Any info on the NSERC (PGS-M) university selection process?

[hungryhungryhipster]

I'm at the University or Windsor (Ontario), and I was just wondering if anybody knows roughly how selective the university review process is? I know the success rate for applicants once they get to Ottawa is high, like 65-75%, but how many actually get that far? FWIW, two of the three times I applied for the NSERC USRA (undergraduate version), I was at least recommended by the department and I got it both times (though the second time I just squeaked by from the waiting list, because they only gave out half the number of awards as the previous year), but I think the selection process is entirely at the university level for those awards. The first time I applied I was not recommended, but that wasn't a surprise because I was only a first year undergrad.

[ktel]

I received a CGS-M and had to apply through my department first and then was recommended to NSERC. How successful you will be depends on what university you go to, I believe. Certain universities and regions are granted a certain number of awards.

If you already have received previous NSERC awards that looks great. I would be surprised if you didn't make it through the university review process given that you have already received NSERC funding. What's your GPA? That's a huge factor, so if it's high you are even more likely to get through. It sounds like you've probably already done way more research than I did in undergrad.

I also don't think selection is at the university level for the USRAs, as I know several people who were obviously recommended by our department but didn't receive one.

[snap!]

How competitive it is at the university level depends a lot on the particular university. One must consider not only the quantity that the school is allowed to forward to NSERC but also the quantity of students that apply internally within the department. At some schools, there are tonnes of applicants.

Furthermore, since a large part of the PGS-M application is based on marks, the difficulty of getting through your school's internal selection process will depend a lot on how your marks stack up to your classmates. If you attend a school with lots of grade inflation and most people have good marks, obviously the process becomes more difficult.

[hungryhungryhipster]

I received a CGS-M and had to apply through my department first and then was recommended to NSERC. How successful you will be depends on what university you go to, I believe. Certain universities and regions are granted a certain number of awards.

If you already have received previous NSERC awards that looks great. I would be surprised if you didn't make it through the university review process given that you have already received NSERC funding. What's your GPA? That's a huge factor, so if it's high you are even more likely to get through. It sounds like you've probably already done way more research than I did in undergrad.

I also don't think selection is at the university level for the USRAs, as I know several people who were obviously recommended by our department but didn't receive one.

My GPA is 12.6/13 for CS, and 11.9/13 overall. Looking around me, it's certainly good within my department (last time I applied for NSERC the department head personally recommended me, or so he told me, but the university bumped me down to the waiting list as they don't always follow the departmental recommendations. I got it eventually though.) I know of a few people with 13/13 in electrical engineering, though, and they would probably be under the same review panel. I also have a conference paper of which I am second author, but it's in a different field (it's in network topology, while I'm in bioinformatics now, but the linear programming methods it is based on are used in both fields). I was under the impression that GPA didn't matter so much as research ability, but that may be more true of grad school admissions that NSERC.

The thing about my school is that it's reputation on a national level is not exactly stellar. It's in no way deserved, but people from bigger schools like Waterloo and Toronto like to look down their noses at Windsor. I would hope the guys on the review panel would know better, and obviously at the university selection level it wouldn't matter, because they're all from the same school.

About the USRA, I'm pretty sure the way it works is that each school is allocated enough funding for X awards, then each departments makes their recommendations to the university, and the university makes the final allocation.

Also, if anyone would like to let me look over their "Applicant's Statement" section, I'd greatly appreciate it. I promise I won't plagiarise (not that I could, as it's about me, not you), but I just need somewhere to start. I found it easy to write the research proposal (I already have a project mostly done, but it's never been published yet, so I'm just basically writing it up as if I haven't started yet), but the whole personal thing is not my strong suit.

Finally, does it help if my proposed project is novel? I've basically come up with an improved method of predicting protein-protein interactions, and from a search of the relevant journals it doesn't look like anybody's done it before. As I understand it, novelty is generally expected of Ph.D. students, but not so much for Masters. I feel like this could give me an edge. I put it under AI (2800) for the NSERC subject code, because it mostly uses pattern recognition algorithms, but more than likely the people on the review panel won't have any clue about the biology stuff.

Edit: One more thing. How am I supposed to highlight communication and leadership skills in the "relevant activities" section? I quite literally haven't done anything in my four years along those lines. The only thing I have is that I TA'd a course last year. I was going to keep TA'ing, but budget cuts nixed that. I will be acting as a mentor for first year students, but that won't be starting until September. I suspect there has to be many more people in the same boat, as someone who gets a high GPA is not usually a social butterfly.

Edited August 14, 2011 by hall1k

[hungryhungryhipster]

How competitive it is at the university level depends a lot on the particular university. One must consider not only the quantity that the school is allowed to forward to NSERC but also the quantity of students that apply internally within the department. At some schools, there are tonnes of applicants.

Furthermore, since a large part of the PGS-M application is based on marks, the difficulty of getting through your school's internal selection process will depend a lot on how your marks stack up to your classmates. If you attend a school with lots of grade inflation and most people have good marks, obviously the process becomes more difficult.

