Urgent question about York U's GFAD

[NoMoreABD]

Hello.

Well, I just received a call from York U, saying that the PhD admission committee has nominated me for "the prestigious Graduate Fellowship for Academic Distinction". It turns out they misspelled my email address and I never knew about it. So now they called and they need me to send them a couple of thing by tomorrow !

Anyway, does anyone here have any experience with GFAD application? Some guidelines for the following items?

1) Statement of strengths and weaknesses vis-a-vis leadership potential;

2) List of experience (s) indicating potential future leadership in international affairs

They didn't even give me an approx. length for the statement. I emailed them back with questions...

Thank god I'm 7 hours ahead of the school, so I'll have time to work on it tomorrow.

Oh, btw, do you think this means I was accepted? Cause I didn't hear anything from them. Or do you think my acceptance depends on me receiving this scholarship? Or maybe the two things are unrelated? Who knows...

Thanks guys!

[electrochoc]

Hi Foreign Guy,

I was nominated for the Elia, which also requires the applicant to fill out some stuff and my conclusion is simple: their system is a mess. Absolutely no guidelines. They made me fill out a bursary application form, in which I was asked to explain how dire my financial condition was, being that the Elia is in no way a bursary, but a merit based scholarship.

So hopefully they reply to you, but have something ready already just in case (it's better to have to cut stuff out than add last minute).

It basically means a department at York nominated you, and they normally nominate people they have admitted so it indicates an offer, but you can never be sure when it comes to big universities. Also keep in mind the application is no guarantee of actually getting the award (unfortunately). In my case the department called me with the offer of admission first and then requesting info for the award nomination.

[NoMoreABD]

Thanks zoegrrl.

I emailed them right back and asked for guidelines. And they said there aren't any... So I just answered the questions the best I could, and on Monday I will contact them and ask if there is any news regarding admission.

[electrochoc]

My dept told me that after the nomination, it might take up to 10 days to officially hear from grad studies. But I assume the dept itself should be able to provide you with some solid info.

[sugarcoatedsour]

My dept told me that after the nomination, it might take up to 10 days to officially hear from grad studies. But I assume the dept itself should be able to provide you with some solid info.

Hey Zoeggrl, I also was nominated for the Elia scholarship and it was messy and last minute.

[NoMoreABD]

In case someone reads this post in the future - the story has evolved like this: I did get accepted to York (yay!) and in the informal email they even said that I probably expected that since I was nominated to for GFAD.

Now I'm waiting to hear details on funding, GFAD or not, so I can decide if I can afford to go.

Good luck everyone