Webinars for Newly Admitted Graduate Students 2025 - Awards and Financial Aid

Last minute folks too.

Well, here we go.

OK.

Hello everyone welcome.

I think the participants number will keep on going up as people come in.

So we'll just give maybe an extra minute or two just for that to happen.

OK, so I think I'll get started now.

Welcome everyone to our webinar on graduate awards and financial aid and Advising. My name is Patrick and I'll be facilitating the webinar today. First of all, I wanted to go over some housekeeping for today's presentation. So this webinar has been set up so that you can see and hear us and the slides, but participants won't be able to turn on their cameras or microphones. If you do have a question, you can type it in the chat.

But we do kindly request that for questions to be held into the end, as there's a good chance that your question question might be answered during the presentation.

Just so you know, this chat is also going to be moderated, so your message will only be visible to everyone after it has been approved by either myself or one of the presenters.

I would also like to reiterate that today's presentation is about graduate awards, financial aid, and advising. We will be covering other topics in separate webinars. As you saw on the registration page, there are two common questions that will not be covered by any of the webinars. First is we do not cover anything on course enrollment. Students often ask when and how they should be enrolling in courses. This will be covered by your home graduate unit. So for example, if you're doing a masters in.

And computer engineering, you would go to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for questions about coursework and course enrollment. The second topic that we will not be discussing is immigration. International students who have questions about study permits, what they can and can't do in the country. These are questions for the Center for International Experiences. We are not licensed immigration advisors, so we cannot answer questions about study permits and legal statuses in Canada.

If you do have questions though, links will be provided in the chat, but it's best to contact the respective office.

Finally, this presentation will be recorded and the recording and the slides will be available by the end of next week on the same page where you registered. With that, I'll turn off my camera and mic as I'll be leaving it to the experts to give our presentation today. I'll let the presenters introduce themselves as as it's their turn to speak. So over to you guys.

Hi everybody, uh, welcome to the Graduate Awards financial aid and advising webinar for newly admitted students. Umm, as Patrick mentioned, my name is Hannah, I'm from the financial aid and advising office. I'm also joined by my colleague Alice, who will be answering some questions in the chat.

So just a brief overview of the topics that we'll cover today. Uh, I will be going through graduate funding, OSEP and UTAPS and financial aid and advising. Then I will be followed by Janine from the Graduate Awards office with federal and provincial awards as well as other sources of funding.

So what is the difference between our offices? At the Financial Aid and Advising office? We offer financial advising by e-mail, phone and meetings. We offer needs based awards and grants and we help support students with complex situations.

The Graduate Awards Office offers pre and post award administration, liaises with external awards agencies, supports and approves U of T awards records and advises on award policy and best practices.

Graduate funding 101.

So how does funding work at the graduate level?

All students, when beginning their studies, are expected to have developed a financial plan to fund their graduate studies and to support themselves, for example, living expenses for the full duration of their program. This may include funding from your graduate unit or from your savings or even student loans.

So how does funding work?

If you're going to be registered in a research stream program, normally funding comes with a certain funding commitment.

Students accepted into most research stream Masters and PhD programs will receive funding from their graduate unit, in other words, from the department and or supervisor.

Funding typically covers one year of master study and four to five years of doctoral study.

This funding commitment is referred to as base funding. Base funding amounts may vary across graduate units, and the composition may include employment income such as teaching or research assistantships, research stipend, grants from your supervisor, and fellowships.

Students in professional graduate programs are however expected to self fund their educational expenses. Common sources of funding include professional student loans, OSAP savings, or employment income. Many professional masters students are still working part time or even full time while doing their degree.

Uh, this chart here is intended as a quick reference tool that outlines the major sources of funding available to most students. As you can see here, the research doctoral stream has funded or unfunded cohorts. If you are in a funded research program, your main resource of funding is EU of T fellowship. Other sources may include scholarships and awards, TA and RA ships, OSAP and Utaps, which I will go over shortly. Uh, on and off campus employment and savings.

The doctoral stream in the unfunded cohort may include flex time PhD students. Also, there are some masters programs that are not funded, such as non thesis based masters programs. However, their program may provide some funding. Their funding sources are mostly the same to the funded cohort, except of course they do not receive a UFT fellowship.

Professional masters programs are unfunded, however, there are sources that are listed here that are that are unique to the different cohorts, such as the professional student loans. Uh, it's important to note that international students in the funded cohort are funded similarly to domestic students. However, government and external scholarships and awards are extremely limited for them. They are not permitted to access OSAP or other Canadian government loans, and they also have some.

