IP students on OOP WL??

[Premeditated]

Apparently there were a group of 12 students that on March 7th were offered spots IP this year, but later Dal realized that these students were not IP. On Dal's website it said that students that have completed a Masters at Dal will be IP. But on the student loans website (which is how they have to designate) it explicitly states that to obtain NS students loans (aka be IP) you cannot be a full time student.

 

What i recently heard is not first hand so I apologize if the details are not perfect, but I have heard that these students were then removed as IP students. Some of them found other routes to get back their IP status (spouse etc.), but some were given OOP spots and/or placed at the top of the OOP WL (regardless of whether their file score was greater than an OOP student).

 

Obviously this mistake put Dal in a very tough position and they are just trying to do their best to fix it, but if it is true it is a huge disservice to OOP students still on the WL that just took a 12 step jump down.

 

If you have any info on this and are comfortable to share it please do, or if you are more comfortable you can PM me.

[mavrik13]

Apparently there were a group of 12 students that on March 7th were offered spots IP this year, but later Dal realized that these students were not IP. On Dal's website it said that students that have completed a Masters at Dal will be IP. But on the student loans website (which is how they have to designate) it explicitly states that to obtain NS students loans (aka be IP) you cannot be a full time student.

 

What i recently heard is not first hand so I apologize if the details are not perfect, but I have heard that these students were then removed as IP students. Some of them found other routes to get back their IP status (spouse etc.), but some were given OOP spots and/or placed at the top of the OOP WL (regardless of whether their file score was greater than an OOP student).

 

Obviously this mistake put Dal in a very tough position and they are just trying to do their best to fix it, but if it is true it is a huge disservice to OOP students still on the WL that just took a 12 step jump down.

 

If you have any info on this and are comfortable to share it please do, or if you are more comfortable you can PM me.

 

I don't know have any further information (and am a little skeptical believing information like this that I read on this forum), but if this is true... it sounds like Dal isn't at fault, but the provincial government's fault not making their seat funding criteria explicit enough. I know many, many students over the past 4 years (and potentially further back) who applied as NS residents after completing a master's at Dal, and were accepted. Why would Dal change their minds now, with classes starting in 10 weeks? It must have come from higher up (plus, it sounds like something the government of NS would do... they like to screw with Dal FoM - like their recent massive funding cut, which we can thank for our 10% tuition hike... just found out about this in the DP guide).

 

Trying to look at this objectively (note: I'm an IP student), if you have these students offered admission (as IP), but through no fault of their own their funding for their IP spots were cut... I would see them as being more fit to occupy the OOP spots ahead of those on the waitlist (who weren't offered admission in the first place).

 

I don't know if an offer of admission is legally binding or not, but what else is Dal to do... do they call up these students and take away their offer of admission? I thought that could only happen in my worst nightmare... I don't know about you guys, but I keep a pdf copy of my admission letter saved to my desktop, just in case.

 

Actually, thinking aloud here... but these IP students who are transferring to OOP may have never received an interview in the first place (lots of people with competitive stats didn't get an interview). If I were someone on the OOP waitlist without an offer elsewhere, I'd be pretty pissed (are there many on the OOP waitlist without an offer elsewhere?).

[thatonekid]

But on the student loans website (which is how they have to designate) it explicitly states that to obtain NS students loans (aka be IP) you cannot be a full time student.

It may be that I'm missing an obvious point, but I don't understand this line. So, if you want to get a student loan in NS, then you can't be going to school full time? Is it that full time students don't get loans then? That seems unfair to full time students. Then again, I have a feeling that I'm just missing something in my understanding of the NS system.

[Premeditated]

It may be that I'm missing an obvious point, but I don't understand this line. So, if you want to get a student loan in NS, then you can't be going to school full time? Is it that full time students don't get loans then? That seems unfair to full time students. Then again, I have a feeling that I'm just missing something in my understanding of the NS system.

 

Poor wording by me. If you havent grown up there or dont have parents living there you are an independant student. To get IP status as an independant student you have to live in NS for 12 months and during that time you cannot be a full time student. This is where the issue arose, the masters students were full time students during the last 12 months so they lost their IP status.

