Webinars for Newly Admitted Graduate Students 2024 - Awards and Financial Aid

Play.

All right, hello everyone, and welcome to our webinar on graduate awards, financial aid and advising. Umm, I can see that our participants list has gone from the five presenters to now 125 people. So we're going to give a couple of 132 people 3334, still counting. So we're going to give a couple of minutes for everyone else to join before we get started on the meet of today's session, but I'm going to do a little bit of housekeeping to begin with, if that's all right.

The webinar has been set up so that you can see and hear us and see and see our slides, but participants won't be able to switch on their cameras or microphones. We'll be taking questions in the questions box, and I would like participants, if at all possible, to hold their questions until the end because there's a very good chance that your question will be answered as part of the presentation. However, I would like any student participant right now to just do a quick test and see if they're able to put their questions into the chat.

Aha, Alyssa, thank you for coming forward and Annabelle has already done it. OK, we are good. We are good. You will see nothing showing up in the chat yet because we are going to moderate those questions. We'll be able to approve or reject questions as appropriate. So thank you to everyone who did the test message. It's working perfectly and we will get to those questions at the end after the formal part of the presentation. I want to be very clear, today's presentation and question and answer session is going to be about graduate awards and financial aid. Those are the only things that we will be speaking on today. We have further webinars on housing.

On health and Wellness, on supervisory support and so on and so forth. You've seen the list of those webinars, you know, on the registration page when you registered and very explicitly there are two topics that we're not going to cover at any point in these webinars. So if you have questions on these two topics, they're not for today. The 1st is course enrollment. Students always want us to know when, when and how they should be enrolling in courses. And that's handled by your home graduate unit. So for instance, if you're doing.

A master's in electrical and computer engineering. It's the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering that you'll be going to for questions about coursework. The other subject that we get a lot of questions about is immigration. International students who want to know about their study permit applications, what they can and can't do in the country. And we've got a link on the registration page to the Center for International Experiences, information on study permits and legal status in Canada. We're not licensed immigration advisors. We cannot answer those questions.

And so we're just redirecting you to the Center for International Experience. I can also put that link in the chat if people would prefer. So let's do a quick set of introductions. We're going to start on my right. Pascal, would you give yourself a quick introduction?

Hi there, Sorry I was on mute. Hi, my name is Pascal Papathanisakis and I'm the manager in the Financial Aid and Awards office.

All right. And Carly, you're up next.

And you're muted.

Oh, mute, mute. See, I did that.

After all these years. OK. Hi I'm Carla Serpei and I am an A financial aids and awards advisor working with Pascal.

Thank you so much, Janine. You're next.

Hi, I'm Janine Harper. I'm a graduate awards officer in the Awards and Financial Aid Office.

And last but absolutely not least, Debbie.

Hi everyone. I'm Debbie Chow, one of the Graduate Awards officer in the Graduate Awards office at SGS.

Wonderful. And so I'm going to switch off my microphone and camera and let the actual experts take it away. So fire away.

OK hi welcome everyone to the University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies Graduate Awards, financial aid and Advising webinar.

Let me just get my cursor, alright.

So just a brief overview today I'll be going through the topics listed here, the top two first, how does funding work at the graduate level and any funding sources that we could inform you about. And then it'll be followed by Carla with the SGS, financial assistance and advising information and budgeting and financial planning in full.

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 support themselves. For example, like 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? There are two main avenues that graduate funding works. First, if you're going to be registered in a research stream program.

Normally these come with a certain funding commitment. Students accepted in most research stream masters or PhD programs will receive funding from their graduate unit. In other words from their department and or supervisor. Funding typically covers one year of master study and umm, four or five years of doctoral studies and or and. Just a brief explanation, base funding is the graduate units funding commitment.

Faculties and graduate units. So your department will determine base funding amounts for doctoral stream programs and the number of years that you may be eligible for. Base funding amounts vary across the departments. For example, the upcoming 202425 Faculty of Arts and Sciences departments, the base funding package ranges from 21,750 or if you're in the sciences, it'll be 22,250 plus support for tuition and fees.

For eligible students and the composition of base funding may include employment income such as teaching or research assistantships. So in short, TA or RA, research stipends, grants from your supervisor, UH awards, fellowships. So note that funding varies across departments, so it's best to check with your graduate unit UMM For more information.

And secondly, for students in professional graduate programs, they are expected to self fund their educational expenses. So usually their sources of funding umm are professional student loans, umm, OSAP or savings or even employment income. Because there are actually a lot of professional master students who are still working part time or even full time while they're doing their degree. So professional master students may be eligible for.

A limited number of awards, um, so do check with your graduate department or the School of Graduate Studies awards information.

Graduate funding 101.

Oops, sorry. This chart is intended as a quick reference tool that outlines the major sources of funding available for most students. As you can see here, the Research Doctoral stream has funded or unfunded courts. So if you're in the funded Research Doctoral Stream program, the amount of your funding package, the number of years you will receive it, and how the funding is composed will depend on your specific program decisions about availability.

Composition sources and annual amount of graduate funding over the course of a student's program are made primarily at your faculty or your department.

And not by the university overall. So do check with your department to find out about your graduate funding package and how it works at your department and the doctoral stream and the unfunded cohort. So those would be students like those in the flex time PhD programs which are usually considered professional stream. Most students registered in this program are working professionals and also some are.

A master's programs and they are not funded.

Because they may they are in a non thesis masters program. And however, do check with the department that to see if there's some funding or some awards that you may be eligible for. And professional masters program, as mentioned before, are unfunded. But on this list, you can see some of the sources of funding that you may be eligible for and that you can look into. And also we want to note that international students in the funded cohort.

Are funded similarly to domestic students. However, government and external scholarships and awards are are limited limited for international students and also international students are not eligible for Canada or provincial student loans. So there are some but but there are some awards that are open to international students.

So you may check with your graduate department or on our SGS website. And now we can move on to the next slide about funding letters. So funding letters are for students in the research stream or the funded cohort as we call them. And these students will receive a copy of what we call annual funding letter from your department. Usually it's around between mid August to early end of September where you get a funding letter or for students in Timer D medicine.