Regarding employment, therefore, it's important to check with your graduate unit for your funding information.

Funding letters are for research stream students who are within the funded years of their program. Annually, these students receive a copy of their funding letter from the Graduate Department. This letter is typically provided between mid August to the end of September. Uh, if you're in the Faculty of Medicine, this is completed online via GEMS.

The funding letter outlines how much students will receive in the given year and explains the way that it will be distributed. For example, is it going to pay your tuition for you, or will all the funds go to you directly?

It also includes a schedule of when the payment is expected.

Students in multi year research stream programs who do not hold an external award may be required to apply for external awards as a condition for their funding, so make sure to contact your graduate unit to ask which major award applications may be mandatory.

The amount of your funding package, the number of years that you will receive it, and how the funding is composed will depend on your specific program. Decisions about the availability, composition, sources, and annual amount of graduate funding over the course of your program are made primarily at the faculty and graduate unit levels, not by the university overall. Therefore, your your best contact for details about your graduate funding is your own graduate unit for your program.

Last November, it was announced that students in the funded cohort of PhD or SJD programs, both continuing and incoming, would be guaranteed a base funding package of $40,000, inclusive of tuition.

Uh, this increase is automatically applied for the 202526 year. And if you're looking For more information regarding the increase, you can refer to our web page. And if you have any more specific questions, the B the best place to reach out would be your graduate unit.

Next I will go over OSAP and utops programs.

The Ontario Student Assistance Program, or OSAP as you may know it is a government financial assistance program that assists eligible Ontario residents attending post secondary studies through a combination of both loans and grants.

OSAP is a great program to help pay for direct as well as non direct educational costs such as tuition, books, equipment and childcare. We encourage all students that are Ontario residents to apply for OSAP even if you think that you may not need it or may not be eligible. Graduate students in the funded cohort may think that they are not eligible, but they can still receive OSAP. The University Registrar's Office or the URL is there to help with all matters related to OSAP.

Provide support for provincial and territorial student loan programs as well as the American Federal Student loans.

The University of Toronto Advanced Planning for Students Program or UTOPS as you will find is commonly called, is a needs based support program that intends to cover the financial gap between a student's educational costs and the cost recognized by their province or territory, such as OSAP or out of province loans.

UTAPS provides non repayable grants to help students with their unmet financial need.

It's important to note that students in professional programs are not eligible to receive UTAPS. However, you may be considered for other needs based awards through your graduate unit by completing AU TAPS Application. Information that I'm applying to UTAPS and what programs are eligible can be found on the University Registrar's web page.

The University Registrar's Office can be contacted in person, by phone or on their services portal. Just reiterate the URL handles OSAP, out of province loans, U.S. Federal loans and Utaps.

I will now go over what is offered at the SGS Financial Aid and Advising Office.

So here's just a short overview of some of our financial aid programs, grants and bursaries that we offer for graduate students.

Most of these programs are needs based, which means that students must demonstrate some form of financial need in order to be eligible.

These programs cover a wide range of supports for students at various points in their academic career.

Firstly, the Emergency Grant is available to support registered full-time graduate students who experience an unforeseen financial emergency or crisis. The Emergency Loan is available for students who are expecting release of U of T funds such as a fellowship, award, payments or TA ship in the near future and aims to alleviate temporary cash flow problems.

Our Masters Completion Bursary assists students who have experienced a delay in their program due to unanticipated factors and much must register as a full time student beyond the program length to complete a small amount of work in order to graduate.

And lastly, our accessibility grant is available to students with accessibility needs. Students must be registered with Accessibility Services and the application is submitted through their office.

Our Research Travel grant provides financial support to eligible PhD and SJD students registered in the Humanities or social sciences for research travel.

The Indigenous Graduate Travel Award provides financial assistance to U of T Indigenous graduate students to travel and participate in educational and experiential learning in Canada or abroad, and activities specifically focused on Indigenous student or educational issues. You can contact SAGE for application details.

Our conference grant provides financial support to students who are actively presenting their research at an academic conference in the early stages of their program.

And the summertime bursary offers students a reimbursement for up to 100% of their campus summer athletic membership or program fees. Lastly, the parental grant aims to provide financial support to research stream doctoral students who are within the funded cohort who experience a loss or reduction in funding as a result of taking an approved parental leave.

