Applying for Quebec student aid (the 1121 form) as an out-of-province student.
This covers applying for Quebec bursaries by filling out the 1121 form (for students studying outside Québec). (This is completely different from the FRQ competition – this is not a competition.)
- The 1121 helps you apply for Quebec student aid. If you had high past employment income (roughly > $40k before taxes), don’t expect much. Depending on your past income and current needs, you may get a different mix of loans and bursaries – loans must be repaid, bursaries are free.
- You submit a partially filled 1121 through the “Out of Province Portal” (OOP) to the registration office, which fills in the rest; you then submit to AFE (Aide financière aux études).
- The AFE office can be disorganized, and if you make a mistake they may send repeated, unclear notices. Don’t panic, though: the bursaries are retroactive, so if something goes wrong or your application is delayed, you’ll still receive a lump-sum payment once it’s sorted out.
General instructions
- Be precise when filling out the document, or you’ll run into problems.
- Expect to fill it out several times during the year – they do this to confirm you’re still enrolled.
- Don’t count on reaching them by phone; calls often go unanswered.
Filling out the 1121
- Fill section 1 with your personal information. Your permanent code is on your CEGEP or university transcript.
- You don’t need to fill in the other sections – just write your permanent code on every page.
- Section 4 reflects what you ticked in the OOP application (registration handles this). When filling the OOP application: suppose it’s September 2024 – as a PhD student you apply for every month from September 2024 to August 2025, checking Winter, Summer, and Fall, since that reflects your time in the program. If asked to resubmit, redo the application with the exact same information (again September 2024 to August 2025), even if it’s now December. The point is that they want to see consistent information, multiple times.
- Important: if you’ve been in school in a past semester but are filling for a future one at AFE’s request, still apply for the whole year – contradictory information confuses the AFE office.
- When you receive the completed document back from registration (which can take a few weeks in peak periods like August and September, but is usually quick otherwise), verify it carefully before submitting to the AFE, as errors do happen at this stage.