Honors thesis question

[Piagetsky]

If you know, how common is it for people at your school (particularly in Canada) to complete an honors thesis?  For clinical, UOttawa won't even look at your application if you haven't done one or a similar independent project.   But at my school, there are about 1900 psych majors and about 20 people in Honors I and II, so I'm just wondering how common it is for people to do the complete honors thesis?

 

Also for Canadians, how many people complete the 4-year degree versus the 3-year one?

Edited December 16, 2015 by Piagetsky

[FacelessMage]

If you're in Canada, it's recommended by programs that you complete an honours thesis in order to apply to graduate programs. How many people complete one really varies by program. At my undergraduate school, getting into the honours program was super competitive. You needed at least a 3.6 to apply, you needed ot have taken certain stats courses, and they only accepted 40 people per year. Most people who don't get into an honours program usually try to complete an independent project. Canadian schools are pretty strict about having this thesis requirement. 

Also, degrees here are pretty much all 4 year degrees since they got rid of grade 13 in Ontario (I'm not sure about Quebec because they have CEGEP).

Edited December 16, 2015 by FacelessMage

[Piagetsky]

Thanks for clearing that up!  It took me a while to realize that Canadian schools even have a 3 year degree.    Makes perfect sense about the change in high school and subsequent change in the college degree.  

[TKYU]

We had about 13 people in our honours cohort during my year!

[Oshawott]

12 hours ago, Piagetsky said:

If you know, how common is it for people at your school (particularly in Canada) to complete an honors thesis?  For clinical, UOttawa won't even look at your application if you haven't done one or a similar independent project.   But at my school, there are about 1900 psych majors and about 20 people in Honors I and II, so I'm just wondering how common it is for people to do the complete honors thesis?

 

Also for Canadians, how many people complete the 4-year degree versus the 3-year one?

I've talked to one of my undergrad supervisors regarding this because that was one of the weak points in my application. He said that the reasons schools have a "thesis" requirement as part of their application is because applicants aren't necessarily coming from research-intensive universities and the thesis option is really the only way any student gets substantive research experience. Its kind of annoying that there are schools that won't look at you if you don't have an honors thesis, since at my school, depending on your PI, you could be more involved in a research project than a thesis student (especially if the thesis student just came in for their final year) but that shouldn't preclude you from most schools.

Considering how big your program is, I'm going to guess there are independent research project options? If you're going to grad school, then you should have research experience. Why not ask one of your current supervisors to do an independent project with them?

---------

Disclosure statement (so you can assess my advice accordingly):

• Currently graduate student in Social Psychology
• Applied for 2014 - 2015 cycle to 3 schools (2 US, 1 Canadian); Interview at the 2 US schools, rejection post-interivew
• Applied for 2015 - 2016 cycle to 8 schools ( 2 US, 6 Canadian); Interviewed at 4 Canadian schools, accepted to 3
• No thesis, 2 independent projects, extensive research experience (involvement in my independent projects ranged from glorified RA to independently managing the experiment from programming the study to data analysis; had additional RAship with substantial involvement)

Edited December 17, 2015 by Oshawott

[Piagetsky]

5 minutes ago, Oshawott said:

I've talked to one of my undergrad supervisors regarding this because that was one of the weak points in my application. He said that the reasons schools have a "thesis" requirement as part of their application is because applicants aren't necessarily coming from research-intensive universities and the thesis option is really the only way any student gets substantive research experience. Its kind of annoying that there are schools that won't look at you if you don't have an honors thesis, since at my school, depending on your PI, you could be more involved in a research project than a thesis student (especially if the thesis student just came in for their final year) but that shouldn't preclude you from most schools.

Considering how big your program is, I'm going to guess there are independent research project options? If you're going to grad school, then you should have research experience. Why not ask one of your current supervisors to do an independent project with them?

Fortunately, I am doing an honors thesis.  I just wondered how many people don't have that opportunity since the numbers are 20 out of 1900 at my school, which I've always found shockingly low, but now I understand why.  So I wondered about people who might not have had that opportunity and how they apply to grad school in spite of it, you know?

[Oshawott]

16 minutes ago, Piagetsky said:

Fortunately, I am doing an honors thesis.  I just wondered how many people don't have that opportunity since the numbers are 20 out of 1900 at my school, which I've always found shockingly low, but now I understand why.  So I wondered about people who might not have had that opportunity and how they apply to grad school in spite of it, you know?

I'm relieved that this is more of a curiosity thread than an advice thread. I'll share more of my experiences then.

At my undergrad, the students apply to their thesis in the second year, the class is no larger than 15 (generally the maximum size the school allows for research methods courses) despite being the largest school in Canada with enough research faculty to accommodate. I'm don't agree with their rationale because it disadvantages students who do poorly in their first two years (an issue if you're double majoring in Psychology and one of the filter programs that the instructors themselves admit are built to fail students) but they do it because there are additional seminar classes that they want these students to take. To make up for it, the school has a large number of other research opportunities. The program itself has two upper-year independent projects, and there are independent studies the student can take outside the program that they can gear towards as a research project.

In my current institution, students go through a series of courses that will filter them out of doing a thesis, but the numbers range from 40 - 60 (or so I am told) despite the smaller faculty. In essence, students who want to do a thesis seem to be able to apply to courses that prepare them for the project and whether they continue depends on their performance in the coursework (don't know the exact cut-offs), whereas in my undergrad, you have to be in that program and once you are in, you only really need to pass course work to continue (there's no chance of failing out unless you literally fail). The reverse seems to be true here--there are very few independent project students since everyone who would have realistically sought one out is doing a thesis, which is a shame because I find independent project students to be more dedicated than regular RAs for the projects they are assigned.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Oshawott