SSHRC 2010

[bad breath]

Finally got my letter.

Score: 19.20 / 30

They also say I must notify the council whether I wish to accept - which can be done by email.

However, they also mention I should also notify SGS - how do I do that? also by email? to whom?

Are there any forms to sign in order to activate the award? I don't see any forms in the envelope?

And Canuck - (almost) congrats. VERY good news.

When everyone in TO receive their letters, we can set time and place for drinks.

i emailed sshrc to accept. got an IMMEDIATE reply confirming my acceptance. :/

you need to print out and fill out two forms, both of which are available on the sshrc site - under the "using your funds" section. take them to SGS, second floor. i did that today. took 5 min.

keep me in mind for drinks!

i must say, while i am obviously happy to have been funded, this has been a very bizarre and stressful process. my immediate relief comes with having closure, and not speculating wildly about the whole thing. i got zero communication from my department, or school of grad studies. to those who did not get funded, know that it is not a reflection of the quality of your work or your abilities as a researcher. i think the dimension of randomness and luck that goes into this process is massive, like any juried awards process.

[criss cross crash]

I haven't got my letter yet, but my supervisor sent me an email saying that my application was successful. I'll post the score and other details when the letter comes, but the basics are PhD, regular SSHRC, in Philosophy at McGill -- I'm going into year 3, so the award will be for 2 years only.

Last year I was recommended/not funded, and this year I sent pretty much EXACTLY the same application (with a new year's worth of marks as the only real difference, and a couple grad conference presentations), and was successful. So for those of you disappointed by results this year, I'm pretty sure the farther you are into your program (and hence the less money SSHRC will actually pay out to you if you win) nets you a much higher score -- so have hopes for reapplying next year!

[Snasser]

I was passed over twice before this year with a well developed CV and 4.0 GPA. I know people with 3.7, no pubs and no conferences who've ended up with Doctoral CGS's, so it beats me. I think a lot of it has to do with whatever the flavour of the month is. You will probably end up with one next year.

Someone I know working on a similar topic with equivalent grades/experience/references ended up with a 21/30. I have no idea why the SSHRC gods looked so unfavourably upon me.

[NorthernStar]

i emailed sshrc to accept. got an IMMEDIATE reply confirming my acceptance. :/

you need to print out and fill out two forms, both of which are available on the sshrc site - under the "using your funds" section. take them to SGS, second floor. i did that today. took 5 min.

keep me in mind for drinks!

i must say, while i am obviously happy to have been funded, this has been a very bizarre and stressful process. my immediate relief comes with having closure, and not speculating wildly about the whole thing. i got zero communication from my department, or school of grad studies. to those who did not get funded, know that it is not a reflection of the quality of your work or your abilities as a researcher. i think the dimension of randomness and luck that goes into this process is massive, like any juried awards process.

Thanks for the info. I will probably be around campus on Tuesday (summer TAship. Need to make money to pay rent) and I'll do it then.

Has everyone in Toronto got their letters yet, speaking of drinks?

[womanimal]

As far as awards go, i think the process is a total mystery. I applied 2 years ago with the exact same project proposal and got flat out rejected. I didn't end up going into a PhD until last fall, and applied again for this year, magically getting funded.

My work is primarily on post-capitalist economic / social instantiations or movements, centred on Brazil and Italy, and French philosophy. This time around I took most of the explicitly anti-capitalist referents out of my application, but left in all references to Marx, anarchism, etc.

Either the toning down of the ideological elements worked or else the whole thing is a crapshoot. I am inclined to think it's a crapshoot.

[Canuckonomist]

Has everyone in Toronto got their letters yet, speaking of drinks?

I've got my letter. Just hoping someone jumped on a Vanier, then I'll be in the same good mood as the rest of you. I'm already reasonably happy. Let me know when and where you're thinking. I don't have a usual hangout, just somewhere that serves Guinness.

[LauraBC]

Has anyone heard about masters SSHRC???

[Compoe]

Has anyone heard about masters SSHRC???

No one here has received their result. Word from the McGill fellowships officer is that they'll be released around "the end of the month." Another forum member emailed SSHRC to confirm whether this is true, but has not yet heard back from them.

That's about all we know at the moment.

[NorthernStar]

I've got my letter. Just hoping someone jumped on a Vanier, then I'll be in the same good mood as the rest of you. I'm already reasonably happy. Let me know when and where you're thinking. I don't have a usual hangout, just somewhere that serves Guinness.

Do you know Harbord House (obviously on Harbord st., close to campus)? I don't know if they serve Guinness (I don't drink beer - I know, blesphemer!) but it's a nice place to hang out and reasonably central.

[alau]

No one here has received their result. Word from the McGill fellowships officer is that they'll be released around "the end of the month." Another forum member emailed SSHRC to confirm whether this is true, but has not yet heard back from them.

That's about all we know at the moment.

That's correct. I haven't had an answer from SSHRC, I tried calling yesterday (around 4 pm ET) and there was no answer. I am still waiting for an answer to my e-mail sent to SSHRC (which specified that I would share the information so that less e-mails would be sent to them). Plus, I finally reached the person responsible for the scholarships at my department (a professor) - Communication, Université de Montréal -, and she did not know about the master students' results. Though I can confirm Ph D letters arrived in Montreal yesterday (friday).

I'll keep you up. I feel like this board will soon "switch" to Master students concerns... and I am one "concerned guy".

AL

[bad breath]

Do you know Harbord House (obviously on Harbord st., close to campus)? I don't know if they serve Guinness (I don't drink beer - I know, blesphemer!) but it's a nice place to hang out and reasonably central.

i'd be inclined to go a few more blocks west and hit the Victory. better beer and food!

