As part of preventive measures, prospective students are required to upload documents via your Student Centre instead of sending them by mail. If you are experiencing difficulties related to sending documents because of COVID-19, please inform the university by typing up a detailed note and uploading it via your Student Centre. Under DOCUMENT TYPE, select NOTE FROM STUDENT.

Confirmation dates have been extended with the following changes: students admitted in the Faculty of Arts and Science and the Faculty of Fine Arts will maintain the 3-week confirmation deadline; however, students are instructed to contact their Graduate Program Assistant should they need an extension.

All other programs have extended the confirmation deadline until June 1, 2020.

Classes are still expected to begin as scheduled in September. We are closely monitoring the situation and if anything changes, you will be notified by email.

In light of the government's directives, we have suspended campus tours and in person appointments for now. Please contact a recruiter if you would like to discuss your program options.

• Faculty of Arts and Science: Ayanna Ryan
• Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science: Martine Fachena
• John Molson School of Business: Beth McKenna
• Faculty of Fine Arts: Heather Gagnon
• School of Graduate Studies: Lorena Marzitelli

Concordia is exploring ways to accommodate irregular admissions and will provide information in the coming weeks. Visit this page regularly for updates.

Should you experience difficulties registering for English language proficiency tests like IELTS or TOEFL, please note that we are now accepting the Duolingo English Test, which does not require visiting a test centre. See more information.

If you have registered for an English language test, please upload your registration confirmation to your Student Centre so that we can anticipate your results. Under DOCUMENT TYPE, select NOTE FROM STUDENT.

The Government of Quebec requires that anyone returning from outside of Canada should self-isolate for 14 days, regardless of where they came from. This is mandatory for public sector employees in the health and education systems.

All members of the community are asked to report that they are self-isolating by filling out the COVID-19-Self-isolation form on the MyConcordia portal, as follows:

1. Sign in to the MyConcordia portal
2. On the left-hand side menu, click on “COVID-19-Self-isolation form”
3. Enter the requested information
4. Click submit

If you must cancel your acceptance due to the pandemic, your confirmation fee will be reimbursed. More information is forthcoming.

On-line classes are expected to begin as scheduled. Should this change, you will be notified by email.

The DISC date for Winter 2020 has been extended until Wednesday, April 15, 2020. Students who must discontinue due to COVID-19 are eligible for a 50% refund should they DISC by the April 15 deadline. For further information please contact Virginia Bruce.

Time Limit Extension requests will be processed per usual. Go to your Student Centre to see how to submit a service request. Waivers for TLE requests may also be requested via service request.

Courses that are normally assessed using the standard grading system will continue to be assessed in the same way.

As part of preventive measures, the conference and exposition award has been suspended until further notice.

For students whose conference and exposition award was approved by the School of Graduate Studies, we confirm that the reimbursement of non-refundable travel fees for the conference will be honoured.   

Please contact Jordan Carey for information regarding such reimbursement and/or if you have questions or concerns regarding your conference award.

No, your award payment will not be delayed. As long as you are registered in your graduate program, then all payments will be disbursed into your student account as planned and usual (after the DNE deadline date).

Should you have to defer your Summer 2020 admission start date to the Fall 2020 term, your graduate award will also be deferred and you will not lose it.

The University has not received any communication from the federal or provincial granting agencies regarding the upcoming Fall 2020 competitions. Should such details become available, we will update this information here. The Graduate Awards Office is continuing as usual with respect to the internal processes of these competitions until we hear otherwise.

• NSERC
• SSHRC
• CIHR
• FRQSC

We have not heard otherwise from FRQ concerning this competition, therefore the competition will continue as planned. The Concordia internal deadline date is July 31.

In line with Concordia University's COVID-19 policy requiring the cancellation of all community events, the Graduate Community Building Fund program is temporarily suspended until further notice. The program is not accepting any new applications at this time. If you have an active application or funded project, and the scope of your project/event has changed, please communicate with Racha Cheikh-Ibrahim (GradCommunity.BuildingFund@concordia.ca).

If you have received a postdoctoral appointment, you have the following options listed below. In either case, you will be paid as per the terms of your contract. However, we cannot guarantee that you will receive payment prior to April 1, 2020.