You will access your funding information on online GEMS agreement system. This funding letter outlines how much you will receive for the year, the academic year and explains how the funding will be distributed to you, how much you'll be, if it will apply to your tuition or if or directly to you. And you will be responsible for paying your tuition. So it's good to view view your letter to see what's expected to come through.

And if the funding is paid monthly or by session. And just to explain a bit about most funded court students, funded students are guaranteed a base funding package as previous mentioned and this amount is determined by your department, so.

For some students who win a merit based competitive award, the award usually contribute towards your base funding package.

For example, if your base funding package total is 30,000 for a year and you win a $15,000 Ontario graduate scholarship, the Ogs of 15,000 would contribute towards your 30K and the difference of 15K would be covered by maybe your graduate department and or your supervisors, a combination of funds or even other awards. So also note your department may provide.

Top up or a bonus for winning an external award. So do check your funding policy at your department and if you have questions about it, check with your graduate unit. Sometimes the sources of funds may change throughout the year so you will receive amendments throughout the year on your letter. So do find out how you can access your updated letter so that you can track how your payments will be made.

And additional sources of funding that we like to highlight are TRY agency awards and provincial award called Ontario Graduate Scholarship that I mentioned earlier. And the biggest awards that we like to mention are from the Tri agency and it consists of three branches of federal funds from the CIHR and Cirque or Shirk, which stands for Canadian Institute for Health Research.

Natural science and engineering Research Council and the Social science and humanities Research Council. Depending on which type of research you're doing, you would apply for the ward by a specific agency and you may apply through the university or affiliated hospital. This depends on where your primary UMM research is conducted. UMM for Tri agency awards usually there are multiple stages at the university. You will have to apply through your department 1st and if you are forwarded by your department then for master level awards.

Decision The decision is finalized by SGS and for doctoral level awards, SGS will have another adjudication and then forward your application to the national competition and for the provincial fund, which is also quite popular, the OGS Ontario Graduate Scholarship. There's a domestic competition and the international competition and this award is also open to professional masters students. Please note for 202425 awards starts year.

Most of the competition has closed, so it's already concluded That means you would have applied, uh, last fall or early this year for the award to start this coming fall. So, umm, if you will be registering for 2526, say for your second year, uh, graduate studies, uh, do look out for the application announcement through your department or post it on our SGS website this fall for say these Tri agency awards or OGS or other awards.

And.

Next.

And Justice like to highlight to you, we at the Graduate Awards office conducts award information sessions for the Tri Agency awards and also for Ogs. So this is the timeline listed here for these awards and we will be announcing the exact dates through to your graduate units and you can receive that information through your department. So we do strongly suggest that you attend these award sessions.

To know how to complete the application, to get tips and, uh, hopefully we'll see you there. It will be conducted by, uh, our graduate awards officers.

And, umm, just to mention when to start looking for scholarship and awards. Umm, here's some quick tips that we like to highlight. A solid application, uh, takes time and preparation, so do start early to, uh, once the award announcements are made to look into the application.

And prospective students can apply for awards even before they are offered a mission, so you would have applied earlier if you're starting this year. And if the awards are offered, recipients must be registered at UFT in the graduate department they applied for to hold the award. And we do suggest you start early. Read up on the award eligibility and what's involved in the application and see if you need transcripts. Make sure you order them on time.

So that you have them before the deadline and some federal awards require your current institutions transcripts like U of T so to so you may want to apply.

For those after you're registered for the fall session in September, and if you need a plan of study or research proposal for your application, start jotting down ideas as you go. Maybe you can start up a folder and and and for each award that you're applying for.

And even ask your peers and supervisor and advisor to to review your proposal just to make sure that it's error free and not to jargon laden and all that. So do start early. Is, is one of the suggestions. We also, we always mention and also we at the School of Graduate studies, we have a Graduate Center for academic communication, the GCAC.

So if you're a registered student, you have registered status. You may contact them for academic writing and speaking assistance.

And, uh, it may be confusing about who to contact 'cause there's so many different departments and offices, umm, to talk about funding. So we put together this short list, uh, just to help you guide you who, who to discuss with, say for your funding package or for awards. But if you not too sure, do write to us, uh, the Graduate Awards office at graduate.awards@utoronto.ca and we'll be happy to, umm, assist you with your question or.

Afford you to the correct office to help you. So this concludes the segment from the Graduate Awards office and I now pass you over to Carla from the Financial Aid and Advising Office.

Thank you very much, Debbie.

OK, hi again everyone. I'm going to talk a bit about what programs and supports the financial aid and advising office provides, But first I want to start with some points on budgeting and financial planning. For the duration of your studies, you'll most likely need to be creative. Creative about how you plan, budget and think about money. You'll want to make a plan and stick to it. You'll want to think about how much money you'll need for the duration of your degree, what expenses and resources you you currently have and what you expect to have.

And will you have enough?

Some expenses to consider.

Our tuition books, equipment, rent, housing, food, utilities, transportation, phone and Internet, entertainment, clothing, toiletries, household items, medical, dental These are a general list of expenses that you should be budgeting for. Many of these expenses are monthly costs, so it does make sense to create a monthly budget for yourself. The amounts for all of these items, except tuition will vary depending on your circumstances and preferences.

You may or may not have roommates, you may live very close to campus and and be able to walk rather than take transit. You can shop around for different types of data plans for your phone, for Internet, that sort of thing. So these costs will vary, but it is remembered to. It's really remember really important rather to remember to spend within what you have and to not overspend. Small items can add up quickly and when your expenses start to exceed your resources, it can be really tough to get caught up.

The university offers a financial planning calculator that you can log into.

And it will help you calculate how much money you'll need to cover for tuition and fees, as well as your daily living costs for the upcoming academic year.

Now, some other sources of funding that you can access, you'll want to think about what options are available and that's what we're here for you to do and we can help you consider what your options are if you don't have enough money to pay for your studies if something might happen.

We can with the Graduate Awards Office. You can apply for awards and for scholarships, but if you don't know the outcome, you'll have to bridge the gap at some point with other sources of funding.

