FAQs and Contact Info:

The programs which require a thesis (MSc and PhD) will require that the admissions committee find a supervisor before admitting a student to a program. In these cases, it is advisable that an applicant indicate in the application with which faculty members they are most interested in working. It may be further advisable that applicants contact potential supervisors and indicate their common mathematical background and interest in doing a thesis project with them. Please see our list of research areas and our faculty list.

The MA and MSc programs present two different avenues that can be taken towards achieving a masters degree. The MA program is one year and covers streams in mathematics, statistics and applied mathematics. It consists of four courses that are combined with a thesis, a survey paper plus 2 courses or four courses. The MSc in Applied & Industrial Mathematics is two years and consists of four courses and a thesis. A two year program (MSc) provides enough time to complete an applied mathematics research project and thesis and will offer different opportunities and experiences that may more closely match your educational background and future goals.  For example the M.A. and M.Sc. are both options towards a Ph.D. program, however, through the thesis, the M.Sc. program provides valuable research experience.

We list minimum requirements for the MA/MSc/PhD. A successful applicant should have good grades, references and a mathematics/statistics background which will allow them to succeed in the program. For the MA program, students will be required to complete a specialization in one of the following areas: pure math, applied math, probability, statistics and applied statistics. Some faculty members have contributed advice about what background students are expected to have in order to apply to the MA and MSc programs.

The application process opens in late October and the last day to apply is in March for a start date in the Fall of the following year. We begin the evaluation of applications in February and continue on an ongoing basis until we are unable to fill additional spaces.

Students who are admitted into our masters and doctoral programs are generally funded through a combination of teaching and research assistantships. The masters program offers are usually around $14-17K per year while the doctoral offers are close to $27K. There are additional benefits which come with these offers to help make them competitive with other Ontario universities, however we hope that applicants are aware that the cost of living in the Toronto area is high.
In recent years, the number of funding packages available to non-domestic applicants has been very small (a domestic applicant is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada; a non-domestic applicant is anyone else) and the funded positions for non-domestic applicants should be considered highly competitive.

We offer a concurrent Graduate Diploma in Financial Engineering & MA in Mathematics and Statistics. The stand-alone FE Diploma is offered through the Schulich School of Business.

If you have completed at least one year at an accredited university where English is the official language of instruction in a country , you may be exempt from the English language requirement.

Students who are beginning a program in the Fall are required to have an advising appointment before they are able to register. This advising appointment can be booked online and is completed in late August just before the registration deadline. The appointment is short, but it must be completed in person.

All forms for regulations involving FGS are available on the FGS website under current students/forms. You will need permission from the course instructor and the graduate program director of the other department. If you wish to use that course to satisfy your degree requirements for your program, you should obtain separate permission from the Math and Stats graduate program director.

Comprehensive exams are part of the requirements of the PhD degree. In our program, the comprehensive exams are typically attached to courses, and are normally written at the same time as the final exam for the course. You can write the comprehensive exam without having taken the course, but we typically advise students to either take or audit the course prior to the exam. You can also write the comprehensive exam during your Master's degree and they will count towards your PhD requirements should you do the doctoral program in Mathematics and Statistics at York.

There is a latex York thesis (dissertation) template available on CTAN.
We do not have a thesis proposal template.  The details of this requirement are on the FGS website and it should be written for an audience that is not a specialist in your field. The proposal should have several major elements: background for the area of research, an explanation of the problem you intend to work on, the techniques that will be used to solve the problem, what is new and innovative about what you are doing and why the result will be important (in 3500 words or less). You may wish to speak to an upper year student you know in your area and see if they are willing to share their version with you.

Fill out an academic petition form and include a statement of which courses you would like to count (up to 12.0 credits) from your masters degree towards your Ph.D. degree course requirements.  If your courses were taken at another university, include as supporting documentation a detailed course description of the course that you took and the course title and number of the equivalent course offered at York University.  Attach at statement of support from your supervisor.  This request should be made in your first term of study as a Ph.D. student.

We offer a concurrent Graduate Diploma in Financial Engineering. The stand-alone FE Diploma is offered through the Schulich School of Business.

You should apply for a change of status by using an academic petition form on the FGS webpage.  This request should be made in advance of the term which you intend to change your status.  It usually takes 4-6 weeks in order to process these requests.