stmAre you searching online for how to apply for Ontario graduate scholarship? You’re at the right place. Here is a complete guide on how to apply for Ontario graduate scholarship and study for free in Canada. Read on!
The Ontario Graduate Scholarship also known as OGS program, offers merit-based scholarship yearly to qualified students who will pursue graduate studies in order to complete a master’s degree or doctorate at a university in Ontario, Canada.
The applicant must satisfy eligibility requirements and maintain an academic standard of at least “A-” or 80% average over the preceding two years of study in order to be eligible for the scholarship.
Final decisions on the candidacy of each applicant is made by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, which is in agreement with some universities that use the Pass or Fail system, such as York University does for some of its courses that are non-graded in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.
Candidates are chosen based on reports to the ministry by an advisory agency known as the Selection Board (OGS), which consists of a chairperson and 8 members representing 5 broad disciplines of study. The board meets twice a year to access the applications of candidates for the Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
An OGS is awarded to a student for a single two or three-term academic year in any non-professional graduate program; the terms must be back-to-back without interruption. The scholarship is worth $5,000 per term and it is not granted for just one term.
Students who receive these benefits must attend a full-time graduate program in Ontario during the course of the scholarship award but may also hold part-time employment of no more than 10 hours/week. However, students with disabilities may hold an Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) for part-time study.
Ontario Graduate Scholarship Acceptance Rate
3000 scholarships are awarded yearly, and 90 are reserved for students who have received a temporary visa as a member of the student class under the Federal Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
This is also known as the “Temporary Resident Visa Student Class”. Other scholarships are awarded to qualified candidates who are citizens of Canada, landed immigrants or permanent residents with the preference of Ontario residents.
However, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) does not keep a statistics record of scholarships disbursed yearly.
Values And Duration
The value of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship is $5,000 per session. However, awardees may receive $10,000 for two successive sessions without interruption or $15,000 for three successive sessions. The awarding graduate unit is required to contribute one-third of the cost of total award received by the students in all instances.
Each scholarship is maintained for one year (i.e., two consecutive or three academic sessions). The value and duration of each Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) award will be determined by the awarding graduate unit and detailed in the offer letter.
Ontario Graduate Scholarship Eligibility
Applicants must:
- Be a citizen of Canada, reside in Canada permanently or is a Protected Person under subsection 95(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (Canada) by the student deadline as defined by each graduate unit.
- Foreign students who are studying or plan to study at the University of Toronto under a student study permit are qualified for a set number of OGS Awards.
- COVID-19 exception: presently enrolled foreign graduate students who have not yet been able to acquire a temporal permit due to the pandemic are eligible to apply.
- Be enrolled or intend to enrol in an eligible program on a full-time basis in 2023-23;
- Have not exceeded the maximum lifetime of government-funded support or maximum Ontario Graduate Scholarship support available for their current level of study and;
- Have acquired at least A- in each of the last two completed years of study; or if the student has completed two years of graduate studies or more at the time of application.
- The student must, however, show an overall average of at least A- (or equivalent) on all completed graduate courses.
Note: If marks which is normally used for calculating a student’s grade point average (GPA) are not available (i.e., courses were graded on a pass-fail basis), then the next available undergraduate or graduate marks (most recent) should be used to determine an applicant’s eligibility.
Application Requirements
- Ontario Graduate Scholarship application form
- A valid transcript from all post-secondary institutions
- Previous awards/conference/publications/research experience.
- Plan of study (At most 2 pages (1 page for Plan of Study, 1 page for references).
- Two academic references
Ontario Graduate Scholarship Application Process
Applicants are required to submit an OGS application to their proposed graduate unit using the University of Toronto (UoT) School of Graduate Studies centralized online OGS application. Each graduate unit will have its own deadline for internal submission to which applicants must strictly adhere.
It is advisable for applicants to review the OGS Application Instructions before applying.
Upon completion and submission of the application online, it will be made available to the proposed graduate unit for further consideration.
Prospective students should note that: Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) awards are not transferrable between universities or between graduate units at the University of Toronto.
Students are required to submit an OGS application to each graduate unit for which they are seeking admission at U of T and to each Ontario institution if applying for different universities (each university will have its own unique application and process).
Visa students should note that: Students holding a valid study permit by the graduate unit’s OGS international application deadline are qualified to apply following the same application process and internal deadlines set by their proposed or current graduate unit.
Graduate units will choose and send a limited number of applications to the School of Graduate Studies to compete in a centralized adjudication.
Conclusion
The Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) program has been providing financial aid as a form of encouragement for graduate studies at universities since 1975. The program is strictly a merit-based scholarship to Ontario’s best graduate students in all disciplines of academic study.
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