So employment is one of those options. There are on and off campus opportunities, seasonal employment, teaching assistantships, research assistantships, work study program. There are offerings through the Career Center for on campus work for international students. It's important that you review your study permit restrictions and contact the Center for International Experience for any with any questions you have.

Another source of funding is OSAP.

But before we get to that, we're going to talk about who manages and assists students with OSAP questions, and that's the university registrar's office.

They're there to help you with any and all matters related to OSAP. O SAP is an educational loan from the Ontario provincial government and available to Ontario residents only.

So for students who are Ontario residents, we do encourage you that my sorry, we do encourage that you apply for OSAP even if you think you may not need it, even if you think that you may not be eligible, you might be surprised to learn that a lot of Ontario graduate students in funded programs are still eligible for OSAK. There's an OSAP 8 estimator that you can log into and it takes about 5 to 10 minutes and you can see if you're eligible and it will tell you, will give you an estimate.

Of what you might be able to get as a loan, it's important to note as well that in addition to a loan, you may receive a grant and there is no obligation to take the loan, but you can accept just the grant. So that might be something that you would be interested in if you find yourself later on in financial need, you can always go back to accept the loan portion as well.

So other student supports is one of the one of the programs offered is something called UTAPS, the University of Toronto Advanced Planning for students. It's a need based support program and it covers the financial gap between a student's education costs and the costs recognized by their province or territory. So there are out of province loans as well as OSAP. If you are from another province, you would apply for your out of province loan and then apply to UTAPS through the university.

Anyone receiving OSAP will automatically be considered for UTAPS.

The URL also provides support for American federal student loans.

So one thing I want to know there's it's just in the bullet below, but it ties into what we're discussing here now, is that students outside of Canada and the US should determine their eligibility for their own government programs.

And then back above for award explorer. Award explorers are very useful tool that can help you explore all of the various funding opportunities at the university.

And finally, we cannot recommend private loan providers.

However, when we are speaking with students in financial in a financial advising sense, we do recommend that you look into and apply for lines of credit if possible.

A line of credit is a type of loan that allows you to borrow money up to a preset limit, and you're not required to use the funds for a specific purpose as you would with the loan.

You can pay back the money you owe at any time, and you only have to pay interest on the money that you borrow now. You can read more about lines of credit credit at the Government of Canada website. There are specific lines of credit for students, the Scotia Professional Student Plan and the Scotia Line for Students, so these are available to students registered in select graduate programs. There's a searchable list of approved programs on the University of Toronto Registrar's webpage.

A point to make for international students for lines of credit. You can apply for them, however you will need a Canadian citizen to Co sign the application for you as a guarantor. You can connect with the Center for International Experience For more information.

OK. So finally the financial agent advising office, what we offer, the programs that we offer are listed here.

The Emergency grant it supports registered full-time grad students who experience an unforeseen financial emergency crisis. An emergency loan that alleviates temporary cash flow problems for students who are expecting a release of UFT funds in the near future. That could be in the in as an award installment or as a research stipend or ATA shipping come, for example.

There's something called the Master's completion Bursary, and this is to help students who've experienced a delay in their program due to unanticipated factors and that forces students then to register be on their program length to complete a small amount of work in order to graduate. We also offer accessibility grants and this is available to students with accessibility needs and students must already be registered with Accessibility services.

We also offer the Research Travel grant. This provides financial support to eligible PhD and SJD students registered in the Humanities or social Sciences for research travel. There's also the Indigenous Graduate Travel Award. Provides financial assistance to University of Toronto Indigenous graduate students to travel and participate in educational and experiential learning in Canada or abroad. Inactivity specifically focused on Indigenous student or educational issues.

We also offer a conference grant and this provides financial support to students who are actively presenting their research at an academic conference in the early stages of their program.

The Summer Gym bursary offers students a reimbursement for up to 100% of their campus summer athletic membership or program fees. And finally, the parental grant, this is a grant that supports doctoral students when taking an approved parental leave of absence, absence and we have a bit more information on that in the next slide.

So the grant aims to provide financial support to research stream doctoral students in the funded cohort who experience a loss or reduction in funding as the result of taking an approved parental leave. Leaves are normally taken at the time of birth or adoption in order to provide full-time care during a child's first 12 months of life, or first 12 months of care if the child is adopted. In order to be to be eligible to receive the grant, you must be registered full time in a research stream doctoral program and have been granted an approved parental leave for at least one academic session or four months.

Students must also be eligible to receive their regular base funding package the session prior to and upon return from the parental leave.

The primary caregiver or the student who is taking the leave and applying for the grant must be the primary caregiver during the parental leave session. And it's important also to note that students who are receiving Tri agency scholarships.

Or research grant stipends are eligible for a paid parental leave supplement.

We'll get that on the next slide. So as Debbie mentioned earlier with the Tri agency awards, so the CIHR and circle shirk scholarships, there are parental leave supplements. You would complete a form if you are one of those recipients and submit it to SGS and we would connect with the Tri agency then to put that into place for you.

Now we also offer financial advising in our department where we have financial advising meetings with students and we can offer individualized advice to registered students addressing questions in consideration of your unique circumstances. So we can help with assisting or sorry, help with navigating the various funding opportunities that UFT direct you to appropriate departments and contacts. We can assist with budgeting and debt load management. And we've launched, recently launched a financial Wellness webpage.

That has a lot of resources, really helpful resources in terms of budgeting and finances and job search, for example.

And So what we do in our meetings is you would, you know, send us an e-mail and we could set up a financial advising meeting and we'd meet one-on-one with you. All the meetings are about 1/2 hour long and we kind of, you know, have a conversation about what your current circumstances are, what type of program you're in, what, what your needs might be financially and then we go from there.

So that concludes my section.

Thank you very much everybody. And I will pass things back to Corey.

All right. Thank you so much, Carla and Debbie. And now we move on to with no offense to the presenters, what I find is often the most interesting part of the session where we get the individual questions from different students who after all may have needs and questions that we're not aware of. I'm going to want you. I'm going to be rejecting quite a lot of the questions that were put into the chat, not because there were bad questions, but because a lot of you have very, very similar questions. So you may very well get.

