SSHRC

[ogopogo]

This is completely unverifiable; but a faculty member who asked me today if I had heard about my results said he heard that a doctoral student had gotten his results (albeit not at our university). I tried to tell the guy that it didn't make sense since SSHRC themselves said they wouldn't release anything until the week of the 11th (and to the universities not even us).. Has anyone here heard something??

If anyone here had heard you would know. We would be all atwitter. There must be confusion about which level they applied at OR someone has a contact on the inside.

[canadiangirl78]

That's what I was trying to tell the professor, but he insisted it was for a PhD student.. Weird.. Anywho.. just thought I would check, not that we can do anything about it over the weekend..

[ogopogo]

nope, nothing to do about it now. maybe it was a current phd student applying for a postdoc?

[Snasser]

This is completely unverifiable; but a faculty member who asked me today if I had heard about my results said he heard that a doctoral student had gotten his results (albeit not at our university). I tried to tell the guy that it didn't make sense since SSHRC themselves said they wouldn't release anything until the week of the 11th (and to the universities not even us).. Has anyone here heard something??

I emailed SSHRC last night just to see if they might give me some more info. Mme Bigras responded that results should be available to FGS's middle to late next week, with letters sent out after that. She also confirmed that disclosure of award status by FGS's is their sole discretion and has nothing to do with SSHRC.

Gah!

As for pubs or no pubs: I have several pubs and presentations in Canada and the US, my major handicap is that I completed my MA in 2003, before MA SSHRCs were ever offered (I don't know if I would have been offered one, but I was also never able to find out). I am really worried that the committee(s) will not take the date of my MA into account when they assess why I was never awarded an MA SSHRC.

[monkeybrain]

I emailed SSHRC last night just to see if they might give me some more info. Mme Bigras responded that results should be available to FGS's middle to late next week, with letters sent out after that.

If this is the case, expect to hear a lot of cursing from my end. The earlier information that we received projected MA results to the FGSes on May 4th and PhD results on the 11th. What would be the reason for delaying this by mere days? What can be done in days that couldn't've been done already? Surely the results are already compiled, and it's just a matter of distributing. I can't imagine that anyone is still looking at applications. Cursing cursing cursing.

[jasper.milvain]

Does anyone know how THE LIST looks like? I mean the list that universities get access to. Is it a list of all SSHRC winners, or just a list of their winners?

They get access to all winners, as far as I can tell. When my school wouldn't give out MA results ahead of the letters, I got the information from the DGS office at a completely different school, where I had not applied or attended (but where I had a friend). I think it's not a 'list' per se, but access to a central database.

As far as publications go, I know many, many people who got PhD SSHRCs without publications. Some people get published during their master's, but the work likely isn't of super high calibre, or in super prestigious journals. I don't know how much good an online grad journal publication would do you, for instance. I listed two graduate conferences and three 'guest talks' in courses I TAed for under my research contributions. We'll see!

[canuckle]

I emailed SSHRC last night just to see if they might give me some more info. Mme Bigras responded that results should be available to FGS's middle to late next week, with letters sent out after that. She also confirmed that disclosure of award status by FGS's is their sole discretion and has nothing to do with SSHRC.

Quite obviously, canadiangirl78 and snasser are just having a little fun with us. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that SSHRC will release the results on monday, as that's what they said they are going to do.

At least that's what I'm telling myself going into the weekend....

oh, the horror of it all--it'll probably won;t come until june

[natalia]

Not to be the bad guy, but... SSHRC did say that doctoral results would be out the week of May 11th.

Don't hit me.

[dood]

Hmmm...interesting stuff. I will say this, though, as someone who failed to get a SSHRC independently and then succeeded through an institution: the support that institutions offer in the preparation process is an unbelievable advantage. Simply put, having a variety of people at your disposal who have had multiple years of experience with the process means that you get the benefit of their sense of what plays well and what does not. I honestly feel like I could have applied 3 times independently without being successful...and I am someone who has lots of experience with grant-writing, having worked as an artist for a few years as well as having worked for a couple of non-profits.

