Today's blog will be about 'hints and tricks' for students, mostly international, applying for graduate studies in Canada. I personally have done loads of work when I was applying and now I get tons of people asking me all the time about how I did it. So here it goes:
1. Know the schools.
The most famous one is obviously University of Toronto; while it is a great school to go to, you have so many other options to choose from that you might not have heard of. Not every school is called after the city's name; so while Universities of Montreal and Ottawa are easy to know of, plenty of other ones like Queen's, Carleton, Simon-Fraser, McMaster universities and many more, you might have never heard of before but are a better fit for you. Here's a link to this year's top Canadian universities.
2. Apply, apply and an extra three times apply.
I personally think five universities is a good number to apply to as an international student. Don't be clingy to one single university, but in the same time, if you think none of five universities you are applying to will accept you then you might have to rethink your choices... (think well!)
3. Send all documents then start emailing professors.
One of the most important questions I always get is whether I should send my documents or ask professors for supervision first. You should always send your official papers first and get an application number and confirmation that your application is in the process before you start bugging professors with emails. Remember, professors get emails from students every day all day; so for you to get through the first cut, you have to show that you are serious about the school and your application. Therefore, when you want to send your resumé and transcript to the professor, make sure to have already officially applied.
BUT, during the application, they usually ask you about your preferred field/professor you want to work with; that's where the tricky part comes because you want to have already looked up the professors and made sure that at least you are interested in one of the professor's work/field and state it in your application.
4. What to include in your email.
That was the trickiest, scariest part for me during my application. You don't want to sound hopeless, you don't want to do any vocabulary mistake, you want to be concise, to the point, confident about your skills and what you can offer as a candidate. Other than that, make sure to include a copy of your transcript and resumé. Write about what is included in your resumé and transcript to give an incentive for the prof to look at your resumé. Looking back at it now, I would have changed my email title from a boring "request for supervision' to a more attractive and full title like 'my name, potential master's/PhD candidate, country, anything special about me'. Again, as I said, professors get a lot of emails, so you want to attract them with what you have and give them a reason to choose you or at least just read your email and maybe give you a feedback.
5. Don't copy paste emails from one supervisor to another.
Professors receive everyday spam/bulk emails that were sent as a copy paste to all professors; therefore, you want to make sure that you are sending a personalized email to each professor. Say something like "I'm aware that your field of research is different from what I have worked on before but I am a flexible learner and would like to get into a new research field and seek what is available as an opportunity". In other words, don't lie about being an expert or having a common research background, be honest and say that you are seeking an opportunity and that you are a fast learner..
6. Suggest a skype or a phone call.
yeyy, you got an answer and you're all excited about this professor that answered your email. BUT, while you might be delighted that somebody answered you, be careful before saying yes; sometimes you might find out later that he/she was not a good fit for you.
It might be too tempting to go with that professor who accepted you first; so for you to have no regrets later on, do your homework of googling that person: how many citations does he/she have? How many students does he/she have? how many students did already graduated with him/her? How many years on average did it take them?
PS: if you can get in touch with the students from the same lab, that would be a great opportunity for you to find more about the work and the supervisor. Supervisors like to brag about how many students they have so if you can find their names and message them on LinkedIn, that would be the way to go.
7. Money talk.
Back in my home country, I would have never dreamt of being paid to pursue a graduate degree. So while it sounds bizarre for a lot of people, you actually do get paid in Canada while doing a masters or a doctoral degree, and that's because you are doing research, therefore, you are considered an employee. In the field of engineering for example, be careful to differentiate between M.Eng and M.A.Sc: the first is course-based degree while the second is research-based degree. In M.A.Sc, you're expected to do research work and that's why you get paid as a research assistant (RA). In your acceptance letter, you might find that you were offered a teaching assistant (TA) position which means that you will be expected to help teach a course by running tutorials and marking quizzes/exams. That job will also pay you and usually it is part of you pay package. Now, it gets tricky here since it's not the same between different schools and it's usually different for international students since their tuition fees are higher. Some schools give you a full grant (including TA and RA), then they ask you to pay the tuition fees from that grant; but other universities omit directly your tuition fees and give you a net salary. Be careful therefore when reading your acceptance letter to know how much your net salary will be and whether this is after or before tuition being omitted. Remember, good grades pay off, so you might get an entrance award for your high grades in your first year for example. This is usually called an entrance award which means that tuitions fees will be waived since your grades are high.
Becoming a teaching assistant (TA) is a great way of making money aside. While in some schools it's mandatory, in others, you have the right to decide whether you want to gain the extra cash or not. I would suggest that you look for the difference in how much you get paid for teaching between different schools and how many times per year you are expected to do it. But remember, if being a TA is not mandatory, this means that there is a tougher competition between graduate students for receiving this position, therefore it's not guaranteed.
8. More money talk: extra scholarships.
This is the most important part of it all and I do get asked about this a lot. So as I mentioned before,
while you do get paid as an employee, partly from your supervisor as a research assistant and partly from school to cover some or all part of your tuition, you have a variety of chances to get extra scholarships that will make you more at ease financially during your graduate years.
BUT these scholarships are not to be applied for before coming to school. The additional scholarship that you can apply for are either Vanier scholarship (Federal) or provincial such as Ontario Graduate Studies (OGS). NSERC is only for permanent resident or Canadians. But again, you can only apply for a scholarship like these, once you are accepted at a school and have already a supervisor. It doesn't work the other way around.
I recommend that you apply for a scholarship that your country might offer too; I have seen many people that have done that and guaranteed their spot here when they showed the supervisor that they already have a scholarship in their hands. Other than that, try to see if there's some sort of collaboration between your undergrad university and the Canadian universities. Sometimes all it takes is a trusted connection.
Well that's it for now. I hope you found these tips helpful.
Do you have any comments or extra tips for the 'wanna-be-graduate students' applying to Canada? Share them in the comment section below.
Best of luck applying,
Yasmine Hajar, PhD Candidate and Vanier scholar
