Perimeter Scholars International

[ThomBoh]

I gather from looking at the applicant profile threads (from this and previous years) the group of people on these boards that apply to this is pretty small. I was wondering if anyone out there might have any helpful info on how they do their admissions (in waves, on constant basis, waitlist, etc...)? I saw on gradcafe one person claims to have gotten an offer on Feb 27th (seems quite early) but if that's true I guess the first wave of offers has gone out already?

I'm also curious as to how high of a priority this program is for those who applied? i.e. did you apply as a backup in case you don't get into your top PhD choices? or would you go if you got in no matter where else you got in for your PhD? I'm a Canadian and from what I've heard they take a much lower proportion of Canadian students to other nationalities (given that the canadian applicant pool is much larger and they have a small number of spots period and mostly admit international students), so I'm curious as to the odds I have of getting in based on someone else rejecting an offer? The admitted Canadians are probably quite strong and thus probably have good alternative options...

Anyway, anyone know much about it?

[Minovsky]

I applied to this program. I don't know for sure, but it seems relatively competitive to get in to, so I don't think people apply to it as a backup (I didn't). Since it's only a one year program, a lot of people defer a PhD acceptance to do PSI.

[nerv]

I'm the one who posted on gradcafe. I'm not sure how they do the admissions, but they only gave me 2 weeks from the date of receipt of offer (27 feb) to accept or decline the offer. I guess from that tight deadline it means that it's probably rolling - they send out at most 30 offers in the first wave, and when people reject within the first 2 weeks, they send out the second wave of offers to top the number to 30 again, and then they repeat till they have 30 students.

Oh yea, and it's 30 because they mentioned it's 30 spots out of 340 applicants.

As for my priority, I applied because I was afraid I wouldn't get into any PhD programs and so I viewed it as definitely a backup. But after having gotten an offer and having researched a lot more, I'm actually quite excited to go there because I think it'll be a fun and rewarding experience. So I'm most probably going to defer my PhD for a year and do the masters. I'm not sure about the Canadian part of your question, sorry.

[ThomBoh]

Ah, congratulations nerv! I definitely didn't think I was a top choice candidate so I didn't expect to get in on the first round (nor really expect to at all), but I'm hoping I might get in if a few of the Canadians who got offers declined, as I have an interesting background with strong recs from people affiliated with PI, and I actually took two PSI courses this term (I'm an undergrad at Waterloo next door), so I would hope that puts me somewhere higher on the list than lower. But again the Canadian candidate list is quite long...

What are your backgrounds (and what country are you from) if you don't mind me asking?

[afra]

Hello,
I am still waiting for perimeter institute's reply for the PSI program. Do you guys have any information about it? Have they rejected anyone untill now?

[actrask]

Hello,
I am still waiting for perimeter institute's reply for the PSI program. Do you guys have any information about it? Have they rejected anyone untill now?

I still haven't heard anything either.

[ThomBoh]

I highly suspect that that they don't send out rejections until they've filled all 30 spots (I think they aim for April 1st) and then just reject the remaining students all at once (I say this because I havent heard of a single rejection made yet and they said they plan to have finalized decisions by April 1).

So, it looks like we just have to wait and see if someone they admitted doesnt accept and we're next on the list.. though I wonder whether or not they've sent out their second wave of acceptances yet given that the first wave was required to respond by March 13th

[afra]

yes, we 'd better be patient