2 conferences), and 1 co-author (journal), I was in UW from 2017-2019. That's funny we might have ran into each other at UW  . Yes I am a PR. you too?
I'm applying to FRQnt too, but I guess we have to wait until the very end of April for that  

yup i was in UW from 2016 to 2018! Yes i was an international student for many years, got my PR then headed back to do my PhD... i was almost accepted to mcgill also (i applied for the winter semester due to the timing of my PR and they came back to me late... i mean who applies for winter semester right...  )... and ended up at ULaval. 

 

yeah FRQNT in my opinion is way less work to apply than NSERC. hahaha although the part where we had to write the abstract of research proposal in french took me some time... fingers crossed we get something

[canstudent13]

Anyone else here from Psych? ? Most people in my program apply through SSHRC, but my research is focused on neural mechanisms, so my supervisor suggested I go through NSERC. I'm pretty nervous that my application won't look 'natural sciences' enough due to my background. I've had success with master's funding in the past, but this seems much harder to get. 

[jennakinskywalker]

I'm a first year PhD at Carleton in conservation and sociology - basically how stakeholders use evidence to make decisions about forest management. After I finished my Masters in 2017 I took a few years off in STEM education.

My project is such a weird mix of biology and sociology that my supervisor and I weren't even sure if we should apply for NSERC or SSHRC. Since I had a CGS-M in my Masters, we went for NSERC. Here's hoping that was the right call! I have 7 publications (3 as first author), so hopefully they look at those and not my meh grades. 

[jennakinskywalker]

11 hours ago, canstudent13 said:

Anyone else here from Psych? ? Most people in my program apply through SSHRC, but my research is focused on neural mechanisms, so my supervisor suggested I go through NSERC. I'm pretty nervous that my application won't look 'natural sciences' enough due to my background. I've had success with master's funding in the past, but this seems much harder to get. 

I've heard that NSERC is more open to interdisciplinary research than SSHRC is, especially when the sciences are involved. So probably a good call

[aenzenh]

I'm in the computing sciences committee (subfield robotics) planning to start my PhD in September. I've been working in an industrial research job for the past 3 years and did a master's at McGill before. I have 3 first author publications from my master's (1 journal and 3 less competitive conferences) and 2 co-author journals from my work in industry. My grades in master's and undergrad were pretty good except for my exchange year where I really struggled with the language barrier and different class format. I've also been a course instructor for one semester. I guess a lot of my chances will depend on how the reviewers see my research proposal and whether they value my experience in the industry.

Edited April 5, 2021 by aenzenh

[MarleyBarley]

Wow, im actually surprised most of us in here worked before we go  do a PhD. I mean alot of people around me went straight from their masters to their PhD making them around 23-25 when they started. I started at 27 and feel abit older than my peers... its not a significnt difference for sure but i still feel old. 

Happy Easter  

[Laafimani]

Hey there,

My profile: MSc degree in 2018 from a foreign university, 7 decent publications in total (2 first author journal pubs, 2 other journal pubs, 3 international conferences). Quite honestly, I'm not confident about getting it this round so I'm gearing up for the next round, with hopefully another journal publication. Have not started a PhD yet, so I'm an External Applicant - looking to enrol the moment that award comes in. Looks like most applicants here are internal (enrolled in universities). 

~ Good luck to everyone - we need it.

PS: the wait killing me at this time because I put job search and other plans on hold in anticipation of starting my PhD soon.

 

[PasserBy]

Hey all. 2nd year PhD student, so this will be my last contest for PGS-D. I'd like to make an important note, you can't apply past either the 24 months (or 36 months if you entered either from a Masters without completing it directly into a PhD, or directly into a PhD from your undergrad). So there is an upper limit to how many times you can apply once you've started in the program. I never could crack the NSERC competitions, but it wasn't due to lack of effort, either. 