SSHRC may be amongst the world leaders, but it is still very much an insider's game (IMO).

I'm going to have to agree 110% percent. My supervisor worked extensively with me on my proposal and made tons of suggestions. I typed three or four drafts and ran them by her before she was finally satisfied. Once she was satisfied I ran that draft by my graduate co-ordinator and he also made some very useful suggestions and picked up on some things that my supervisor had missed. By the time I had my final draft was ready it looked nothing like the first draft. It was the same research question, methodology, etc. but it was worded and articulated sooo much better.

However, the faculty at my department are awesome and extremely helpful and friendly and always seem to find time for you. I doubt this is the case everywhere.

[jasper.milvain]

At the lovely, wonderful, incredible department where I did my MA, they would have a SSHRC workshop every year. They'd gather 10 or 12 professors for the afternoon, students would bring drafts of their proposals, and you would go around the room getting ripped to pieces by as many professors as possible. It was so incredibly helpful. Old profs, young profs, all different areas of the discipline... every school should do it.

[dramanda]

At the lovely, wonderful, incredible department where I did my MA, they would have a SSHRC workshop every year. They'd gather 10 or 12 professors for the afternoon, students would bring drafts of their proposals, and you would go around the room getting ripped to pieces by as many professors as possible. It was so incredibly helpful. Old profs, young profs, all different areas of the discipline... every school should do it.

Wow, that is amazing. I wish my department did something like this.

[ogopogo]

Friday is still open in the pool...and beyond.

Okay...a new date to hope for news, time for a new pool. Let's see if Snasser can win again.

PhD notifications to grad departments on:

May 11th - Cree8tiveGyal & jasper.milvain

May 12th - Dramanda, canadiangirl78 & LyndaD

May 13th - ogopogo

May 14th - Snasser

May 15th -

And, for those who learn from experience:

May 18th -

May 19th -

May 20th -

May 21st -

May 22nd -

And for the real pessimist:

May 25th -

After May 25th -

Let me know if I missed anyone...

[dood]

At the lovely, wonderful, incredible department where I did my MA, they would have a SSHRC workshop every year. They'd gather 10 or 12 professors for the afternoon, students would bring drafts of their proposals, and you would go around the room getting ripped to pieces by as many professors as possible. It was so incredibly helpful. Old profs, young profs, all different areas of the discipline... every school should do it.

My school did something like this as well but I didn't attend!

I wasn't even going to bother applying for SSHRC. I had already been awarded a nice departmental scholarship and TA-ship and I was somewhat intimidated by the whole SSHRC process. But we had a session during the Master's seminar dedicated to SSHRC, and that session made it sound very undaunting and less intimidating so I figured what heck, I'll give it a shot and started frantically putting together a proposal with two weeks to deadline.

Seems to have paid off if the results from the FGS are confirmed by a letter... it's still a bit nerve-racking wondering if there might have been some sort of mistake!

[Snasser]

Wow, that is amazing. I wish my department did something like this.

I think that the disparities between application support at each university suggests another flaw with the current dept and FGS vetting process. This is especially the case when students from different depts with different support criteria have to compete with each other at the FGS level. A stellar applicant from a disinterested/ disorganized dept stands to lose a great deal. Now, this all having been said, it confounds me that some depts do not offer adequate application support when their future prestige and funding depends on it - many universities determine departmental funding for grad programs based on past SSHRC success and of course universities earn higher quotas when they advance more successful applicants. My friend's old dept offered no MA/ PhD application support but actually had the audacity to go whining to the FGS when none of the dept's applications were forwarded to Ottawa.

Anyway, I certainly hope that the response I got from Mme Bigras this afternoon suggested a later release date in order to dissuade me from asking again if for some reason results were not sent out right on Monday.

Have a great weekend everyone - and good luck. I would be so thrilled is each of us came back to this forum late next week with great news.

