monkeywrench

Oh, I'm sure it would. There's no WAY they would actually give awards retroactively (causing problems for earlier applications, grad school decisions, etc.) I think it was just presented as an amusing idea. That said, tell me the 2008 HM'ers wouldn't trample each other to take it...

Anybody got 10:30 AM Friday yet?

Hey all - I got a Ford Fellowship last year, and I mean this to be encouraging rather than disheartening: I didn't get my letter until April 16th. I don't remember when it was postmarked, and I lived about as far as you can get from D.C. while still on U.S. soil, so I suspect it was really postmarked a bit earlier than that and had a long transit time. But if you haven't heard by April early-th, don't despair - if I remember correctly, the notifications were still rolling in after the 16th as well (not counting the waitlist-pending-on-fellows-accepting-or-declining acceptances, which happened in, like, May). I wasn't waiting on a grad school decision when I applied (I was a second-year), so if you're feeling the April 15th crunch, I'm not sure what a good approach would be - maybe call and explain the situation? For everyone's sake, I hope the notification is nice and early, of course! May you all get acceptance letters tomorrow, and may the mailman be early! Although seriously dudes, why can't Ford let people know electronically, via a website or an email?... (actually, scratch that thought. Have you SEEN the NSF GRFP board this year? Electronic notification might ultimately just cause more pain...)

Holy CRAP, people. I'm one of those people that lurks on here as a guest - last year was my last chance to apply and this message board saved my sanity (got an HM, whee; and hi, cogdiss! Remember the good old days of livejournal links and wondering if they post results by name, deadline, discipline?...ahhh, those were the painful nerve-wracking days...) Anyway, I last dropped by the website sometime Saturday and thought "huh, 35 pages, this is getting long." Today I heard that my department had just admitted a few people off the waitlist, thought it might have something to do with released NSF results, and headed on over. Now I've just pounded through 38 pages of posted thinking "holy crap, 73 pages. The awards MUST have been released with that kind of page surge!" and getting nothing but "website down!" and youtube links. It startled ME and I'm not even personally invested in this process; I have to imagine that an applicant who only checks in sporadically must shit a brick when they see the page number increase so dramatically and think it has some correlation with news. So hell, figured I might as well hop in and contribute to the problem. Someone a few pages back suggested that they use the extra stimulus money to go back and give awards to last year's HMers. As a 2008 HM, is it wrong of me to actually be holding out a miniscule amount of hope that this could be true? Realistically I don't need it - I'm in grad school, I have funding. But at the same time, the siren call of the GRFP is just that strong...

hey guys, thanks for the congrats! As for advice...I'm disturbingly tempted to say "downright luck", since it sort of feels that way (I applied for the NSF as well and got HM'd, and I don't do a particularly impressive amount of outreach or diversity work). But I applied two years ago and didn't get a Ford Fellowship, so I'll describe what changed in my application this time. 1) I *really* tried to hard to answer the question they were actually asking in my essays, especially the personal essay. I'm an astronomer - we don't do much to benefit mankind. So I really tried to emphasize how I'd be addressing diversity, outreach, teaching, etc. in my personal essay. Nothing insincere or lip-service-ish, just really detailing the outreach and education work that I would be doing. 2) I'm a second-year grad student so my Ph.D. thesis was pretty well formulated when I applied - I tried to give them a pretty rigorous description of my research while keeping in mind that most of the people reading it would not be specialists in my field. Don't just copy-paste the NSF essay like I originally planned to (my adviser stopped me) - the audience is different. 3) for what it's worth, when it comes to numbers, my undergrad and grad GPA are both solidly decent (3.4 and 3.7 or something like that - respectable, but certainly not straight-A 4.0 territory). I chose not to submit my GRE scores (general were fine, subject were pretty much as low a score as you can get without spelling your name wrong) and it looks like they didn't care. 4) I had a pretty good list of publications, which I think helped. I definitely don't think this means you need heaps of first-author papers to get a fellowship; my advice would probably be to emphasize to them in your previous and current research essays that you're a good place for them to put your money - show them that you've had solid experience in your field already and that a fellowship will be well-spent on helping you to keep up the good work you're already doing. Okay, hopefully that's somewhat helpful (like I said, I half-believe that the secret was "I've been applying for fellowships for years, eventually I had to get lucky"!) Good luck!!

oh, additionally, I have three weeks to accept or decline the award. I'll definitely be accepting, but I suspect that most people who plan on declining will do so fairly soon (odds are most of those folks have other fellowships that they'll use instead - no such luck here!) So if you're an alternate, the next three weeks are the timeframe where you'll likely hear something.

Hey all - Well, I just got a package from Ford and I got the fellowship! (yay!) I got the letter "late" (the 16th); I had assumed that since I hadn't heard already I was a no-go, so don't lose heart if you haven't heard yet! I also applied two years ago (as a senior in college) and got turned down - no award, no alternate, nothing - so definitely go for it again next year if you qualify!

Even if you applied two years ago, you can still use that username (which is your applicant ID) and password to access your evaluations, if you still have it. Sweet (I can't believe that worked). http://www.nsfgradfellows.org - just use the username and password that they give you in the email. I love that everyone knows how they did, and in some cases are already reading their evaluations, before they've even officially sent out the emails. Way to keep up with the pace of technology, NSF Just goes to show that nothing stands between geeks and information on the internet!

Dude, it's kind of random. I had five publications listed when I applied as an undergrad (two first-author), and about sixteen this year (second-year grad) counting the non-refereed conference papers. I'm serious, and I'm not bragging: I got an outright rejection from NSF last time around and an HM this time. So having boatloads of publications isn't what it takes - it seems to be something more intangible than that. ("broader impacts" and "intellectual merit" seems to be the mantra they keep repeating) Although I am curious - my grades were good but not outstanding, solid B+ average at a tough school, and my subject GREs were so abysmal, I didn't even submit them this time around, which was probably my downfall. Do the people who are getting these basically have all perfect #s? That might be part of it...

My name's on there too. Didn't see anyone else in my program, though, which is a little surprising. And my friend who got an award letter on the website was not on there (so it's definitely not Awards+Honorable Mentions). Well...darn that I didn't get a fellowship, I guess, but hey! Rock on all the other HM'ers out there! And for the rest, hang in there! (although I am trying to replicate the hack and haven't yet...I mean, it has to be legit if our names are on there, but still...)

I agree with slowestwriter3ver, it sounds like not all of the notifications are visible online yet. Either way, it ain't over until the official email is sitting in your inbox!

unparticles, Not as far as I know - I'm waiting for physics/astronomy news too. I'll stick a post up here if I do hear something, either good or bad (if nothing else, the emails will be coming in the next couple days) Good luck!!

Okay, this sounds utterly pathetic, but I had a DREAM like that last week. I seriously dreamed a little email notification saying first that I was rejected, followed by one saying I was accepted, followed by a final one saying "sorry guys, technical glitch, those emails just got sent to everyone. Keep waiting. Suckaaaas!" ...sigh...

"glitch"?????? That's just evil. Now I won't know what to think no matter WHAT the website says. Guess it's back to waiting for one of those emails. :shock:

Yeah, definitely craziness. Dangit - I have stuff to DO today. But now I'm just going to be alternating between here and the NSF website (although for now, I promised myself that I won't check again for another hour. Ha. Ha ha.) Congrats to everyone who got one!!! Any honorable mention'ers yet?