Rejected as I answer someone's question that is very very similar to yours. So I have a few different people asking questions about when entrance scholarships for masters programs will be paid out. Entrance scholarships are handled by the individual graduate units. They are programmed by program and so that is going to vary somewhat from program to program. You need to contact your graduate unit to discuss that.

I'm going to ask.

Either Janine or Debbie to answer this one.

The question about a trike agency awards and whether or not they're available for international students, because I understand there have been some changes on this.

Trying to see. I'll let you go.

Do you want to go first, Debbie, or should I?

Try agency awards. Both of those are not available to international students, the CIHR and Circumchirk awards. The one exception there is the Vignette Canada Graduate Scholarships, which international students can apply for. But most of those trade agency awards, they have the requirement that you be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident, or protected person. So unfortunately, if you're here on a study permit, you wouldn't be eligible for most of those trade agency awards.

So the bad news is that they're, the bulk of those awards are not available to international students. The good news is that the Vanier is the big one. So the really top level students will be able to apply for that. We have another question from a professional graduate student asking whether they are eligible for Tri Council awards or OGS. And I, I, if I understand right, there's a slightly different answer between federal and OGS or I could be mistaken.

Play.

Uh, I could go first for the OGS professional master students are eligible, umm, for, uh, so if you're registered at say umm, the occupational therapy, physical therapy department, uh, you are eligible. So if you're registering for 2526, uh, next year, do check with your department to ensure you're on their listserv to receive the OGS announcement information to apply this fall.

OK, we have someone from a research stream program asking whether a research stream students can apply for OSAP even if they're already funded, and how do they go about applying?

I'll take this one. Thank you. Yes, you are eligible for OSAP as long as you are an Ontario resident and you would, I would suggest starting with the university registrar's office website and they have a wonderful team there who will walk you through the process. There's a lot of information on their website that includes deadlines, how to apply, it's very in depth and it will link you directly also to the Ontario government's web page to start the application.

OK. We have just with apologies, I'm going to be rejecting a bunch of questions in the next few seconds. Unfortunately because they're very process specific about applications for OSAP and since our offices aren't available aren't, aren't involved in that process, if we try to answer, we might end up misinforming you. So.

Carla, could you put the link in the chat to the OSAP contact page at the University Registrar's office? And I'm afraid that link and the contact information for the University Registrar's office will have to be our answer for basically everything OSAP. So my apologies to those who are going to be rejected.

We've had a couple of questions, so we're going to be posting a response to one of these.

Be posting both the slides and the video for this session. So Glan is asking whether we'll receive the list of links included in the slides. They'll be on the slides themselves when we post them online. And also we're being asked where will this be posted? How will we find this? And the answer is on the same page where you registered for each webinar. There's currently a link that says registration now open once the videos have finished syncing. So probably next week I will be replacing that link.

With a link to watch the video and it will be a it's a You don't have to register to watch the video. Anyone can see the videos as long as they have the links. So if you want to share this with friends who missed this session, perfect. Feel free to share this and and share the information widely.

So I'm going to ask a student to rephrase their question because one student is asking about can we speak more about the Ogs? But unless we know what the questions are, we won't know what to answer. So I'm going to ask Zahi if you could please be more specific in your questions about AGS. We'll be able to get to that.

Here's a good question Kevin's asking Can you hold more than one award at the same time? Uh, I will hand that off to one of our three presenters.

Play.

So that really depends on the award. Most try agency awards have restrictions saying that you can't hold them simultaneously. So you can't have a CGSM&ACGSD at the same time. You can't apply for an N circle word and go well actually also I'm studying health so I'm going to apply for Chr award. It doesn't work that way unfortunately. They are mutually exclusive and you can't hold a Tri agency award and OGS at the same time. But there are lots of other awards that have no particular restrictions. So for example if you were to get a Canada graduate scholarship.

Like at the masters level, say, you know, that award says you can have, you know, if if you're eligible to hold a different awards, you know, a departmental award, your funding package, ATA ship, any other external sources of funding, you can still have those. So it would be best to look at the terms and conditions of any awards that you receive and just make sure that they don't have any restrictions on other sources of funding. Many don't, but some do. So it's it's also an award specific question.

OK, so Zahi has gotten back to us with this specific question about UGS asking when the application is usually due. And I'm going to answer that that varies from unit to unit, unless you are an international student applying for the international OGS. So several years ago, the School of Graduate Studies downloaded the domestic OGS application process to the different units. So you'll have a different answer depending on what program you're in.

Janine, would you be able to grab the the list of departmental deadlines from last year and drop it into the chat?

And then, yeah.

Perfect. Thanks, Debbie. Oh, so here's a good question. Just nor is I think concerned if they apply for OSAP and are rewarded it is it considered part of their funding package?

Who would like to take that one?

Sorry, I was on mute there for a second. I was having trouble with my buttons. No, OSAP would not be part considered part of your funding package.

It's a simple answer for that one.

No, that is.

So no, no, no, no department can count loans as being part of your funding. A loan is not a loan is not funding.

But you do have to disclose the funding to your department, yeah.

Yeah, I, I just, Jesse was actually asked a very good follow up question to that. And what if in the OSAP money is provided is in the form of a grant?

Just approved it.

Yes. So if money is, I can't see the question unfortunately. So if if money is.

I'm sorry, I still am not seeing it.

I'm about 10 minutes behind on the questions for some reason.

So it is. It's on the sits in the chat tab right at the bottom.

No, I apologize. I'm having trouble seeing that. Can you just repeat the question for me please?

Mm-hmm.

Sure. So Jessie was lucid student who asked about whether OSAP could be counted as part of the funding package. And the follow up question is wait, wait, wait a minute. What if we getting a no SAP grant as opposed to an OSAP loan?

Yes.

And will that be considered as part of the funding package? I see.

No, it will still not be part of considered part of the funding package. That would be funding for you and you still have to disclose it to your department, but it doesn't affect your base funding.

