TheTank Posted March 10, 2010 Report Share Posted March 10, 2010 As an undergrad going into masters, I was just wondering how competitive it is to get. On their website, it says they look at research experience, academic achievements, recommendations etc. But I want to know statistics such as the percentage of applicants that get the award, average cGPA etc. Are there other factors they look at as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanInVan Posted March 10, 2010 Report Share Posted March 10, 2010 As an undergrad going into masters, I was just wondering how competitive it is to get. On their website, it says they look at research experience, academic achievements, recommendations etc. But I want to know statistics such as the percentage of applicants that get the award, average cGPA etc. Are there other factors they look at as well? In the past few years, CIHR has been getting stingier and stingier. The year I applied (2006), they funded about 130 people at the Master's level. I'm not sure entirely sure about the situation since then. Back then, the thought was, if you could spin your project to apply to NSERC, do it. Which was more or less a reflection of CIHR funding substantially less students than NSERC. I don't know if that necessarily makes it more competitive though. Depending on what school you go to, you may need to make it through departmental and university competitions before your application is sent to CIHR. If you go to a big research intensive university, you may have stronger competition to get your application out of the school than you will at then national competition (even though those schools may get to send on more applications). One of the main things they look at though is your research proposal for your project. I sort of remember from the comments I received that they were looking for a well laid out project, with a clear hypothesis and rationale behind it. At the time I applied, I was also in my last year of undergrad with 2 years of research under my belt (with no publications). You also get to write some short essay type things about how your training will help to achieve your future goals, why the environment you have chosen will help you and the like. It never hurts to check with people at your school are involved in the application process (there is often someone, faculty/staff, around who is "designated" for answering questions related to awards). I know this is pretty vague, but I hope it helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janny_jan Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 what school are you looking to do your masters at? I can give you info on CIHR for UWO if you PM me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoReds Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 I believe you can apply to either CIHR or NSERC, but not both. If you have a substantial amount of research experience you are better off applying to CIHR. I believe NSERC looks at grades a bit more. You may have already done this but don't forget to apply for an OGS!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Non_Trad Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 I think it really depends strongly on ur research proposal and ur PI's publications Good GPA always helps for anything Good PI's reputation / publication and research proposal will show that u can carry out the research Last year ~ 500 application was submitted and more than 400 got funded so it's really not too difficult i think Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoReds Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 Wow .. 500 submitted and more than 400 funded for CIHR? Could you clarify this for me Non Trads? I believe (not 100%) there are departmental limitations for the number of awards that are given out. I do not think that statistics are even close to that though (>80%).. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Non_Trad Posted March 13, 2010 Report Share Posted March 13, 2010 I may be wrong but as far as I know when i got my letter they gave me stats of how many applied and how many awards were given out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloh Posted March 13, 2010 Report Share Posted March 13, 2010 As an undergrad going into masters, I was just wondering how competitive it is to get. On their website, it says they look at research experience, academic achievements, recommendations etc. But I want to know statistics such as the percentage of applicants that get the award, average cGPA etc. Are there other factors they look at as well? No idea but when I won it I had no publications and a GPA that's on the average of admitted students in AB medschools for example (so not super high). I think it predominantly depends on the quality of your proposed project and the environment of your lab (i.e. the track record of your PI). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloh Posted March 13, 2010 Report Share Posted March 13, 2010 Ok I actually searched my offer of award to see. I'll try to keep it ambiguous because I'm not sure if CIRH wants the data given out. There was a total of ~350 applicants with ~220 grants given out. This is probably the second round of applicants (the ones that pass internal review of each university). They looked at 3 things: academic/research experience, personality and research environment. Without giving away too much they were worth roughly 2:2:1. Funnily enough, the two reviewers looked at the application with a different light; 1 was excellent and the other not so. It's important to speak with your supervisor about this. Don't just haphazardly choose where to apply. If your PI has no NSERC grants, you will not be granted by NSERC almost assuredly and vice versa. The two organizations fund different areas. edit: To clarify about how awards and grants are given out by the major funding agencies. This is a general trend but its alike to how medschools choose their students. The application will be looked at by at least 2 reviewers and ranked. Each application will be given a score and then they basically fund the top % with respect to how much money they have. This is compounded by the fact that there are limits to each research theme. This is to make sure that the funding is spread out among different research areas so that not all money goes towards cancer research for example (think of OOP and IP quotas). For example, I ranked much higher better in the entire competition (top 15% percentile) but worse in my particular theme committee (top 20% percentile) - i.e. my particular research theme was competitive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WaveSense Posted March 14, 2010 Report Share Posted March 14, 2010 it's funny how different your rankings can be... when i applied for the cihr phd award, one guy ranked me like 5th in the country while the other rnaked me like 110th lol... guess it averages out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kumari Posted March 14, 2010 Report Share Posted March 14, 2010 last year's success rate was 96% for CIHR CGSM, but this is due to the pre-selection process at the university level. at my school the applications had to go through two short listing processes to get sent to ottawa. http://www.grad.uwo.ca/faculty_staff/fundingopportunities.htm click on "external funding coordinated by western" and then on "CIHR" to download the ppt that has this statistic in it. side question: when are the CIHR decisions typically released? i keep hearing different things. my prof told me may, the website says the official date was in july last year, someone else said june...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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