Our office also offers financial advising. Uh, it's important to note that the first line of student support is always your Graduate Unit or Registrar's Office. Grants, bursaries, and other needs based support may be available through your Registrar's Office or Graduate Unit based on your program. Be sure to inquire about financial support opportunities and resources available to graduate students in your program or faculty first.

Our office is available to support currently registered students by collaborating with your graduate unit to best support you through local supports. Offering individualized advice taking into consideration of students unique circumstances. Assisting students with navigating the various funding opportunities at U of T UH, and directing students to appropriate contacts for accessing financial supports which may be OSAP, UTAPS, our Work Study Program, or the student line of credit.

We also assist with budgeting and debt load management.

Here's a list of some expenses to consider in your budgeting and financial planning for your upcoming degree.

Educational costs may include tuition and fees, books, and other academic supplies such as a computer.

Non educational costs include rent, food, utilities, transportation in the city, phone and Internet entertainment, personal maintenance, and medical and dental services. Please visit our Financial Wellness Resource page for resources that can assist you as you plan for the upcoming year.

Uh, one of those great resources is the financial planning calculator. The calculator is available to assist you in preparing a budget for the academic year and help you identify how much money you will need for your studies and whether you have sufficient resources to cover your costs. It's a very helpful tool, and I definitely recommend all graduate students to take a look.

OK, that concludes my section of the presentation. Umm, as Patrick said, questions will be at the end and I will pass it over to Janine.

OK, hi there everyone. Umm, I'm Janine Harper. I'm a graduate awards officer at the School of Graduate Studies. Also with us sort of monitoring the chat is my colleague Debbie Chow. So let's talk for a bit about federal and provincial awards. So the Tri agency is the major federal source of funds for research and scholarship and academic institutions, and there are three branches that you've probably heard of if you've been looking at award opportunities. The 1st is CIHR, that's the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

There is NSERC, that's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and there's Shirk, which is the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

So every year they have major awards that they offer.

For masters students, those competitions have two stages, so first you'll need to apply through your graduate department. They will have an internal review and then selected applications will be passed along to the university wide review. If you are a PhD student, the Tri agency awards have three separate stages, so you will apply through your graduate unit and your graduate unit will select like a certain number of awards to go on to the university wide competition.

And then from there, selected applications will go on to federal adjudication. So it's quite a, an involved process. If you are affiliated with a hospital, you may also be able to apply for doctoral awards through there. They have their own competitions. So if if that's an option for you, please do get in touch with your awards contact at the hospital.

Application deadlines for Tri agency awards are in the fall, so it's very important to start preparing early.

We, the School of Graduate Studies, will announce those competitions as information becomes available, usually in July or in August. But even before that, you can contact the Graduate Center for Academic Communication to register for workshops and for individual writing consultations. Also, your graduate unit and or your faculty may offer writing resources. For example, they may have workshops that are specific to students in your discipline, which can be really handy for writing those those applications.

Uh, the federal agencies also provide, umm, parental leave supplements. Uh, so that's like separate funding for students who are on an approved leave of absence, uh, for, for parental responsibilities. So in order to start applying for that, umm, you will have to, you know, be on an approved leave from your studies and then also submit a separate request for deferment of start date or interruption of award form to the Tri agency. Umm, and my office is happy to help you, you know, to walk you through that process for.

Applying for parental leave, your supervisor may also have a Tri agency grant of their own and if that's the case, they may also have access to parental leave funding for you. And if that's the case, you can contact your supervisor and apply for those funds through the Research Services office. So there are lots of options if you're seeking parental leave support. We also have provincial awards which Debbie actually manages. So if there are questions about those, I'm sure she would be happy to step in to talk about them, but we have so the Ontario.

Scholarship as well as the Queen Elizabeth the Second Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology, usually referred to as QE 2 GSST. These programs encourage excellence in graduate studies at publicly assisted institutions in Ontario. So if you are a domestic or international student, you can apply for OGS. If you're a domestic student, the competition is decided entirely by your graduate department if you're an international student.

That's adjudicated by the School of Graduate Studies.

Umm, for QE 2 GSST, only domestic students are eligible, and again, that one is managed by your graduate department, so you can get in touch with them as well as with Debbie if you have questions about those competitions.

So in preparation for the Big Try Agency award competitions, the School of Graduate Studies holds award information sessions multiple times throughout the year. So in late August we'll be doing a presentation on the Canada Graduate Research Scholarships Doctoral competition for all three branches. In mid-september we talk about the Masters level competition and then Debbie will do a presentation in mid November on OGS specifically.