As I as I understand it, whether the money is a grant or a loan isn't actually determined till the end of your program. Is that still true or is that out of date information?

I know I believe it might be out of date. I think what happens is you are given your assessment, told exactly what the two amounts are, the loan and the grant and then you are able to access that.

And what?

OK.

Mohammed is asking about the Scholars at Risk program and when those applications are due. I believe the deadline was back in March or April for next year.

Yes, unfortunately the deadline is the best to apply this year.

So the deadline has passed for this year. However, if you're in a multiyear program, it might be relevant to you for your second year. So I'm going to put the link to that information, uh, into the chat. I just found it so I can, I can, umm, I can pop that in.

Here we go, more questions.

Umm Isabelle is asking about how to book financial advising appointments with your office. Carla, could you put a link in the chat to that one?

Absolutely.

Kobe has a very good question because I heard the same thing last week. Kobe has heard that Try agency awards are changing their amounts. And is this true?

I.

Yes. So it was announced by the federal government that all of the trade agency awards are seeing a bump with the exception of the vignette and Banting, which are not unfortunately, but the majority of them, yes, the values are going up as of September 1st. So if you are a trade agency or recipients, you have already received some emails about that potentially from the agencies and we will definitely be in touch with more details about how those increases are going to happen.

Thank you so much.

So we have a question about the Inclusive Excellence Admission Scholarship for master students and whether this was covered. I don't believe it was, but if I missed something I apologize. Is there anyone from the awards office who would want to cover this?

Play.

I think that is a departmental award.

Debbie, are you familiar with those at all? I, I think it's, it's largely managed by your department and faculty. So if you have questions about it, you might want to check with your, your graduate unit.

Yeah, I've, I've, I've got the, the, the the page for it right now and it provides basic information, but then refers students for any questions to their home graduate unit. So that's, that is where you will want to to get information about that.

OK, back to our questions.

OK. So Yulia has a very good question and that is if you're holding an external award such as OGS or Tri Council award, is that counted as part of your basic funding package? And if so, how does the math work?

So this is something that's going to vary by department. For most students, receiving a major external award will mean that your base funding package from the department adjusted it will replace part of your funding package. But this is something that's again, determined by your department or by your faculty. So if you have questions about how your external award interacts with your your funding package, you should get in touch with your grad unit.

OK, Nordi is asking a question of whether Ontario students get any kind of priority ahead of out of province students in terms of awards.

I'm not sure. There may be a couple of awards that have very small awards that have very specific eligibility requirements, but overall, no Ontario residents and residents of other provinces have the same access to to any awards unless a very particular donor wanted it to be directed at a very particular population of students.

I'm still getting questions about entrance scholarships. And then once again, entrance scholarships are handled at the level of the graduate unit, so we're going to be rejecting that one.

Human wants to ask whether emed students are eligible for the parental grant.

So for the parental grant, students must be in the funded cohort of any program. So registered in the funded cohort and that would make you eligible for it.

So to be more explicit, Master of Education is not a research program and not funded. Therefore students in that program are not eligible for the parental grant.

That's correct. The parental grant is for doctoral research stream in the funded cohort. Sorry.

Nope, that's much appreciated. Next.

So Crystal has a very good question that was touched on lightly but not fully fleshed out. And that is what kind of support can students expect if they're applying for Tri Council or OGS awards? Most of the support, sorry, not most of them. There's, there's two ways to get support, three ways to get support. If you're putting together a Tri Council funding application and part of that will be from your home graduate unit. Most departments really want their students to be winning, to win those external awards, bringing money into the department and allowing them to provide better support.

Generally for all the students. So most units will have workshops during application season. They may share successful applications from past years, they may bring in successful applicants to talk with you, and so on and so forth. Also, the Graduate Center for Academic Communication offers workshops and very, very good workshops and even courses on how to write grant applications. And those workshops are open even to students who aren't eligible for the award that they're targeted at.

So if you're not eligible to apply for a Tri Council award, but you are eligible to apply for the International Ontario Graduate Scholarship, go to the workshop for that Tri Council award because the applications are very similar. And what these workshops really are about is how to write a strong research proposal, research funding application. So you can cross apply those lessons. And the third source is your peers and your supervisor should be supervisor at least should be enthusiastic.

Offering to look over your application and proposal.

Play.

Sorry, in answering that question I realized I wasn't looking for more questions. Alicia is asking whether professional masters programs are eligible for U taps.

Unfortunately not. Professional masters programs are not eligible for UTAPS. And so for those students, what we do recommend is speaking with your graduate department. They may have funds, separate funds set aside for that would be like UTAPS for your for their professional students.

So I'm going to approve a question that, sorry, first, thank you, Carla. Second, I'm going to approve a question that may or may not have an across the board answer. It is a student, Mohammed Reza is a PhD student going into electrical and computer engineering and has the basic PhD funding package. How and when is this money paid out and what does this payment schedule look like? I'm not sure if that is standard across all units. So there may or may not be a given answer on this one.

That's why I.

That is, I think, pretty dependent on the department. Just having worked with a number of them, some departments will pay you sessionally. Some departments might give you like a separate research stipend payment through ACORN, but then the supervisor will also be paying you on a monthly basis. You know, Some departments have other wacky schedules depending on various.

Ways that they organize their funding. So again, unfortunately that's something you'll just have to ask your department.

Typically they will communicate the payment schedule to you, you know, before September. So maybe just hold tight and and you might get a letter from them.

It those, like, usually those, umm, it's outlined in your funding package letter, Umm, and if it's not in writing and in, not in your funding package, I would recommend you contact the graduate administrator as well to, to have that. And, and you know, and also your funding package sometimes changes from year to year. We Carla and I get some students who, you know, you might get your funding from different areas, like Janine said, some of them might come from API one year and not from the next year. And so the way that you're paid and the way that your money is, you know.

Organized or managed in in your acorn account might change from year to year. So try not to just get used to, oh, that's what happened last year. That's what will happen again this year. Just just a word for the wise, just, you know, because it could change. And then suddenly, sometimes they'll directly deposit funds that are meant for tuition, but the department might not put it towards your tuition where sometimes they do. So it's very, very important. It's a good question to ask because you really need to read your funding package letter and make sure you understand where and when and how your money is being paid to you for sure.