There can't be too many people applying though, right? I only know a couple people planning to go the academic route in my department. I guess the real competition would be from people applying for the PGS-M to get them through their second year of masters (though I'm not sure that if you can do that).

[ktel]

Look at the selection criteria:

http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/PG-CS/BellandPostgrad-BelletSuperieures_eng.asp

For the PGS-M/CGS-M, academic excellence is worth 50%, research ability/potential is 30% and communication, interpersonal and leadership abilities are 20%.

I don't know how much a novel research proposal will help, to be honest. I was told that they basically just want to see that you can write a research proposal and that you have a good potential to do research. I wrote up a random research proposal because in September I had no idea about where I would be attending or what I would be researching. Now that I received the award I just have to send them my new research proposal so they can be sure it's still within their funding scope

I also wouldn't worry too much about your school's reputation. This site shows how many people from your university received awards this year:

http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/NSERC-CRSNG/FundingDecisions-DecisionsFinancement/2008/Scholarships-Bourses/CanadianAppDetail-DetailCanCanadien_eng.asp

You can see there are a fair number. NSERC isn't snobby in terms of what schools receive funding. As a government funded body they are expected to evenly distribute funding to all schools and regions.

PM me your e-mail and I can send you my application, if you'd like.

[hungryhungryhipster]

Thanks for your help At least I'm a little less worried now.

On a side note, I got the whole form filled out using a PDF editor (which took forever because you have to line up the text by hand as if it was in photoshop), then I realized it's the 2010 form and the new one isn't even out yet...

Looks like in the 2011 competition Windsor got 7 CGSM's and no PGSM's. They seem to be giving out mostly CGS's. Also the success rate fell to only 50%!

Edited August 15, 2011 by hall1k

[ktel]

Yeah it will be put online. I believe you fill it all into text boxes and it automatically puts it into a PDF for you. I e-mailed you my app BTW.

[hungryhungryhipster]

Thanks

[hungryhungryhipster]

I see you're at Alberta. What are your impressions of it? I'm going to apply there, but it's not like I can go see the place because it's so far away.

[ktel]

I did my undergrad at U of A (Mechanical Engineering), going to U of T for my Master's.

I had a really great experience at the U of A. The professors were great, the buildings are really nice (there is a lot of oil money coming in) and lots of fun stuff to do. I was born and raised in Edmonton and a lot of my friends went to the U of A as well. Don't know much about the CS department, unfortunately. Anything in particular you want to know?

[hungryhungryhipster]

I guess you can't really speak for the grad program. I probably wouldn't go there anyway, just because I haven't heard much coming out of there either in terms of CS research. The major players in my field are of course UofT, Waterloo, McGill, and UBC.

[ktel]

They do have very good funding though. At least for engineering, I doubt CS would be very different. I seem to recall reading something in our school newspaper about how Alberta really wants CS grads and industry is pouring money in or something like that. But obviously find the school that best fits your research interests.

[semicolon]

I'm interested in applying for the upcoming NSERC PGS M/D award. I was wondering, how do they interpret their minimum GPA requirement? ("have obtained a first-class average (a grade of "A-") in each of the last two completed years of study (full-time equivalent).")

In my last two years of full-time study, I had annual GPAs of 3.67 and 3.97. Does anyone know if the 3.67 would qualify for the "first-class average of A-"? I'm a little unsure, since my undergrad school set the number <-> letter conversion for A- at 3.7, and 3.3 for B+.

Thanks!

[emmm]

Seems you're in the right range -- Go For It! You have no chance of getting it if you don't apply!

[ktel]

I will warn you, 50% of the PGS-M application is based on academic excellence. That's a pretty significant amount, but a 3.67 is obviously great, and that combined with your 3.97 gives you an even higher combined GPA

[hungryhungryhipster]

Do you think it's worth attaching a "special circumstances" section to my application just to explain a dropped course in Fall 2009? I was taking 4 courses at the time and caught mononucleosis a month before the final, so I dropped the hardest course and somehow managed to finish the other three (I had like 2 hours a day where I could even move, that disease is brutal).

Also, the instructions say to only attach a separate page for this section if you're applying for the PDF, and that PGS-M applicants are supposed to put it on the application form itself, but there isn't a place for it on the form.

Edited August 24, 2011 by hall1k

[ktel]

Yeah, the instructions say there is a special circumstances page for PGS-M applications. On the online form (Form 201), on the side there is a button that says "Special Circumstances" and you upload a PDF

[Canadian_Lynx]

Hey, I have been reading about this topic here and am wondering if either of you could send me your proposals as a sample of what to start with? I am new to the process, I have all the other parts of my application done (with the exception of reference letters) but I need some "starting point" for my proposal. Of course I won't be plagiarizing your work, I intend to do a research project on Clouded leopards in Thailand... I just need kind of a "structure".

Thanks