Please note that final acceptance into a graduate program is at the discretion of the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (CGPS). While we can support your application, you must meet the minimum CGPS requirements.

Our graduate students are primarily put through the Biological Psychiatry program, and similar to the Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology (BMI) program, Biological Psychiatry has more rigorous admission requirements than the CGPS. The Biological Psychiatry Program Handbook has all the requirements and expectations to join, stay in, and complete your degree. The Biological Psychiatry Handbook can be given to you by Dr. Wenzel upon request. Kindly note that the Biological Psychiatry program has very limited ability to facilitate students getting Teaching Assistantships; students wanting to gain paid teaching positions will have to self-advocate through networking, as all of these positions are outside our home department.

Student visa information for international graduate school applicants: You can find the requirements for a Canadian student visa here. Please note that the Government of Canada has increased the amount of money needed in a bank account for a student visa as of January 1st, 2024, and that the amount needed depends on whether you are traveling by yourself or a family. As of January 22, 2025, the Government of Canada also requires additional letters for enrollment at the University of Saskatchewan, and the details of these letters can be found here.

Scholarships: Institutional scholarships are available to all graduate students on a competitive basis, and students need a GPA of at least 80% to be eligible to receive these awards. Our laboratory is also eligible for several different national scholarship competitions, and Dr. Wenzel will help guide you through these opportunities. In general, the student should be aware that 50% of the score for M.Sc. competitions are based on grades, while Ph.D. competitions have grades comprising 30% of your score. The remainder of scores may come from your publication record and leadership activities. International students are now eligible to apply for Ph.D. scholarships funded by the Government of Canada; however, only 15% of scholarships are allocated to international students.

M.Sc. students eligible for Government of Canada scholarships can only apply for this award in the first 12 months of their program, and the application is due December 1st. Thus, there is an argument that if the M.Sc. student does not have a publication record, it may be in their best benefit to start the program in January of any given year; this will allow more opportunity to add items to your CV. If the M.Sc. student wishes to transfer to a Ph.D. program, their eligibility clock resets upon transfer, giving the student an additional 36 months to apply. Ph.D. students eligible for Government of Canada scholarships can only apply for this award in the first 36 months of their program.

Our laboratory has multiple ongoing clinical research projects in Psychiatry and Pediatrics, and several projects that are in the planning stages. If you are looking for a research project for medical school or your residency program, please do not hesitate to reach out and we can talk about options. Broadly, clinical projects are qualitative studies or retrospective case studies involving patient advocacy, and they are aimed to improve health care and quality of life. If interested, we can then reach out to the Department of Psychiatry or Pediatrics to get approval from your research coordinator. Resident doctors and medical students can also participate in laboratory work, if interested. Medical students could consider any of our projects for a Dean’s Summer Project.

Our laboratory takes applications for paid summer studentships between December and March every year. These studentships include Undergraduate Summer Research Awards (USRAs), Stem Cell Network studentships, Mitacs Indigenous Research Awards and more. Many of these awards are competitive and have varying eligibility criteria, but are commonly 12-15 weeks in length and usually require a minimum grade point average (GPA) of 87.5% to apply. Throughout the year, we will also carefully consider volunteer (unpaid internship) applications upon request to help bolster student’s competitiveness for future studentships, scholarships and programs. If funding is available, we prioritize giving these volunteers paid research positions in the summer once laboratory training is complete. We also prioritize offering these volunteers Honor’s project spots. It is also possible that undergraduates can get six elective (M6) course credit for these internships. We offer these opportunities in response to Dr. Wenzel’s personal academic journey; Dr. Wenzel was not competitive for studentships, and the volunteer experience was critical for obtaining an academic reference letter for graduate school.

Honor’s project opportunities: If you are a BMI or Interdisciplinary Biomedical undergraduate student, Dr. Wenzel can support a project for the BMIS 489 Honor’s course. If you are an APP undergraduate student (i.e., CPPS or NEUR), Dr. Wenzel can support a project for the CPPS 432 or NEUR 432 Honor’s course; however, currently you will need to be co-supervised by a professor associated with APP, such as Dr. Ana Paula Mendes-Silva or Dr. Darrell Mousseau.

Application tip for undergraduate students: For our laboratory, the body of your message is commonly the most important part of your application, followed by the CV, and then the transcripts.