dicentra

I've been lurking for months, and was lucky enough to get an award in the first round, but wanted to check back now that the limbo is over. Everything I was told about the award process (and the comments I got last year) is backed up in the score/result combinations I'm seeing here this year -- basically it's a madhouse when these are reviewed, and unless someone specifically falls in love with your proposal they're probably not even going to parse it accurately. The comments I got last year are totally irrelevant to that proposal, and I'm not convinced my reviewers this year completely got the point either (though clearly they liked what they did notice better). Anyway, when you get over the 93rd percentile it says "top 7 percent." Not sure if all proposals scoring in that range were awarded in the first round. My ratings: VG/E E/E (this one really did go nuts about the proposal, supporting the theory that that's what it takes) E/VG Last year I got G/G, G/G for a proposal my advisor liked a lot better. No award or HM, obviously. This year, I used a completely different research proposal and pitched it more toward developmental bio since the plant reviewers had really not understood the previous project. I don't know whether that helped or not; no control NSF was available. My broader impacts were way better this year, and I have a lot more different research experiences. (My grades and GREs are good, but that didn't change from last year.) And my favorite moment of the thread was the shaggy dog story with the Mark Twain shout-out. Heck if I can remember what page it was on, or I'd link it.