Question about U of T UROP awards

[peace2012]

I was wondering if anyone ever applied to Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP Awards) at U of T but does NOT attend U of T. How hard it is to find a supervisor and get the award in general (at any department)? And I would appreciate any advice from anyone familiar with scholarships like this. Thanks!

[FrenchToast]

I was wondering if anyone ever applied to Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP Awards) at U of T but does NOT attend U of T. How hard it is to find a supervisor and get the award in general (at any department)? And I would appreciate any advice from anyone familiar with scholarships like this. Thanks!

 

I don't go to U of T and I got one last year. It wasn't hard to find a supervisor, but I started looking in November. Sorry to be discouraging, but you may find it challenging to find a prof without a student this late. You can try, but I don't know if you'll be successful. I'd e-mail a *ton* of profs and be flexible regarding your interests. Good luck! Feel free to message me if you have any questions.

[schmitty]

It's not hard if you are proactive. I am actually in charge of hiring summer students (NSERC USRA and UROP) for a lab at U of T. We get a LOT of emails. The ones that stick out are the ones that show a genuine interest in our research and why they want our lab specifically. This usually entails at least perusing the last few years of publications from that prof, and incorporating some of your understanding into your conversation with potential supervisors. If you can stop by in person that would be even better but be prepared to be turned away from profs who are extremely busy when you try to meet them.

 

Our students are often from U ofT, but this is not always the case and we usually have around 1 per year from another university.

[schmitty]

Be proactive? I thought you wanted me to buy proactive...

 

Schmitty what year are you in? Actually mentioning papers and stuff is pretty useless since that's what they teach you to do at your school's friendly research club. Somehow I feel like the unique letter's we're taught to write are actually really generic ones in the first place. Just my 2 CC.

 

Not sure what you mean?

 

I completed my HBSc at U of T, and MSc at U of T and am now lab manager of a large research lab there. I am in charge of hiring for my lab and I can tell you that if the applicants show no knowledge of the recent publications of our lab/professor, they have little/no chance. If they are truly interested in our research, as they say they are, then they should do some research before applying and impress us with their understanding of it.

[schmitty]

How much do you expect an actual UG to understand of your research? I'd be pretty impressed if they understood the abstract and methods completely.

 

Yes, and that would be fine. When I interview people for low-level positions in my lab that is mostly all I am looking for. It shows that they understand the main goals of our research and are enthusiastic about it enough to seek out some papers and at least get the gist of them.

 

And really, finding those UGs that DO understand more of our research IS impressive and those are precisely the students we want to take into our lab :-)