PhD Students

The steps to receive the Conference Grant are:  

• Complete the application form, found under bursary forms: https://athena.schulich.yorku.ca/applications/bursaryawards.nsf/ 
• This will automatically be sent to your supervisor who will either approve or deny 
• If approved, it automatically gets sent to the Financial Aid team for processing 

All milestone paperwork, including to officially establish/change your supervisor or committee members, to submit your approved proposal, or in preparation for a final dissertation defense, is now submitted to Faculty of Graduate Studies via portals.  The portals can be found on the Graduate Portal page.  Please contact Stephanie Allen with any questions.

Students who defend their proposal before September 15th of their 4th year are eligible for this bonus.  Please alert Stephanie Allen to your eligibility, and the bonus will be applied through SSIR.

Your supervisor should be a full-time faculty member at Schulich who is eligible to supervise PhD students.  You can also have co-supervisors, but at least one must be eligible to supervise.  Your committee should be two additional faculty members, at least one of which should be from Schulich.  It is permissible to have one of the committee members from out of faculty, in which case this faculty member must be appointed to the Faculty of Graduate Studies.  It is also alternatively permissible for one faculty member to be from another university.  This requires some administration.  Please contact Stephanie Allen if you are considering this.

You must first have fully completed all parts of your comprehensive exams in order to be eligible to teach a course.  All PhD students are eligible to apply for TA positions as long as they will be full-time students for the duration of the TA position.  Eligible PhD students can teach or TA only one course per year.  Courses can be one term (Fall, Winter, or Summer) and can be either a course instructorship or a tutorial position. 

Please complete the Request to Take a Course in another Graduate Program at York Form (.pdf)). The completed form must be emailed to studentservices@schulich.yorku.ca.  

The Ontario Visiting Graduate Student (OVGS) Plan allows a registered graduate student of an Ontario university (home university) to take graduate-level courses at another Ontario university (host university) while remaining registered at the home university. This plan allows students to bypass the usual application for admission procedure and relevant transfer of credit difficulties. Students register at, pay fees to, and continue to receive awards from their home university and are classified as “visiting graduate students” at the host university where they pay no fees. 

York University graduate students interested in taking a graduate course at another Ontario University under the OVGS plan should complete the OVGS application form. 

York University graduate students may complete up to 6 credits in coursework under the OVGS Plan towards any one degree program. 

Please note: completing a OVGS application does not guarantee approval. The course must be deemed required for your program for it to be considered on OVGS and must not otherwise be available at York University in a timely fashion. Completing an individual study course at York University or auditing the course instead of taking it for credit should be considered first as alternatives. 

Please see the Faculty of Graduate Studies’ website for Scholarships and Awards.  

An exciting fund for students is the Academic Excellence Fund. Eligible students may request up to $2000  for expenses directly related to their own research and scholarship activities, as well as $300 for collective initiatives per academic year. 

Many faculty members have additional research funds that they may choose to use to provide further support, which may or may not require work as a research assistant in return  

Please see this Award search for other possible award options: https://www.yorku.ca/gradstudies/students/current-students/awards-and-scholarships/award-search/?wpv_view_count=41616&wpv-student-type=international&wpv-study-mode=full-time&wpv-level-of-study=phd&wpv-faculty=schulich&wpv-graduate-program=0&wpv-additional-criteria=0&wpv-ontario-residency=yes&wpv_post_search=&wpv_filter_submit=Submit  

If you need to take time off during your studies, you must submit a petition requesting a Leave of Absence before the term that you are looking to take off. The petition is submitted online and can be accessed here. Please note that you should connect with your supervisor regarding your leave prior to submitting the request. Students do not pay tuition or receive funding or awards during a leave.