SgtP3pp3r

The first (and so far only) response, I got 22 days after submitting the documents. The deadline is actually a long time from now (May 15th), but I submitted it on Jan 22nd. On Feb 13th, my application status on the application website showed a link where the decision was available. This link took me to a congratulations page stating that my application had been approved for admission. I have not, however, received any notification by email or mail. I'm hoping this is actually a good thing because I know the assistantship appointments and scholarships are awarded in the March-April period. So I hope the fact that I have not received any email yet might mean that I am being considered for this. I have not heard anything from the other programs, but then again, a lot of their deadlines are all still a ways away.

I got an admit from LSU. I havent gotten the official email with info about possibility of financial aid, or tuition waivers, but on the application website I got a congratulations notification, telling me i had been admitted. I actually think they had literally just posted it up, because I checked the website this morning and had no response, and when i did my routinely OCD application website check at lunch, the decision was up. I'm really glad this came thru, now I'm crossing my fingers I get an offer, and a positive response from the other universities i applied to.

I wasn't even aware there was a difference between the two. haha. I always thought it was one of those "call it what you will" kind of things. Go figure.

I really suggest you look in depth at the faculty that you would like to work with. It might be that one of the ones in whose work you are really interested is looking for students. These should be your first choices. Write personalised letters to these people. Read up on their papers if you can, look up their work. Make sure that they can tell you are interested in their work, and then perhaps they will become interested in you. Then other faculty members contact more generically, perhaps inquiring about their needs. But make a priority list, and make sure you dedicate more effort to the ones whose work you'd be more interested in collaborating with.

Hey, I'm a Fulbright nominee from Honduras. I'm applying thru the Fulbright-LASPAU program, so it's a little different than the straight Fulbright treatment. I started the application process to Fulbright last year (2013), around April. By this time I had to have my GRE and TOEFL Scores (which I did since Oct 2012). After about 2 months waiting, I got thru the first "filter" and was contacted about doing some additional standardised tests. This was yet another part of the screening process for the scholarship, and was contacted about 2 or 3 weeks later about programming an interview. My interview was programmed for a monday morning in Mid-August. At the interview phase, I suppose (from having peeked at the receptionists sign-in sheets) that there were 6 people lined up for interviews. I went in for mine, and later that day I received another email notifying me of my status as a Nominee. I don't know if it's standard procedure that they make a decision and notify on the same day, but I don't think it is. I think they were just running late on their decisions. In the end, 3 nominations were made for the category of scholarship I was applying to, and I was fortunate enough to be one of them. Since my scholarship is a Fulbright-LASPAU, much of the application process is overseen by LASPAU. After being nominated, the contact with my Application Specialist (LASPAU employee) began in November. Here we decided what programs I could apply to from among my original choices (selected and submitted during the scholarship application in April 2013). I had to eliminate a couple of schools on account of the tuition fees, and settled in on 5 schools: TAMU, NCSU, LSU, Purdue, and UTAustin. Once this was done, I had to contact faculty at each of these universities, and seek their support (i'm applying for a PhD program, and will require support as the scholarship only covers the first two years of the PhD). During this part of the process, I had to scratch Purdue and UT Austin from my list as I did not get much in the sense of encouraging responses from faculty. However, NCSU, TAMU and LSU all came thru. As the Fulbright-LASPAU scholarship allows up to 5 slots for university applications, the other two came by suggestion of the Placement Specialist at LASPAU. She recommended two additional programs (WPI and UIC) to which I am currently in the process of applying. The other three applications (TAMU, NCSU and LSU) all went out about 2 weeks ago, and now I have itchy fingers checking my mail every 10 seconds waiting for a response. This in a nutshell is my experience. Oh, my stats when nominated for the scholarship were: GRE: V:158 Q:156 AW:4.5, TOEFL iBT: 113, and 5 years of teaching experience at university level for the discipline I am applying to (structural engineering). After nomination I retook the tests (as part of the scholarship covers these costs), but only improved marginally: GRE V:159 Q:158 AW:4.5; TOEFL iBT 114 Anyone else out there in forum land looking to share?

The first time i wrote my SoP I did it on a whim, before I actually applied. I did it a day I felt inspired, and I figured that I might as well write it out for when the actual time to apply came up. Problem is, I wasn't exactly scant on words... so I ended up with a whopping 3000 word monster. So I shortened it. I shortened it a lot. But by the time I had trimmed it down to 1500 it didn't make sense anymore, so I rewrote it. This time it measured up precisely 1499 words. But then came the Unis with 1000 word limits, so i trimmed it down. But it happens that when you have to trim it down so much, it's best to simply find yet another angle and so I got down to it, and left it at 650 words. Finally came the 500 word limit Unis, so, I rewrote once more. Condensed at 499. So counting back, I have roughly 6 versions. I only ended up using two though, the 650 word one and the 499 one. I figured they say what I really wanted to say.

Geez, after visiting this forum I'm even more worried about getting accepted. My stats are way below you guys. GRE: 317 Q:158 V:159 AW:4.5 Undergrad GPA: 3.0 Master's GPA: 3.7 Submitted Papers: 1 (and it hardly counts... it's a "journal" that recently started) BS Civil - 2006 MSc Structural Engineering - 2010 Universities applied to: Texas A&M, NCSU, LSU, UIC and WPI I guess maybe because I went with more modest programs I might not be too bad off, but any how. I guess the only thing I was hoping to have going for me was my teaching experience in the Structural Engineering branch in the Civil Engineering and Master's Program at my home University for the last 6 years, and the work experience the past 8 years.