[Snasser]

it's still a bit nerve-racking wondering if there might have been some sort of mistake!

I have frequent nightmares that I forgot to hand in my application or that I made a terrible mistake somewhere. I think my family will be even more pleased once I have the results, for or better or for worse, just so that I will shut up about it!

[none]

re: departmental help with SSHRC applications

My department makes a lot of noise about being helpful--they even have info sessions set up. But, to be perfectly honest, I think they're not doing that great a job. I received conflicting advice from different people who have a fair bit of influence on the application as a whole (namely, the grad chair and my referees)--to be perfectly honest, I had to be quite diplomatic and smooth things over because the two groups were getting increasingly pissed at each other as I was going through different drafts. Actually, I even received contradictory advice from the very same person on different occasions. To make it worse, the grad chair who was around when we were writing and submitting the applications to the department, who insisted that I take out some parts of the statement that both my referees and I thought belonged there, decided to leave half way through the process, so a completely different person was ranking the applications this year. I don't even know what to think anymore. The whole process seems to me to be such a crap shoot--even the people I know who already have SSHRC fellowships or CGSs tend to think so...

[dramanda]

The whole process seems to me to be such a crap shoot--even the people I know who already have SSHRC fellowships or CGSs tend to think so...

I think whether or not I believe this process to be a crap shoot will be directly correlated with my outcome. Irrational? Yes, but it keeps me sane.

[violet]

I don't know the answer to this question, but what's the harm in asking the potential university when the results come out? The worst they could say is that they don't have access to your information.

Total speculation here, but it WOULD make sense for the university you listed on your application to also receive your results.....please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, that's what I thought, too, but I started to doubt it when the SSHRC person I talked to on the phone said that the only way to know, if I applied independently, is by letter... Maybe he had in mind something someone here just mentioned about being at the SGSs' full discretion whether to release the results or not...

I already asked the graduate secretary from my future department - I'm good friends with her - and she seems to think that no, they won't have my results, since I didn't apply through the department. Anyway, I think I have to ask people more directly involved in this, from the SGS at my university. And that's what I'm gonna do on Monday...

[violet]

They get access to all winners, as far as I can tell. When my school wouldn't give out MA results ahead of the letters, I got the information from the DGS office at a completely different school, where I had not applied or attended (but where I had a friend). I think it's not a 'list' per se, but access to a central database.

As far as publications go, I know many, many people who got PhD SSHRCs without publications. Some people get published during their master's, but the work likely isn't of super high calibre, or in super prestigious journals. I don't know how much good an online grad journal publication would do you, for instance. I listed two graduate conferences and three 'guest talks' in courses I TAed for under my research contributions. We'll see!

Thanks, jasper.milvain, this makes sense. And you finding out from another school totally is, indeed, strong evidence

[violet]

Thanks, jasper.milvain, this makes sense. And you finding out from another school totally is, indeed, strong evidence

I meant "And you finding out from another school is, indeed, strong evidence [/

[dramanda]

Excuse me....are my fellow Canadians taking a break from the stressing for the weekend? No posts all day?!

[Neatgirl]

Still stressing but just trying to pass the time until next week. Seems silly how this takes over, I've always considered myself a patient person but this wait is truly painful, especially with it dragging out seemingly endlessly. I have to admit that it's really one of the few times that I'm wanting the weekend to pass so I can get to Monday quickly!

Any ideas for coping strategies out there????

[ogopogo]

Perhaps it is as I feared...we've waited so long we have run out of things to speculate about...

[dramanda]

Perhaps it is as I feared...we've waited so long we have run out of things to speculate about...

Say it isn't so!

[phreeduh]

Incidentally, you can also get screwed applying through a university if you are applying to continue or start your degree at another institution. That happened to me when I was applying to start my PhD. I was told that it was my school's policy to only pass through applications that were to stay at that school. It's SSHRC's policy that you must apply through the school you've been registered at however..