 

I should have also mentioned that some students were moved directly from IP to an OOP spot and told specifically that they were recieving an OOP spot. And Mavrik I agree that it isnt dals fault alone but they should have been up to date on the rules, transparent with OOP students waiting on the WL and have some plan of how to make it fair for OOP students that are currently disadvantaged.

[doc2B]

I'm slightly confused by what you're asking about here. It is true that grad students are typically considered IP students by Dal because although they are full-time students which is in contradiction to regular province residency status a good majority of grad students must stay and work here year-round (regardless of choice- i.e. as part of the program) and they are often compensated (funded) so it's really the same as a full-time job.

Grad work is often considered a job when looking at the applications as well because one of the way to mark points in that section is to see if the applicant was working full-time during all periods when he/she was available to do so (i.e. summers off from school). Anyway, that's a little beside the point. Student loans really have nothing to do with how Dal selects students, whether you qualify or don't that really doesn't matter to them. Also, residency status they have rules and generally base them similar to government residency status rules but they are specific to the school no one else decides this for them, so the rule on their website that grad work qualifies you as IP is the rule that they will go by that they have set out for themselves.

 

I don't think the government would get involved in how the school qualifies OOP vs IP they fund all those seats regardless, and I would imagine they would trust that the school has appropriately categorized OOP vs. IP in the past and will continue to do so.

 

I myself hadn't heard of this issue until now and while I'm certainly not an expert (particularly for this year) in the past I can assure you that grad students here were definitely counted as IP in these situations I can't imagine that this was changed and this story feels more like a bit of "broken telephone" than a truthful situation anything is possible, it is possible that the school changed their regulations with regards to this.

 

Was this changed on the website? Does it no longer state that grad work may make you eligible to be an IP student?

[doc2B]

Just another quick reply... I just saw where they have listed on their site that they use the student loans rules as their own for residency status. I'm not sure what was up before for this, perhaps they changed the website just for ease of presentation of information.

 

I don't think that means necessarily though that they still don't consider graduate students as IP. To determine this I think you'd have to contact the office. The easiest thing to do is email/phone the office and ask how residency status is dealt with if you're a full-time grad student in NS for >= 1 yr prior to application.

 

Also, even if they did change their stance on this topic does not mean that they had 12 applicants that were offered spots and then moved to the OOP waitlist because they were offered spots inappropriately. I don't have any specific information as to whether or not this occurred but it seems a little fishy to me.

[Premeditated]

Just another quick reply...

 

I think in a way both of your posts were correct because they show a before and an after. Before Dal defined masters students as IP (which I think is fair but that is not the point) and now they don't as per the student loans website (http://studentloans.ednet.ns.ca/loaninfo_2011-12/loan-amounts).

 

This is just my best guess, but I would say that if Dal indeed moved these students it would be because IP and OOP students are funded differently by the NS gov. If Dal had any real say in I'm sure they would have kept the students as IP, but if the government stepped in and said they wouldn't fund these mistaken IP students then Dal would have needed to come up with a solution (ie OOP spots).

 

There are a few reasons that I think this happened but it is entirely possible it is a case of "broken telephone" (I actually hope it is), but I do want to clarify that this is not me seeing that residency requirements changed and making the logical leap that IP students have been put onto the OOP WL. This comes from me being contacted by another OOP student who's connection (a formerly masters IP student) received a letter saying they were going to receive one of three OOP spots and another that had to claim common-law to hold their IP spot. Again this doesn't make it true, but if it is a fake it is a pretty creative lie.

 

On top of that my friend has contacted Dal admissions office about it but when he asked about it he was put on hold immediately and 5 minutes later he was told that they hadn't heard of this happening but to contact Dr. Sutton.

 

Dr. Sutton was emailed asking if IP students were put onto the OOP WL and she responded something to the tune of "no student offered a position had their offer withdrawn because of clarification of residency status". She didn't deny that IP students were taking OOP spots. What it seems to me is that they are funneling IP students into the OOP spots as they become free and if they are then what she said was not a lie, just a bit of a dodge.

 

Above is what makes it seem legitimate to me, but also just based on my observation the OOP WL seemed to come to a screeching halt in mid May. I find that strange since that late may is when the most OOP movement would be expected, but again that could be just because no one is posting that they got an OOP spot.

