rdevine

Honorable Mention here. In general a bit bummed about not winning because of the amount of effort I put in, but HM seems like a pretty solid outcome. I knew being a white male in civil engineering, I was going to have to reach on BI, but I had two very hands on faculty advisors so I expected IM would be taken care of. The reviewers, which doesn't seem to agree with a lot of your cases, were shockingly consistent, E/VG, E/VG, E/VG. Two of my reviewers basically just left pats on the back, one sentence answers that I was detailed or well prepared, luckily my 2nd reviewer was detailed. Their major critique was the projects' broader impacts. They even were pleased with my personal statement BI. It's tough being so close yet knowing the next cycle three different reviewers could have a totally different perspective even if you fix these comments. Still waiting on DOD NDSEG and DOE IUP so hopefully one of those come through, but if not I feel pretty well positioned for success next year. Working on submitting a journal publication and participating in international research through NSF EAPSI in Tokyo (I will be a second year GS, did not apply while I was an undergraduate). To all those other HM, I hope you got more direction or reasoning from your reviewers than I did!

I am in the same boat, got HM today with 2 reviews writing about a sentence for each review and the third had very little negative comments. All my reviews were excellent IM and Very Good BI, so it seems like I have very little room for improvement, outside of finding out I am an underrepresented group. Any tips? If not, just wanted to let ya know your no alone in this boat!

Thanks for the help guys. I did the same about contacting my host right away and he had mentioned sending a housing form and forgot, I'll follow up this week. I would also definitely join a Facebook group!

Hey, so has anyone, especially others who accepted an offer to Japan, done any work or has successfully found housing? The manuals say to contact your host ASAP, but there has been little guidance. Wondering if anyone else has looked into this. thanks

University of Tokyo as well??

Hey All, I just received a tentative offer for the Japan Program at the University of Tokyo. Best of luck to everyone else!!

Yeah, interesting part is that they say that it will not necessarily be notified location by location...

Another day and no news. I applied as an engineer and it said my external review began 1/11/16. Thankfully another busy week of grad school has my mind off the wait!

Also waiting on Japan 2016, did not realize notifications could be coming so soon!