So I've got two very specific questions that I'm going to answer in more general terms. Uh, the 1st is from Vivian asking whether there is a tax, income tax on Master of Science stite research stipends. Umm, I'm going to answer this in more general terms. Uh, a student's funding package can consist of direct grant scholarships that are paid out as scholarships.

Are tax free and employment income, which you may get as a research assistant or as a teaching assistant, and that income is indeed taxable. The other question that is being asked very specifically that I'm going to answer more generally is from Christina asking whether there are any scholarships that the University of Toronto offers to students who are citizens of Mexico. The answer is there are a number of Mexican government scholarships that you are eligible to apply for, although I'm not sure when the deadlines are.

So, for instance, Connecit funds Mexican graduate students researching in Canada.

But to put that in more general terms, it's up to individual students to research what funding sources their home country has for students who are planning to do graduate studies overseas.

Here we go.

I'm gonna invite the other moderators to leap into the questions and see if they can find something that they're dying to, to answer. Uh, well, I will talk about, I'm going to answer a question which I saw earlier but can't find now, umm, about the UFT graduate student union, uh, health insurance and whether that's, I guess there's the students viewing that as, uh, a form of financial aid. Umm, so yes.

All graduate students at U of T are enrolled in three different health plans.

Domestic Canadian students will be enrolled in their provincial health plan for basic care. So if you're an Ontarian, that's OHIP. International students are all enrolled in what's known as the University Health Insurance Plan, which provides the same coverage as a provincial health insurance plan would. But since provincial plans are so basic, all graduate students are automatically enrolled in the Graduate Student Unions Supplemental Health Plan, which covers things such as prescription drugs.

Vision care, rehabilitative care and so on. And the dental plan, which that's what it says on the 10, if you incur medical expenses, you should be getting them reimbursed as much as possible through those plans. But if you come to us with pre-existing coverage through a spouse, through your parents, through some other arrangement that is comparable to those plans, the Graduate Student Union will let you opt out of those plans and you will get a refund on the fees you have paid.

You really should look into this if you are on another health insurance plan because that's about 7 to $800 a year that you can get back in your pocket. So a financial resource of kinds to my fellow moderators. Has anyone found a question they're dying to answer?

OK, I'll answer a a a few OGS questions. Umm, I see uh, Zahi asked. Does the OGS scholarship get considered with initial application when the additional scholarship form is completed? So the OGS is a standalone application. It's an online application that you need to complete in order to be.

Considered for the Ogs through your graduate department. Umm, so if you completed a mission scholarship.

You're not automatically considered for nodes. You need to complete the OGS application and I posted on the chat the link to the OGS SGS OGS web page, so you can check that out to apply for 2526 if you'll still be registered.

If you guys don't mind, I'll continue on. When I see OGS, I'll answer. Let's see, I think I saw something.

OK.

While you're looking, Debbie, I can hop in and answer a question. So there's a question from a student who says I am starting my study in September. Do I apply for awards this year or next year once some part of my studies are done at UFT? You should apply for awards now if you are eligible to apply for something and and you can check that on the eligibility requirements for the award. Don't put it off. There are a lot of awards that have very specific months of study requirements. So for example, the Canada Graduate Scholarships master's program, you have to be within the first 12 months of studies. So if you've already finished the first year of your master's degree program and you're trying to apply for CGSF.

You know you're not gonna be eligible anymore, so definitely seek out those opportunities now, even before you've started your program.

OK. I've got a question from Enrique, who is applying for.

As I referenced the Connoisseur scholarship from the government of Mexico, if he's successful on this application, he's concerned, how will that affect the funding package that he's got in his PhD program? Will some of it be clawed back or will be counted as part of the base funding? Can someone discuss that?

Yeah. So typically Connoisseut replaces part of your funding package. The idea is that they cover the majority of your expenses and then your department is responsible for making up the difference between what connoisseur pays you and what the normal base funding package is for a student. So yes, it is going to replace some of your funding if you receive that scholarship.

And I want to jump in here because every almost every year I hear a rumor swirling about that you could somehow end up with less money than the base funding package if you win an external award. That that your your base funding package is all clawed back and you're only left with the external award to starve in the streets. While it is true that you may not end up with more than the base funding package, you will never ever have less than the base the base funding package on the basis of winning an external award. It is always in a student's best interests to apply for those external awards.

Some departments are able then to make sure that you get more than the base funding package and awards in and of themselves are they generate other awards in future. So you're always better off winning that external, uh, winning that external, uh, award. Uh, I've got a number of students asking, following up on what I mentioned about the UTGSU health insurance plans. So a lot of you are going to get rejected, but take heart that one of you has been accepted and we will answer that question.

If you plan to opt out of the GSU health and dental plans and you can opt out separately. If you have separate dental Coverage but no health, you can just opt out of the dental. There is a very limited window for when you can do this. If you are starting in the fall, you must apply to opt out before September 30th. 0 exceptions. If you're watching this video on October 1st, I'm really sorry, but it's too late. Uh, decisions are made over the next couple of months and uh, you don't get to withhold the money. You have to pay up front and then if your request to opt out is approved.

The refund is processed sometime in late November. I think in few years it slipped into December. If you are starting in January 1st, well done for being ahead of the curve and being at this webinar months ahead of coming, well done. And next, your opt out period is similarly short. You have to apply to opt out in January. And if you're hearing about this February 15th, again, very sorry but it's too late. I have just put the link to the instructions for opting out into the chat.

And that's also got instructions for opting in, for instance, if you have dependent family members, that's the instructions there. Um.

Daniel Del Rosso is asking if U of T offers any Discounts on on transit such as the TTC or GO.

'Cause anyway, I'm not sure about this one. I don't think we do. I know that a bus pass is part of the UTM student fees at the undergrad level, but I don't know how that works at the graduate level, so I apologize that I I did not know that.

Again, I've seen a lot of OSAP questions that I can't answer. I cannot answer OSAP eligibility questions.