 

So, the reason I posted this initially is to see if there are any students out there that know of this happening and can corroborate, because the more I look into the more I'm convinced it is happening. So if you know of it happening please speak up.

[doc2B]

So here's my take on what you've said.... (again I'm no expert on the situation but I do have some experience with the admissions process, particularly I was on the admissions committee at Dal previously so I have some insight.... but the process has changed since then and I'm not privy to those changes).

 

It's distinctly possible that they decided to change their regulation with regards to grad students and residency status. I find it difficult to believe that they would do this in the middle of an application cycle rather than in between, government pressure or not. I really don't think the government has any ability to come and look at the students' records and question why each individual is IP or OOP, whether or not they'd agree with it. I don't know how they fund the spots differently, but I don't really think they do, just that they have a preference for IP students in a particular number because they are looking for retention in the future. The cost to the government is the same.

 

I'm not sure what happened with these letters that went out. It is possible that mistakes were made based on other information that brought their residency into question as well, or perhaps there was a miscommunication.

 

I'm not sure what your friend specifically asked about when talking to the admissions office, if letters went out the people in the office would know, because likely they sent the letters, and perhaps if it did happen they chose not to answer and that's why it was forwarded to Dr. Sutton.

 

Based on what you said Dr. Sutton's response was, the original post that suggested people were offered spots and then were moved to the OOP waitlist instead seems false. She would not lie about it. She may have skirted around the true answer because she cannot talk about any specific person's application, and we don't really know the true reason someone (if anyone would be moved to the other list).

 

Mistakes have been made in the process in the past, scores have been added up wrong and people given the next spot because of these situations so it's possible residency mistakes were made and people were shifted around for whatever reason.

 

Also, in terms of the OOP waiting list moving, keep in mind there are only 9 spaces. Once those fill up they're done. I know everyone expects this list to move a lot each year but there have been years that it has moved less than expected. It only takes 9 very qualified candidates that are keenly interested in Dal to accept their spots and the wait list stops moving.

 

Anyway, as I've said I don't have any more information (and likely less) than some others, but there have been lots of stories floating around the forums in the past that weren't true too, so before you jump to conclusions you're better off hearing things from the horses mouth. My guess is, no one has contacted the admissions office (not as a candidate on the waiting list, but as a "potential applicant" to ask about how residency status works for a graduate student in NS. Because if the answer to that question is that they are still considering them IP applicants then this whole story wouldn't make sense at all.

 

On the other hand anything is possible and perhaps they did decide to make this change in the middle of the cycle and shifted people from one list to the other for this reason, but one final thing I need to question is, if this were the case it seems strange that they would then put them at the top of the list regardless of score (they'd have no reason to do that) and also it seems strange to me that there would be 12 students in the same situation (meaning OOP students doing grad work in NS making them IP applicants based on the old regulations).

 

Just my 2 cents, Good luck to all!!

[CRK]

Anyway, as I've said I don't have any more information (and likely less) than some others, but there have been lots of stories floating around the forums in the past that weren't true too, so before you jump to conclusions you're better off hearing things from the horses mouth. My guess is, no one has contacted the admissions office (not as a candidate on the waiting list, but as a "potential applicant" to ask about how residency status works for a graduate student in NS. Because if the answer to that question is that they are still considering them IP applicants then this whole story wouldn't make sense at all.

 

I had my phone interview with Dr. Sutton on Monday. (I'm on the OOP WL). She asked me what I am going over the next year now that I've graduated undergrad. I said "Just working in a lab". She said "Good, you can become an NS resident that way. If you did your Masters you would not be able to become an NS resident." She referred me to the NS student loan website for the actual rules.

 

In short, Dr. Sutton explicitly said that doing your Masters in Nova Scotia will not allow you to become an NS resident for the next application cycle (entrance Sept 2012).

[doc2B]

So it sounds like one part of the situation has been answered. You may never know the truth to the rest of the wait list shuffle story though.

 

Good luck everyone!

[thatonekid]

Poor wording by me. If you havent grown up there or dont have parents living there you are an independant student. To get IP status as an independant student you have to live in NS for 12 months and during that time you cannot be a full time student. This is where the issue arose, the masters students were full time students during the last 12 months so they lost their IP status.

Oh, I understand now. Thanks for the clarification.

