Once you have received an offer of admission from a prospective supervisor, your admission is reviewed and approved by the Chemistry Department Graduate Chair.  At that point, paperwork is submitted to the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (CGPS) for processing and their formal approval.  CGPS will review your documents and list any requirements that must be fulfilled prior to registration or during the begining of your course.

Some examples of these requirements are:

• Completion of English proficiency requirement by submitting an original TOEFL report.
• Provide originals of degree certificates (if you have not already done so).
• Proof of satisfactory completion of current degree (if you are still in a B.Sc. or M.Sc. program when you apply to our program).
• Satisfactory completion of a particular course in your first term (Chem 801.6).

When your admission is formally approved by CGPS, they will provide the graduate secretary with an acceptance letter for you.  This will be sent to you by courier along with a letter of offer from the Department.  This generally occurs within 2 to 4 weeks from the time your paperwork was submitted to CGPS.

After you have received the acceptance and offer letters, we ask that you let us know if you are accepting the offer of admission.  To accept the offer, log on to your online application and select 'Yes, I will attend the University of Saskatchewan' button at the bottom of the application summary page.

If you are an international student, there are number of things you must do prior to your travel to Canada.  You can find this information here.

You do not need to register for any classes before you arrive in Saskatoon to begin your program.  If you wish to do so, however, or need to do so for any reason, please contact the Graduate Program Coordinator for instructions and information.

Your offer letter from the Department includes a date by which you must arrive in order to attend the Orientation and TA training, a mandatory part of your graduate program.  If you are unable to arrive by the specified date, it is important to notify your supervisor as soon as possible and see if alternate arrangements can be made.

You may be required to defer your admission to a future term if you are unable to arrive in time for the Orientation and TA training.

We are here to help you through the process of preparing to arrive and begin your graduate program.  It’s best if you keep the Graduate Program Coordinator and your supervisor advised of the progress of your study permit application (for international students) and travel plans.

If you are unable to complete your credit card payment online, please review other payment options.

If you do not have access to a credit card, the $90 fee may be paid in Canadian dollars by cheque, money order or bank draft. These may be made payable to “University of Saskatchewan" and submitted to: Student and Enrolment Services, 105 Administration Place, Saskatoon SK, Canada S7N 5A2.

Admission requirements vary depending on which country you are from and what your educational background is. Please visit the Admissions Information page and review the admission and language requirements.

If you are an international student, it’s likely you will need to provide proof of English language proficiency as outlined by the College of Graduate Studies and Research (CGSR). 

If you have successfully completed a degree, for a minimum of three consecutive years, in an English speaking country, or in an institution where the language of instruction was English, your English language requirement may be considered fulfilled. Click here to view a list of eligible countries and institutions.

Domestic students are not, of course, required to prove English language proficiency.  Permanent residents, however, will still have to follow the guidelines above. Test results are valid for 2 years, so if you have taken a TOEFL or IETLS more than 2 years before your application date, you will need to retake an English proficiency exam and provide the current results.

Students with an overall score that meets the requirements, but with a remedial minimum in only one area (reading, writing, speaking or listening), may be admitted. This requires the recommendation of the academic unit, and approval from the College of Graduate Studies and Research. The student will be required to take a remedial part-time English class during their first term.  The rememdial minimum for TOEFL IBT is 18 and IELTS is 6.0.

Even if you meet the remedial minimum requirements, we will often recommend that you retake your TOEFL or IELTS test if there is sufficient time before admission so that you can present a passing score and do not have to take a part-time English class during your first term.  Taking this class can cause inconveniences with your schedule and costs approximately $320 CDN, which is an extra cost to the student beyond the normal tuition and student fees. 

Yes, either paper-based or internet-based (iBT) TOEFL results are acceptable.

When you apply online, you will be required to submit the names and email addresses for three referees.  After you complete your application, an electronic link will be sent to your referees asking them to submit a reference for you.  This is our preferred method of receiving recommendation letters so please do not submit paper references.

Generally, our department only accepts new students in the September term.  Occasionally a Ph.D. student may be admitted to the January term, but this is at the discretion of the proposed supervisor and subject to approval by our Graduate Chair.

You can find our current deadlines on the Admissions Information page.

First make sure you qualify to apply for admission by ensuring you meet the admissions and language requirements listed on the Admissions Information page. Next, apply online. 

This is not necessary; however, it is a good idea to investigate the research being conducted by our faculty and their graduate students.  You may contact faculty by email before applying, but most faculty will not seriously consider a candidate for the research group without seeing a completed application first. It is in your best interest to ensure there is at least one faculty member whose research group you are seriously interested in joining before you apply. 

All students admitted to our graduate program are offered a stipend intended to cover educational and living expenses (for one person, not a family).  You can find more information about this on the Financial Support page.

All students are required to complete a minimum number of courses for both the M.Sc. and Ph.D. programs. Please visit the Degree Programs page to see the requirements for each program.

CGSR has determined grade equivalencies for many countries, and what we generally do is calculate an average for the last 2 years of your post-secondary education based on the grading system at your university.  We then take that average and convert it to our grading system using calculators provided to us by the College of Graduate Studies and Research.

If you are not offered admission for the upcoming term, usually the fall, you can request that your application be held for consideration for the next year’s intake.  You will not need to reapply, pay another application fee, or provide further documents to hold your file open.  The only exception to this will be if your English proficiency test is out of date (more than 2 years old) by the time your application is reconsidered.  The graduate secretary will let you know if you need to retake the test to be considered for admission.