dalzir

Anyone heard back about the NSF PRFB? 6 months is quickly approaching and my status is still listed as "pending". Wondering if anyone has gotten word (good or bad) yet? This waiting game is killing me....

LOL That's quite a nightmare! I haven't had any GRFP nightmares yet -- I'm still having them about my first year of grad school, no room for new nightmares. The 2nd batch e-mails were sent out around midnight last year.

So, if you get the Ford will you be taking extra classes in Spring '11?

Everyone gets an e-mail saying whether or not they won the award. But I think in previous years, the information was posted on the website just before e-mails were sent out. And I believe a couple of years ago the rating sheets were available briefly before any e-mails were sent out.

That's good news. And that goes to show you that you shouldn't believe everything that the Ford people say. Last year, the person I talked to made it seem like I had no chance of getting an award based on my status as a 1st year student. The only reason I applied was because my mentor encouraged me and because it is basically the same format as NSF GRFP so it doesn't require much effort to reformat for Ford.

When you say they received it in their 3rd year, do you mean that the following Fall they were beginning their 4th year? or their 3rd year? I ask because I thought that one of the requirements for the Ford is that the one of the years be used to complete coursework.

Great, then I can keep my hopes up

What year are others who applied for the predoctoral award? I'm in my second year. Last year I called the Ford office and they said that the award was really intended for students starting a Ph D program in the fall. I'm not sure how reliable that information was though.

Whew! I feel much better now ! Too bad your last writer backed out. That seems a little irresponsible on their part.. I included 4 citations/references that referred to a talk, poster, submitted manuscript, and manuscript "in preparation". My future research had 8 citations.

I wouldn't obsess over typos. I think the reviewers read through the proposals very quickly, so one or two will probably not make a difference and might even go unnoticed. As for references, I didn't realize that others had so many! I had 4 this year and the previous year (prev year I received HM). Last year, my references consisted of 2 tenure-track professors (including my mentor), a non-tenure track faculty member, and a postdoc that I worked closely with. All references had known me for over 3+ years and I worked with them on a regular basis. This year, I've got the same references except I have a ref from a full professor in lieu of the postdoc and my mentor has become an associate prof. I wondered about submitting other refs, but they wouldn't be nearly as good and I'm not sure they would contribute much.

I'm sticking with my original guess: April 7th, 5pm eastern for notifications

It's great to apply while you're an undergrad. If you get it that's fantastic, if you don't then you still have two more opportunities to apply. My first year I didn't get anything but I learned a lot for the following year about how to write essays, get good letters of recommendation, etc.

Actually, that month of waiting was kind of exciting. And I'm proud of my HM even though it's not a GRF. I don't have a stellar background like many of the applicants.. I went to a mid-tier university and had a 3.6 GPA. My proposal, broader impacts, and letters of recommendation got me an HM.

I think last year first-round notifications were done on April 10th (Fri) @ 1am (pg. 93 of last year's thread)