I, Rory, if you don't mind, I I've I've seen those as well. I'm just about to put in the URL link one more time in the chat. So this is who you will go to with any questions about OSAP.

And I just want to add that we've got something that is not a question, but a comment because Chloe has very helpfully pointed out that GO has a post secondary student discount that you should be looking into if you're planning to use GO Transit. So thank you, Chloe. I know it wasn't a question, but still approved.

I saw another question that we can actually.

I'll just jump in the second TTC students and in post Secondary Education also has a discount as well, so this is posted on the student perks discount at U of T.

And there were two OGS questions I'll just quickly answer. So for 2425 UMM awards year OGS, the deadlines have all closed. So unfortunately cannot apply as the university deadline is June 1st, 2024 for the departments and the departments would have had an earlier deadline for their students to apply so that they could review the applications.

Play.

So if you're applying, if you will be registered for 20/25/26 academic year, then look out for the OGS application in October 2024 to start applying. And the second question was the results for OGS decisions if you have been recommended by your department for an OGS domestic.

An award. The results will be emailed to you by mid-july and for any uh, OGS international students, uh, the results would have already been uh, sent to you.

Back in April if you have not heard anything about your OGS.

Play.

Internal department Graduate unit decision Then check with your graduate unit to find out if what was your result from your department's internal decision.

And now I have two OSAP questions that I can answer. So Reyes asks whether OSAP is available for international students, and the answer is unfortunately not. It's an Ontario government program that is intended to support residents of Ontario.

But Cindy asks what do students from outside the province do? And that answer is that you go to the government of your home province. So BC student loans can be held as a student at the University of Toronto, but those rules will vary from province to province.

So I'm reluctant to say too much information about OSAP, and I'm absolutely terrified of trying to share any information about out of province student loans. If you need advice on out of province loans on the University Registrar's Office contact page, They have a specific e-mail for a staff member who advises on out of province loans.

Cindy also asks whether we'll be going to be doing another round of webinars for students starting in January, and the answer, unfortunately, is probably not. Because by that point, my office is in the full swing of admissions for the next year.

We now have a couple of students in professional masters programs asking for details of the financial aid available to them. And I'm just going to have to reject those questions because some programs do offer their own internal awards for professional masters students, but SGS isn't involved in administering those awards, So you're going to have to go back to your individual graduate unit. But if you haven't seen it yet, I'm putting in the chat a link to our award Explorer tool. Uh, this is a pretty comprehensive listing.

Of awards available and it's divided into an undergrad section, undergraduate section. And it's amazing what you can find if you go digging in terms of small pots of money here and there that you're eligible to apply for in never even realized you were. So this this is worth brewing a big pot of coffee or tea if you prefer and really doing a deep dive through these awards to see what there is there that can help support you, whether in a professional program or a neurosurgeon program.

Alright.

OK.

Fantastic.

I see a question here about an award that I can answer so one person has asked. I received a shirk CDSM award for my first year of my PhD. I'm direct entry since I'm just starting my first year. My proposal section would be the same with this affect my chances for the CGSD award? I mean if your idea is the same that you proposed for your CGS, if you're elaborating on your project in in some way, then you can certainly pitch the same research idea. But you know as you get further on in your studies it's it's expected that you will.

Sort of be able to elaborate more on your project, your methodologies, you'll be able to speak more confidently about your works place in in your field. So as you go into your doctoral program, I would suggest like really taking advantage of the resources that your department likely has for you to strengthen your proposal. I would say like, don't just take your CGSM proposal and slap it into the CGSD application. Take some time to look over it and then reflect. And, and if you have a supervisor or an advisor at this point, talk to them, workshop it with them.

Talk to your doctoral cohort about your ideas. The competition gets stiffer as you go on because the expectations on you are higher. So definitely try to improve things before you submit your application.

But in terms of just, you know, proposing similar research, you're not necessarily at a disadvantage there since your CGSM proposal was for your doctoral studies.

Got another health insurance question. Enrique actually has OHIP even though he's an international student, uh, because of his spouse. So can you opt out? Yes. Umm, you will automatically be charged to your account if you're listed as an international student. So you will have to contact the you have office and give them proof that you have coverage under OHIP. But once you do that, they will adjust your account to remove the U-Haul charges.

Umm, Ruby, I don't know if this has been covered yet. We're being asked for a link to the instructions for the CGSM. Could I ask Debbie or Jeannine to provide that?

Here's a question I'm not going to be able to answer. Maria is asking about a a link to find all the special offers for students. And as she puts in the perks, unfortunately there is no such. There is no such resource. A number of your what you might think of as perks come through, but it's paid for by your student fees. It's always worthwhile going through the campus fees that you're paying to see what exactly you're being assigned for, what services are available to you.

I'd strongly recommend looking at the Division of Student Life website where a lot of those a lot of those services live so.

Your Student Life offers, for example, the Center for International Experience, which is both cultural and legal immigration advising for international students. The Housing Office helps students apply for off campus rental housing, has a database of students looking for roommates, has a database of landlords looking for tenants, so that's incredibly useful.

Academic Success has a number of grad student oriented offerings and Career Center can help you find on or off campus work. So good question Maria. If you've paid for these services, it makes a lot of sense to to make use of them and get best value for money out of them. So good question, even if I can't provide a single link for it as an answer.

I just added a link there. It's the UTSU student student perks and discounts. It's just a random.

Oh, have they found that They put it together for us.

We have.

To be.

Others are TTC a cineplex AGO is various various smaller discounts. Yeah, nothing to do with your tuition or funding package or yeah yeah.

Yup.

Ah, sorry about that.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I, I, I want to be careful with this cause a couple of these might be negotiated by UTSU directly and they are strictly undergraduate students. So if they're, if they're pointing at a student discount that's available, so from say GO, GO Transit has its own student discount that you can find on their website. That's great. By all means use that link to check and see if there's any offers that you might be eligible for, but don't count 100% on the same.

For graduates.

Being the same for graduates and undergraduates.

Um, so just, I don't want to get people's hopes up too high on that one.

Um.

OK.

Play.

