Hi, all!

I applied for Chancellor's but didn't receive it (but congrats to those who did!). However, the email we received a few weeks ago says the following:

Admission decisions for all Chancellor’s Scholarship nominees (including those that are not selected to receive a Chancellor’s Scholarship) will be made by February 10 (provided you have given us all the required information and you qualify for admission).

It's February 10th and my Solus account still says that my admission decision is still saying "pending." Does this mean I didn't get in?!

(I applied for General science and I had an average of 91 on the marks they received.)

my Gr11 marks screwed me over....

Hey people, not sure if you guys have already discussed this on your fb group/not sure if anyone even checks here anymore, but is anyone planning on going to the Queen's march break open house? I've pretty much decided on Queen's 100% now but I'd love to get a feel for the campus just so I can feel confident in my decision aha. Do you think it's worth going to?

True true... I'll probably drive down for the day with some friends if my parents allow me to take the car lol.

Since we're not on the selection committee it's hard to given any "surefire" advice, but I think many people will be happy to tell you what they think was a big advantage. From my experience I believe what really got me through was my essays and my recommendation letter-- I have good ECs but some people here have PHENOMENAL ones so I'm gonna to let them cover that.
The single biggest thing I can say is have fun with your essays. I'm serious. If all you're doing is expanding on one of your activities, it gives them no more insight than your list of extracurriculars/hours does. This doesn't mean it needs to be gimmicky (although if you have a good hook that never hurts), but write about something that YOU care about, not just something that you think will impress them. For community I wrote about volunteering at a local theatre with kids writing there own plays, which isn't all that difficult to do or a hard position to obtain, but because it was so rewarding for me personally because of my background I think it turned out well. And for the creativity page AHHH I loved doing that haha I write tons of short stories and abstracts and decided this time "you know what, I'm going to try poetry!" I wrote two completely different poems that came out of nowhere, but reflected both my sense of humour and my completely love-struck side. The committee (probably, again, I'm not them) wants to reward students who are PEOPLE and not just machine. Even if they seem a little crazy, like me (can you tell from this paragraph? :P)
The other thing that helped me in a less concrete way was my love of the school. Queen's was the only Canadian university I applied to, and the only one I've really ever considered, and I think that I managed to translate this through my application (and because of my ties to the school my referee letter was from someone who both went to and worked at Queen's, so that certainly didn't hurt also). I know this isn't the case for everyone, but even if it's not your only love, try to have the love of the school shine through somehow. This isn't a Loran or a TD scholarship, it's a QUEEN'S scholarship-- so try not to seem like you're applying just for the money, but because you want to go there regardless and this would just help (literally the case for me haha)
Anyways (one small novella later), I hope that was useful. But don't worry, I literally dove blind in the application process this year and it turned out all right- I've never heard of anyone from my school winning this (from BC so it's not well advertised), but just make sure you have plenty of time to fill everything out and put effort into it (whether this means getting the nomination process started early at your school or whatever, you don't want it to be last minute). Best of luck with everything and good job for already looking at this stuff, I certainly was nowhere as informed as you a year ago!

I am a lucky person in the sense that I got to apply for this award two times. (I graduated from high school last year, but deferred my admission to go on an international exchange). The first time I was unsuccessful, but the second time I received the award.
Some things that I changed in my application that I think helped me succeed the second time around:
- in general, spent a lot more time brainstorming, reviewing, rewriting, and revising everything.
- I got lots of people to review my application: family members, friends, teachers, and a chancellor's recipient (who let me use her application as a guide)
- redid all of my essays from scratch. Last year I used pretty much the same essays for my Loran application. But it's just that, they were written for my Loran application. They hadn't been specifically tailored for Queen's.
- spent a lot more time on my creative page. Last year mine was a little sketch that I had thought about a lot, but really only did the night before I needed to mail in the package. This year (being an exchange student with lots of free time) I spent hours planning and practicing techniques for a painting. I am not a painter, but I was inspired by my grandmother and I wanted to create something that would make her proud. The theme of my creative page, however, stayed the same: I tried to make a picture that really described me.
Things that I kept the same:
- my grades. (but they are pretty good at a 98% average)
- my letter of reference.
- my list of extracurricular activities. I think I had a pretty good list. I was involved in most of the clubs at my school, with leadership positions in many of them. Part of the band, choir, and theatre program.

I think all the advice above is really good too. Best of luck on your application :)

Terveisin Suomesta.

MEh