[waitinggggg]

Honestly, I think you should contact your program officer and get some more feedback on this, if possible. Your stats are quite impressive. Perhaps the fact that you had an MA award raises the bar - they might want to see that you used this funding well and were more productive than you would be otherwise? I'm just grasping at straws here. I can't understand where that score would have come from.

It really makes you wonder. I did much worse than I expected as well, yet they say my app was ranked highly enough to be put on a list of applicants recommended for an award. This leads me to think that there may be quite a bit of variability and non-normality in the distribution of the scores - so a '12' may not be particularly meaningful. Well, who knows. Maybe half or more of those who didn't get awards are on the waitlist. Anyway, I really wish the process was less opaque because when you get a score like that you don't know what went wrong. My guess is that it has a lot to do with the particular people reviewing your application and their quirks and biases, and also their lack of knowledge about your field. For example, I am at one of the best programs for my field right now, but I doubt this was meaningful to them. Also, I worked with some excellent people in my field, who again, probably were not known to my reviewers. I am also a US citizen and applied for the NSF and was also unsuccessful (a much more fierce competition than SSHRC) but they provided the reviewers brief comments. From that you can see that these people often don't have any clue about the importance of your topic and can even be dismissive. I didn't realize it so much before, but next time I will make a much greater effort to make my proposal accessible to someone not in my field. That said, I'm still worried I submitted it to the wrong place - NSERC might be a better way to go.

Anyway, try not to feel too bad about yourself. Get some answers and work on putting together something stellar for next year!

I just got my results, and ended up doing surprisingly poorly. 12.7/30.

For context, which may be helpful to others, I'm starting my PhD at Toronto this fall.

I was ranked 2nd in my department going into the competition, had MA CGS, "A" undergrad GPA, slightly higher than "A" MA GPA, 2 conferences one of which was a very major one, 1 minor publication.

Someone I know working on a similar topic with equivalent grades/experience/references ended up with a 21/30. I have no idea why the SSHRC gods looked so unfavourably upon me.

[NorthernStar]

i'd be inclined to go a few more blocks west and hit the Victory. better beer and food!

If that's alright with everyone else - than I'm in! like I said, beer is not a factor with me.

[caterinacanadese]

Sounds good to me! Do we have a time/ date?

If that's alright with everyone else - than I'm in! like I said, beer is not a factor with me.

[bad breath]

Sounds good to me! Do we have a time/ date?

i'm open monday-thursday this week coming up!

edit: well, evenings, anyways.

Edited May 8, 2010 by bad breath

[Tropes]

Anyone in the US get their mail yet today? I'm in the Midwest and it hasn't come yet. I'm thinking it'll be here in the next few hours. It's so weird just thinking the decision is OUT THERE!

[duck dock]

That's correct. I haven't had an answer from SSHRC, I tried calling yesterday (around 4 pm ET) and there was no answer. I am still waiting for an answer to my e-mail sent to SSHRC (which specified that I would share the information so that less e-mails would be sent to them). Plus, I finally reached the person responsible for the scholarships at my department (a professor) - Communication, Université de Montréal -, and she did not know about the master students' results. Though I can confirm Ph D letters arrived in Montreal yesterday (friday).

I'll keep you up. I feel like this board will soon "switch" to Master students concerns... and I am one "concerned guy".

AL

Here's the reply I got on Monday, 3rd May regarding master's results from, Mathieu Laurin, ProgramAssistant on my email to "Fellowships@sshrc.ca".

"The results will be mailed by mid May."

If that can help anyone

Good luck everyone!!

[caterinacanadese]

I remember being stressed waiting for the MA SSHRC letter to arrive, but y'all should try to relax as much as possible- you're basically assured positive news!

Here's the reply I got on Monday, 3rd May regarding master's results from, Mathieu Laurin, ProgramAssistant on my email to "Fellowships@sshrc.ca".

"The results will be mailed by mid May."

If that can help anyone

Good luck everyone!!

[duck dock]

you're basically assured positive news!

thanks! love that!!!

All M's, let's keep our fingers crossed!!!

[hbaert]

In US, received mail but not from SSHRC....more waiting and I must postpone a trip I was about to take tomorrow. Now I must drive 6 hours just to check my mail....got to do what I got to do.

Still hopeful..

[Tropes]

In US, received mail but not from SSHRC....more waiting and I must postpone a trip I was about to take tomorrow. Now I must drive 6 hours just to check my mail....got to do what I got to do.

Still hopeful..

Where in the US are you?

Okay, I just saw that you're in Arkanasas. Hmmm. I wonder if mail takes longer to you than to me in Minnesota.

Edited May 8, 2010 by Tropes

[NorthernStar]

Sounds good to me! Do we have a time/ date?

Do you guys prefer week day or weekend? afternoon or evening?

[student4life_2010]

So am I understanding correctly: Some people who have been granted a Vanier Scholarship are still being awarded a regular doctoral scholarship (big or small), therefore, when they refuse their doctoral scholarship for Vanier some people with a small SSHRC will be bumped to a big SSHRC and some people on the waiting list will be bumped to a small SSHRC?

[caterinacanadese]

Doesn't really matter to me. Probably early evening? Maybe Friday? Just a suggestion.

Do you guys prefer week day or weekend? afternoon or evening?

[alau]

Here's the reply I got on Monday, 3rd May regarding master's results from, Mathieu Laurin, ProgramAssistant on my email to "Fellowships@sshrc.ca".

"The results will be mailed by mid May."

If that can help anyone

Good luck everyone!!

Thank you for sharing. I appreciate.