I've made my peace with it over the past year. I have had a successful Masters, I took a year off to work in between, and returned for a PhD that is well funded outside of the competitive scholarship supports. It does feel odd as someone who has done CGS-M, and now PGS/CGS-D every year for the last 5 (!) years to have an end to it all. Although I've never got the CGS, I've gotten a few years of OGS now, so I'm in contention if they are to be considered equivalently important scholarships. ha. 

For those worrying over the details and would like data to comfort themselves with, I have 2 publications (important, this means journals, not conferences), 1 of which first author, both in higher impact journals for my field. I have 1 additional submitted journal (not accepted), its important you include those so long they reasonably different from your later submissions. I also have a handful of conferences, and a poster competition, as well as an academic-industrial project I proposed and was accepted to receive funding. And a completed Master's degree with thesis. Also, I think its obvious, we ALL have really good grades, and I define that as A averages. Grades don't mean jack unless you're getting straight cut off grades (usually B's) in your graduate courses. A+ aren't good either if they are compromising your research progress. If you're both getting A+ and making reasonable research progress... how do you have any time to worry about how others are doing? Lol. Just focus on numero uno, you'll be fine. 

Speak to your history in your future applications. Really try to make it come across as important, while remaining straightforward and use minimal jargon, and. Highlight your contributions, both past and potential future in plain language. 

Here are some additional resources for your next applications I've revisited over the years. They were great comforts in my writing process. 

http://www.mun.ca/sgs/current/funding/NSERC_PGS_CGS_D_Sept_16_2018.pdf

https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/_doc/Students-Etudiants/SF-tips_eng.pdf

My own personal reflection in all this is the scholarships are far more hassle than they're worth. Really. If you get accepted to to be considered, that's a great sign that you're a reasonably proficient grant writer with some interesting background to share. Keep that alive as you progress in your career, it'll pay a lot better than a handful of years of PGS/CGS during your lifetime. Graduate studies are a stepping stone, not the end. 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by PasserBy

[CharB]

16 hours ago, canstudent13 said:

Anyone else here from Psych? ? Most people in my program apply through SSHRC, but my research is focused on neural mechanisms, so my supervisor suggested I go through NSERC. I'm pretty nervous that my application won't look 'natural sciences' enough due to my background. I've had success with master's funding in the past, but this seems much harder to get. 

Cognitive psych here! I have the same worry! My lab is NSERC oriented too rather than SSHRC. I have not had much luck the past two years so I do not have high hopes this round. No luck in the OGS department either (always destined for the waitlist). I think my profile is decent? But who knows! Before this, I did a master's in experimental, had 1 year work experience at a not-for-profit, 1 first-author journal pub, and 4 conference presentations. I also had success with master's funding and an award for my thesis. I keep wondering if it is my proposal (I completely re-wrote it this year), or if the world is just competitive (or both).

[aenzenh]

3 hours ago, MarleyBarley said:

Wow, im actually surprised most of us in here worked before we go  do a PhD. I mean alot of people around me went straight from their masters to their PhD making them around 23-25 when they started. I started at 27 and feel abit older than my peers... its not a significnt difference for sure but i still feel old. 

Happy Easter  

I'm also surprised as to how many people in this thread are older students that have worked for a few years before doing a PhD. I will be almost 29 years old when I start this fall.

2 hours ago, Laafimani said:

Hey there,

My profile: MSc degree in 2018 from a foreign university, 7 decent publications in total (2 first author journal pubs, 2 other journal pubs, 3 international conferences). Quite honestly, I'm not confident about getting it this round so I'm gearing up for the next round, with hopefully another journal publication. Have not started a PhD yet, so I'm an External Applicant - looking to enrol the moment that award comes in. Looks like most applicants here are internal (enrolled in universities). 

~ Good luck to everyone - we need it.

PS: the wait killing me at this time because I put job search and other plans on hold in anticipation of starting my PhD soon.

 

Same for me. I'm an external applicant. I found a supervisor and have a research project but need to secure funding. So yeah, the wait is awful...