I can field another question here. So Christina has asked how can students start to create a financial plan now, as you advise, if we don't receive our funding letters until August, for example, if our admission letter is vague on the funding details. So that's something where if you really need that information now in order to do planning or would like to apply for something specific, you could department. A lot of graduate units will actually post general information about funding on their websites. So if you go to your department's website, they'll often have a page that's just about like financial matters for their students.

And they may have a table of different funding packages for different programs within the unit. So you can check that out. And, and definitely check with your graduate office. You know, they're, they're here to support you. So if they have information at this time on exactly what your funding package will be or if they've even estimated, you know, they'll be able to provide that for you.

Another resource that you can get in contact with is almost all departments or units have some form of student government, some kind of council. So unfamiliar with the graduates. Oh, I've completely forgotten what they're called. The Gea, the Graduate English Association, for example, in the Department of English. These are actually a really fantastic resource if you want.

Inside information on what's it like in the program? What can I expect? What are the departmental standards?

Sometimes you'll get a bit of a game of telephone where a current student will not have fully understood why things work in a particular way and pass on that misinformation to an incoming student. But a lot of a lot of the departments have very strong student associations that put together all sorts of resources for incoming students.

Uh.

Here's another question about CGSM. So someone has asked. I received a CGSM and accepted it back in April. I haven't received any updates since. Was I supposed to do anything else after accepting? So the answer is yes, you should be filling out a payment activation form for your award, and we've already linked the CGSM page in the chat here. If you go to that page, there's a section for a world holders and that'll give you a link to the activation form. You fill that out, your graduate unit fills out their portion, and then the form is sent to the graduate awards office for processing.

So there's a whole guide to the the payment activation form on the website there. If you're a May starter, we haven't been able to pay students yet. We're waiting for the Tri agency to transfer funds, but we're hoping to do that soon.

Yep. So Sydney is being very helpful and has found on a Student Life blog a list of available student discounts that was put together in August last year. So some of these may work, some of these may not, but definitely worth checking out. I've just approved that, so that'll show up in the chat. Thank you so much, Simia. I really appreciate it. Umm, we're getting asked again if we're going to share the presentation. Yes, I have several times posted the link to where this presentation will be posted, uh, sometime next week.

It is the same page where you registered, so SDS Utorado California slash future hyphen students slash chats. Umm, we've also got some questions about OSAP eligibility, which once again, I really, I really can't answer. I do not know what the residency requirement is, uh, for OSAP. Uh, we're also getting asked very specific questions about very specific scholarships that are not administered by the School of Graduate Studies. So I'm afraid I won't be able to answer those.

And we have students asking about whether there are any automatic entrance scholarships for students entering their first year of graduate studies. There are some, but those are administered at the level of the individual graduate units. And usually you'd be advised of them at the same time as your as your offer of admission, but not always.

And again, we're getting some very specific questions on how funding packages are put together, uh, which is going to vary too much from department to department. So it's, it's really would not be appropriate for me to try to answer that one. Umm, Janine, do you have any information on when CGSM wait lists are updated or is that just?

They are updated constantly. So as awards become available, we allocate them to students. So if you're currently on the reversion list, you, you're still there. If if any awards become available, we will assign them as they come in. Typically the Tri agencies will give us a few more awards to allocate as late as January. So if you're currently listed as an alternate, there's maybe a chance that you might still receive an award. So, so yes, like we don't sit on CGSMS as soon as we're able to allocate them to students, we do.

OK, so MO.

Remember, please, please, please go ahead.

And I also see, oh, sorry, Rory, keep going. Oh, there's a question here. Is it true that professional masters students are not eligible for CGSM? Unfortunately, the answer is generally no, professional masters students aren't because your program needs to have a significant research component in order to be eligible for this award. Sorry.

Yeah. No, that is that is correct.

Sorry, I'm just I'm scrolling through. Someone has asked us to post the link.

Yes, Annika, the Master of Engineering is a professional program so you would not be eligible for CGSM. I'm posting the link now that will answer a number of students for the university wide information on OSAP. Please remember that the Ontario government only wants to deal with one office per university, so all OSAP questions go through the University Registrar's office. And since there are slight changes from year to year, for us to try to inform you would put us at risk of giving you incorrect information.

So don't ask us, go straight to the source. We're coming to the end of questions that we can actually answer.

Umm.

I don't see any.

Play.

I am. So Angie is asking if base funding packages are, are taxed. I've already answered that question, Angie, that it depends on what component, the different components in the package. So salary as ATA is always taxed, scholarship funding not taxed. Uh, so you're going to have to check with your unit about the very specific makeup of your funding package. Uh, here's an interesting question. I'm not 100% sure we would be able to answer it, but it's worth airing. So I'm going to put my, my experts on the spot. Sorry, everyone.

So if a student in the Master of Information, which is technically a professional program, decides to do the thesis option in year two, does that change their eligibility for? I'm going to put this more broadly and just say, does it change their eligibility for awards?

I can speak to the tray agency awards. So you are potentially eligible for those if your program has like a, a research component option. So if you can do a thesis, if you can, do you know something that satisfies that research requirement? You may be eligible for CGSM, for example, but you would need to ensure that you enroll in that program component that has the research. So you can't just say, oh, well, I'm totally going to do a thesis and then you just do coursework for two years.

We would do it and if you ended up doing research you would have to return the funds if you received the CGSM.

Wow. OK. Thank you, Janine. I think on that note, all that there really is left to do is for me to thank our experts. Carla had to leave. But Debbie, Janine and Pascal, thank you so much for sharing your expertise as as all of you here today will have seen, a lot of the time the answers to the question is going to be it's complicated or it varies from program to program. And so we're very, very lucky to have Debbie, Janine and Pascal who have this depth of experience to share with us. But remember that.

You may need to go elsewhere for answers to questions that are specific to your program. So thank you, everyone. We will be posting this recording probably by the end of next week 'cause it takes a couple of days for the system to finalize and then I have to find the time to edit the web page and then it has to be approved. But we should have slides and video up for you before too long. So thanks everyone. So long. And if you're coming to the housing webinar, I will see you all tomorrow.

Hi.