grilledcheese1

I doubt we'd get results on a Saturday morning. Let's hope the March 26 maintenance doesn't push the results announcement back further, and let's hope the Senate doesn't force a shutdown over the spending bill (my inclination is that they will). On another note, I really wish the NSF would have a standard release date, like the second week of April. Keeping people waiting to be told about a decent portion of their future (essentially) on an undetermined date seems cruel.

What do you mean during notification? If you look at the timestamps on the posts, it looks like the Thursday maintenance announcement was made on Thursday afternoon before the maintenance actually took place. I'm not expecting results tomorrow if nothing is posted by this evening.

Wouldn't the Thursday maintenance announcement be made before the Friday maintenance announcement, though? Or both would be made at the same time? This seems to me like a standard announcement and i'm betting on results next Friday, or maybe April 3rd or 6th if we're unlucky.

Oh, that's not too bad. Maybe they try to evenly award them based on year. Where did you find those numbers?

Why don't you think that's accurate? I'm not sure myself, but I feel like as a 2nd year I have no shot at all. NSF says that they strongly encourage undergrads to apply - I wonder if they award disproportionately more to undergrads? Anecdotal, but it seems like every time someone posts that they got the GRFP, it's an undergrad. The stakes are also higher for 2nd years it seems. It seems like reviewers expect all 2nd years to have multiple 1st-author pubs, even if you're in a field (like mine) where most students don't have pubs until at least their 3rd year.

In this case, I wonder if NSF has any incentive to release results before April 15. I know most grad schools require a decision by then.

Another "NSF insider" on Reddit, lol. If this is true (which it likely isn't), i'm expecting for the storm to push the date back further. https://www.reddit.com/r/GradSchool/comments/84f5z3/anyone_else_waiting_on_nsf_grfp_results_theyre/dw0hm13/?context=0

I'm just hoping for it on Friday so I can focus again. I have a class paper due Saturday and a Master's proposal due Monday and haven't been able to do much on either due to all the anxiety.

Plus they only have those two posts to their name...very suspicious

No idea. Seems weird to me too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GradSchool/comments/85tkr6/waiting_on_the_nsf_grfp_announcement_makes_this/. I'm not convinced that PIs outside of NSF HQ know about release dates. I'm guessing they meant NSF just determined the winners.

Saw a comment on Reddit saying that a PI told them NSF just got the results and it would be another 2 weeks before posting. Choosing not to believe what I hear this time and foolishly trying to convince myself that results will be up by Easter!

Someone on Reddit mentioned the hurricane delays - forgot about those. That makes me think first/second week of April. Maybe even later.

Maybe the NSF is starting to make the changes that will fully go into effect on the 26th, and this is a side effect of that? I also have a feeling that the changes have nothing to do with when the award list is being released. So it could be this Friday, the 27th, the 30th, into April...

And their account, it looks like. Had a feeling it was false.

I hope not. I'm wondering why they released results so late back then though. April 10??

Or they could always wait until after these major changes and release it well into April like in 2009-2011...I hope this isn't the case!

I'm assuming next week!

I'm thinking that the fear of NSF funding cuts by the government led to a decent-sized increase in applications this year, since this would be the last year before the proposed cuts would go into effect. I guess there's no way of knowing how many applicants there are until it comes out.

Looks like 2017 was unusually early, though (but maybe there was a reason for that that would carry into this year?). Most releases were around the tail end of March, so I would think next Tuesday the 27th at the earliest.

Why is everyone banking on it being this Tuesday? Is it all because of that Reddit comment of dubious authenticity?

I notice that OP is already attending, but hopefully my answer will help other people thinking about applying! Have you been in one of these positions? I'm currently a full-time lab manager. I'm leaving in a few weeks to start an Educational Psychology Ph.D. program at my top choice school. Did it/or do you think it helped your chances of getting into a PhD program? I think it helped immensely. I got interviews everywhere I applied, had an extremely successful application season, and got accepted to all of my top schools. I learned so much more about research, academia, my interests/goals, and being a graduate student than I ever did during my years as an undergrad RA. I'm also a lot better at talking about research and thinking critically about it. How close was the lab you worked in to your actual research interests? Pretty close. Some projects in the lab aligned closely with my research interests, others did not. I had the opportunity to start my own study based on my research interests (but that was also connected to the PI's interests), which helped a lot. My interests also developed quite a bit because of being part of the lab, so i'm now interested in doing some related work. About how many positions did you apply for? A little over 100. My interests are in developmental psychology, but I also applied to clinical RA jobs, ABA therapy jobs, etc. - anything that would hire someone right out of college with a psychology degree. What are interviews for these like (if they are done)? Most of the interviews I received were for lab manager positions. They were conducted over Skype and they mostly asked questions about my research experience, research interests, and future plans/goals (lab manager/RA positions want to hear that you plan on attending a Ph.D. program in the field - job postings often list that the job is intended for people with this goal). There were usually 2 rounds - the first with the current lab manager and the second with the PI. A few interviews were panel interviews with the PI, lab manager, grad students, and postdocs. There were some situational questions and questions about my technical/problem-solving experience (a lot of these positions are programming-heavy, and more are becoming that way). I also remember getting asked what I like to do for fun for a lot of my interviews. For the clinical research position interviews, I actually had to travel to the location to interview there, and I was not reimbursed for travel expenses. What is your advice for someone applying to these positions? Apply for as many positions as you can find, because they are EXTREMELY competitive. I'm pretty sure that working in the labs of 2 of the top researchers in the field, along with having straight As, were two major factors in the large success I had both getting job interviews and PhD interviews. If you are going to interview with a lab, read some of their papers and come up with insightful questions about their work (as well as other questions about the lab and position). Think about how you would solve different problems that might come up in a research position, such as dealing with an underperforming RA or dealing with a technology issue, so that you can answer these questions when they come up in interviews. You will have more success in getting your application looked at if you directly email lab managers/PIs asking for openings. Subscribe to listservs in your field, as there are tons of job openings there that have you directly email the lab manager/PI instead of applying on an HR site (which is basically sending your resume and cover letter into a black hole - a lot of positions on HR sites are already spoken for). Tailor your cover letter to each lab and talk about your skills and how your experiences helped you develop these skills (the top skills I saw labs look for are organizational skills, communication/interpersonal skills, and attention to detail). Oh, and programming experience will help a LOT for jobs in experimental labs.

8 schools is not overzealous at all. I applied to 15...and got interviews at all of them

I received an invite yesterday for the Developmental Science program.

I applied to Loyola Chicago's Developmental program. My POI emailed me last week saying that they planned to invite me for an interview, but that they had to wait for the department to meet at the end of the month - so we'll probably find out in a week or two.