If you're not able to attend those sessions, we always record them and then we make the sessions available online through the relevant award pages. So you can see here we've got a link to SGS Awards to help you navigate to those.

Graduate units will also share information about these sessions with you through their sort of own internal emails, as well as through the monthly E newsletter. So please do keep an eye on your e-mail inbox, your U of T1, for information about these competitions.

In addition to those major federal awards, we have various other award opportunities and sources of funding that you can look at. So anything that is managed by SGS will be listed on the SGS Scholarships and Awards page, so you can navigate to that link. We also have a word explorer, which allows you to sort of look at different award opportunities that may be like more specific to your discipline or program. You can visit that For more information.

And of course, you can also seek employment as another source of funding.

So they're on and off campus employment opportunities. Through the Career Centre. You can look into TA ships and RA ships work, study programs, jobs at various facilities at U of T like the bookstore, the library, the athletics facilities. There's also off campus and seasonal work. However, if you're an international students, it is important to review the restrictions that may come with your study permit. And please do contact the Centre for International Experience if you have questions.

So I think as Patrick mentioned, we're not legally able to advise you on any sort of issues related to immigration or study permits.

So the CIA is your stop for questions about that kind of thing. And of course, use your network. So connect with friends and family, fellow students, your supervisor, other professors to find out more about employment opportunities.

You can also look into a student line of credit, so that's a type of loan that allows you to borrow money up to a preset limit. These funds can be used at your discretion. And while you're in school, you're only required to pay interest on the money that you've borrowed. Repayment of the principal can occur at any time while you're in school. And after you leave school, you must start paying back that principal amount that you borrowed. So you can find more details about that on the Government of Canada's website.

There's also the Scotia Professional Student Plan and Scotia Line for Students, which are available to students registered in select graduate programs.

So you can learn more about this on the EUR website and also look up a list of approved programs to see if yours is on there. Now, if you're an international student seeking a line of credit, you have to have a Canadian Citizen Co sign the application as a guarantor. And again, please do contact with the CIA if you want more information on that specifically.

So, umm, here's an important slide for everyone. Umm, these are your sort of, umm, first contacts if you have questions about various sources of funding. So if you have questions about your funding package, please do get in touch with your graduate unit, umm, and, and sort of look at your funding letter for reference as well. Umm, general information about scholarships and awards. You can talk to your graduate unit SGS, your supervisor, your peers often have good advice, especially, you know, those who are more senior in your program.

You can search on the Internet for any scholarships that are administered through SGS. You can look at the SGS awards table. TA ships. Please contact your graduate unit.

As well As for information about research assistantships and research stipends. UFC fellowships are managed by your graduate unit. As Hedda mentioned, OSAP, UTAPS, and government loans. The URL is your contact for that. We have the CLN for on campus employment. Off campus employment is through networking, walk-ins, that kind of thing. And if you have just general inquiries about awards, you're not really sure what something falls under, who to get in touch with, you can always e-mail the general.

E-mail address for the Graduate Awards office and one of us will get back to you either with sort of direct assistance or we'll point you to where you need to go.

So if you have questions, umm, for specific information about financial aid and advising, you can e-mail umm Hannah and the rest of the financial aid and advising team at their address or their phone number is also posted there. And for general awards questions, you can contact the awards office people on my team at graduate.awards@utoronto.ca. And I think that's it for the main presentation, but umm, I don't know if we have any questions in the chat, Debbie.

Or Alice.

Umm, I don't see any questions in the chat at the moment.

Yep. If anyone here in the webinar, any participants, if you have any questions, feel free to type it in the chat now. We'll give it a little bit of moment before we wrap up just in case anyone is thinking of anything or anything like that.

And if you have any questions that are very specific to to you and and your situation, please feel free to just send us an e-mail directly.

Always happy to advise.

Umm, there's a question. When will the webinar recording be posted? Umm, I believe it's within a week. OK, thank you.

I can answer that, yes, should be by the end of next week. We can't do it immediately because the platform that we're hosting the webinar on, it's, it's an automated process. So it takes a few days for the recording to be compiled with the video and the audio and for everything to be synced up. So we'll be on the same page where you registered available by the end of next week.

Well, I think if that's everything, if no one else has any questions, I wanted to thank Hannah, Janine and also Debbie and Alice for joining us today, taking the time to share their expertise. And thank you for everyone also in the chat who joined us today.

If anyone is planning to join the webinar for Family Care and or the Graduate Center for Academic Communication, I will see you tomorrow for those two webinars. Thank you everyone, bye bye.

Bye.