Faculty Scholarship Adjustments Guidelines

These guidelines are effective May 1st, 2024

 

Graduate students in Humanities typically receive, as part of their offer of admission package, scholarship support from the Faculty. While this scholarship support may take various forms, the most common is McMaster Graduate Scholarship (MGS). The latter is intended to guarantee a minimum level of scholarship support for students over the course of their studies. If a student subsequently wins a major merit-based external or internal award (defined as an award with a value of $12,000 or greater), the Faculty will adjust the MGS it provides to the student and will reallocate the retained funds to graduate students in the Faculty.

 

Humanities accepts the recommendations of the 2024 Taskforce on Graduate Funding to:

 

• Ensure that graduate students who win major external scholarships are better off financially after winning such an award.
• Ensure there are strong incentives for graduate students to apply consistently to major external scholarships.

 

Adjustments will follow these guidelines, which apply to both MA and PhD students:

 

• The student will retain 100% of any major merit-based award they win.
• If the value of the student’s major award exceeds the value of their MGS by $5,000 or more, the award will replace the MGS in full.
• If the value of the student’s major award exceeds the value of their MGS by less than $5,000, they will receive an annual “top up” to ensure they are at least $5,000 better off in total per year.
• All MGS funds retained as the result of an adjustment will be allocated to graduate student scholarships in Humanities.