1. Postpone your appointment until August 1, 2020.
   1. Your contract will be honoured and amended to reflect the length of the original appointment.
   2. Concordia will issue the required documents for you to extend your visa, if necessary.
2. If you wish to begin as per the dates of the original contract, please note that:
   1. You will be required by law to self-isolate, at your own expense, for 14 consecutive days. This will also require meal delivery at your own cost.
   2.  Most major institutions will be closed due to COVID-19 legislation. Therefore, you may not have access to banking, health care and other critical resources in Quebec.

Postdoctoral fellows will continue to be paid as per the terms of the postdoctoral contract.

Campuses and facilities are closed. If a postdoctoral fellow requires access to their supervisor’s lab for the maintenance of essential, critically time-sensitive research activities (e.g. research underway where results, data, materials, samples, etc. may be lost or compromised), postdoctoral fellows should communicate with their direct supervisor.

Due to the rapidly developing situation, effective immediately and for the foreseeable future, Concordia University is moving to have oral thesis defences conducted remotely via videoconferencing using the Zoom software application. All already scheduled thesis defences will be conducted remotely at their already scheduled date and time.

Master’s defences will also proceed remotely by Zoom videoconferencing using the above procedures. For the duration of the COVID-19 situation, the oral defence requirement for Master’s degrees may be waived, subject to approval by the Graduate Program Director or Department Chair. The organization and administration of Master’s defences will still be handled by the graduate programs and not by the Thesis Office. Graduate Programs are still required to submit all pertinent documents to the Thesis Office.

If you are a PhD candidate or external examiner abroad, please do NOT travel to Montreal and cancel all travel arrangements accordingly.

Remote thesis defences will be conducted until further notice. The School of Graduate Studies will send out a clear university-wide message when normal thesis processes are to resume.

Students should make their initial thesis submissions per normal procedures. Examining committee members should submit their reports in advance per normal procedures. All participants in thesis defence will receive detailed instructions, well in advance, on how to join via teleconferencing. Travel arrangements for the external examiner should not be made to attend thesis defences in person.

Until further notice, all future defences will be continued to be scheduled per normal (along with initial submission to Thesis Office, etc.), with the defences being conducted per the new remote videoconferencing process.

Current thesis submission deadlines will be maintained. If defences are successfully conducted remotely then any revision processes should be able to be performed per normal. We are trying to maintain our timeline as much as possible with all processes.

The supervisor will invite the PhD candidate, the external examiner, the other members of the examining committee, and the defence chair. Supervisors should make sure that they have email addresses for all attendees in advance of the session in order to invite them through Zoom.

At the present time, the School of Graduate Studies strongly recommends not to invite anyone other than the active participants in the defence. This will avoid putting undue stress on the system and will ensure that the session goes smoothly.

No. Only the supervisor needs a Zoom license. A site license has been procured and individual licenses are not necessary. If a supervisor experiences difficulties, they should contact IITS directly for support.

Under these extraordinary circumstances we recommend that all examiners forward their questions via email to the chair of the defence prior to the event. We also recommend that other means of communication such as skype and phone contacts are exchanged. Every attempt should be made to resolve the situation within a reasonable period of time (e.g. 15-30 minutes). We also recommend that the defence continue without at most one examiner (other than the chair or the supervisor). In such an event the chair can act as a delegate and ask the questions on behalf of the absent examiner. If the remote defence cannot proceed because Examining Committee quorum has not been achieved, then the remote defence must be postponed and rescheduled (see above).

Please ensure that all relevant forms have been signed digitally (you can sign on behalf of all examining committee members) and then send all relevant completed documents electronically (via email) to the Thesis Office. 

Electronic signatures (i.e., scanned copies of signatures) are acceptable, and the defence chair can sign electronically on behalf of all examining committee members. For the signature page in particular, the chair can sign for all of the examiners, manually and email a scanned copy to the Thesis Office. In lieu of scanned electronic signatures, a thesis defence chair can also send a brief email attestation to the Thesis Office specifying that all examining committee members were present and in agreement with the final decision. This can also be done for the committee rankings of the thesis and of the oral defence.