[LLC]

I think in a way both of your posts were correct because they show a before and an after. Before Dal defined masters students as IP (which I think is fair but that is not the point) and now they don't as per the student loans website (http://studentloans.ednet.ns.ca/loaninfo_2011-12/loan-amounts).

 

This is just my best guess, but I would say that if Dal indeed moved these students it would be because IP and OOP students are funded differently by the NS gov. If Dal had any real say in I'm sure they would have kept the students as IP, but if the government stepped in and said they wouldn't fund these mistaken IP students then Dal would have needed to come up with a solution (ie OOP spots).

 

There are a few reasons that I think this happened but it is entirely possible it is a case of "broken telephone" (I actually hope it is), but I do want to clarify that this is not me seeing that residency requirements changed and making the logical leap that IP students have been put onto the OOP WL. This comes from me being contacted by another OOP student who's connection (a formerly masters IP student) received a letter saying they were going to receive one of three OOP spots and another that had to claim common-law to hold their IP spot. Again this doesn't make it true, but if it is a fake it is a pretty creative lie.

 

On top of that my friend has contacted Dal admissions office about it but when he asked about it he was put on hold immediately and 5 minutes later he was told that they hadn't heard of this happening but to contact Dr. Sutton.

 

Dr. Sutton was emailed asking if IP students were put onto the OOP WL and she responded something to the tune of "no student offered a position had their offer withdrawn because of clarification of residency status". She didn't deny that IP students were taking OOP spots. What it seems to me is that they are funneling IP students into the OOP spots as they become free and if they are then what she said was not a lie, just a bit of a dodge.

 

Above is what makes it seem legitimate to me, but also just based on my observation the OOP WL seemed to come to a screeching halt in mid May. I find that strange since that late may is when the most OOP movement would be expected, but again that could be just because no one is posting that they got an OOP spot.

 

So, the reason I posted this initially is to see if there are any students out there that know of this happening and can corroborate, because the more I look into the more I'm convinced it is happening. So if you know of it happening please speak up.

Hi Premeditated,

Just curious about your statement;

 

"another that had to claim common-law to hold their IP spot. Again this doesn't make it true, but if it is a fake it is a pretty creative lie."

 

What are your sources for this? Do you have a reason to imply that this individual is misrepresenting themselves? Or perhaps you've gotten carried away with your rant?

 

By the way guys, PhD students were also affected by this mix-up, Msc students aren't the only grad applicants.

[mavrik13]

Hi Premeditated,

Just curious about your statement;

 

"another that had to claim common-law to hold their IP spot. Again this doesn't make it true, but if it is a fake it is a pretty creative lie."

 

What are your sources for this? Do you have a reason to imply that this individual is misrepresenting themselves? Or perhaps you've gotten carried away with your rant?

 

By the way guys, PhD students were also affected by this mix-up, Msc students aren't the only grad applicants.

 

Seriously - while I don't imagine many (if any) students would do a PhD at Dal specifically to get IP status for med school, it sucks for those who are just finishing up their PhD and were hoping to use their PhD time to gain IP status.

[chrail]

There must be at least a few people that moved to Halifax to do a grad degree at Dal to gain IP status. Totally sucks for them. Especially if they are halfway through the degree.

[Premeditated]

What are your sources for this? Do you have a reason to imply that this individual is misrepresenting themselves? Or perhaps you've gotten carried away with your rant?

 

Hey LLC, I'm not sure if my message came through clearly. I wasn't implying the person was lying, actually the opposite. What I meant was that it just wouldn't make sense (to me at least) for anyone to make up a story about being offered IP spot and then lose that spot and have to re-claim it through common law or end up in an OOP spot. I was trying to support that this really is happening but trying to be objective by saying that just because I heard it second hand doesn't mean it must be true. I could be wrong. I think my wording might have been a little off, I'm not aiming to rant.

 

As for the sources, I mentioned earlier that this information came from a student on the OOP WL that has a friend that this happened to. Not the most credible I know, which is why I am asking for someone else to corroborate the story.

 

By the way guys, PhD students were also affected by this mix-up, Msc students aren't the only grad applicants.

 

You said "were also affected", so does this mean that during this cycle that a PhD was somehow shuffled around onto an OOP list? Or do you mean that they won't get IP status for next year?