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Computer Science Entrance Awards

Program Overview

The purpose of the Computer Science Entrance Awards is to provide scholarships to promising incoming graduate students. They are designed to recruit excellent students by helping Computer Science faculty put together competitive funding packages. The value of these awards is $7,000 per year for a M.Sc. student for the first two years and $9,000 per year for a Ph.D. student for the first four years. It is expected that supervisors will want to top these awards up with additional funding, however, receiving additional supervisor support is not an eligibility requirement. This program is an evolution of the previous graduate student recruiting initiative – the Guaranteed Funding Packages.

Application Process and Notification

The CS Entrance Awards will be awarded as part of the Awards Committee’s annual February awards competition, which will have an application deadline of approximately February 15th ofeach year (adjusted for weekends and holidays). To apply, students must complete the CS Funding Application, available on the department’s website. The Awards Committee will strive to notify students of their decisions by the end of March.

Eligibility

The application deadlines stated below require that a student have been accepted for admission to the program by both the Department of Computer Science and the Faculty of Graduate Studies. To ensure sufficient time for both, students should apply to the graduate program at least two months prior to the Computer Science Entrance Award application deadline.

Students must be admitted to the program and be within first year of their program at time of the competition, which will be in February each year. For students with a September start date, this will mean applying before their program begins (but after being admitted). Students with a January start date will be eligible to apply right after they arrive in the February competition and will be able to take up the award in April of that same year. Students will only be eligible to apply for this award once per degree.

The award is only open to students entering the thesis-based stream. Students who later switch to the course-based M.Sc. will have their award discontinued.

Application Procedures

Interested students should indicate to the Department of Computer Science that they would like to be considered for a GFP by completing a Graduate Student Funding Application. Applications must include:

  • a completed application form (see the link above),
  • all academic transcripts,
  • one letter of support from the student’s future advisor at the University of Manitoba, and
  • one additional letter of reference.

It suffices to submit these application materials as part of the initial application to the graduate program. The statement of support from the University of Manitoba advisor can come later (but must be received before the corresponding February/July deadline). Each application should include one letter of reference from someone other than the student’s future advisor.

Conditions for Continued Funding

The Computer Science Entrance Award are targeted for exceptional students; students not excelling in research and academics will lose their Entrance Award. The awards committee will meet annually to individually review the status of each Entrance Award-funded student and determine whether funding should be continued. The committee may choose to review a student’s Entrance Award at additional times during the year if necessary. Excellence in research and academics is defined as the conjunction of the following conditions being met:

  1. maintaining a rating of satisfactory (excellent, good, or adequate) in their annual progress reports,
  2. completing at least two courses per year (not including COMP 7220) until course requirements are complete,
  3. receiving a satisfactory evaluation in any teaching assistant or marker duties,
  4. maintaining a GPA of 3.5 or higher on courses completed during the current degree at the University of Manitoba.

Additional Awards

Students are also encouraged to apply for other more lucrative awards (e.g., UMGF and NSERC). Students who receive a UMGF or NSERC at a later date will then have their Computer Science Entrance Award “declined” at this point on their behalf to permit the funding to be re-distributed to other deserving applications.