Steven

You will not have to pay anything, the school is required to pick up the difference.

Congratulations on your win. I did just as you did, spent countless hours reading every sample I could find, every bit of advice from every school, and putting it all into the application. It was reviewed at every step by four different faculty members, and I even set up an interview with the dean of our college who had been a GRFP panel member to get his input. I spent at least 60 hours fine tuning every single word last year, and closer to 40 this year (since I already had something to work with). Last year I got E/VG VG/G with glowing comments, especially about my broader impacts, but no HM, no award, not even a third review. What mild criticism I did get, much of which I had to read between the lines, I addressed very carefully this year. I also STUDIED again for the second time, after a year of contemplation fine tuned everything, added better letter writers, etc. 4.0 GPA both grad and undergrad, 1570 GRE (last year when it mattered), yes, only one publication, but half a dozen conference presentations. Once again, no HM, no award, no nothing. So yeah, I'm going to have to say there's some arbitrariness, at least to preserve what little self-esteem I have left today. I'm totally sincere when I say that the winners are deserving and totally qualified, but to suggest that those of us who didn't win didn't do our homework is just adding insult to injury.

The NSF website says (right on the front page) that they anticipate early April. I just checked and I got my rejection last year on April 6, and that was despite the actual panel meetings being delayed by bad weather. I don't think there's any reason to be that pessimistic.

Regarding choice of schools, it does weight heavily. If I recall correctly, appropriateness of graduate program is explicitly mentioned as one of the review criteria. One of my reviewers specifically listed their reasons for reducing my IM score (from E to VG) and one of the reasons they mentioned was that they were concerned I would not have enough support at my school of choice. I have already started making collaborative contacts at other schools with labs that work in my area, so by next year's cycle I will at least have a few names to drop, if not letters of recommendation from faculty at "approved" schools. My school (16000 students) received no awards. There were several HM's, and those were all in the two programs for which we are reasonably well known. I think that it is possible to overcome a "no-name" graduate school stigma, but it is clearly a big negative.

No award, no HM with G/VG and VG/E, 1570 GRE, 4.0 GPA. But I feel better that the reviewer comments were very positive, the money would be nice but I was really down that I didn't make the HM cut. It will be much easier to improve the research proposal than the broader impacts, so I guess I'll be back next year for another round of nail biting...

Congratulations to everyone who won! Nothing for me, unfortunately, here's hoping for the long shot NDSEG...

Average winning GRE was 753.2Q/633.9V from 2000-2004. But I agree that it is just a part of the package. Personally, I am hoping that my high GRE scores offset the fact that my degree is from a lower tier university. Conversely, I'm sure an excellent GPA from a highly ranked school would make up for a lower GRE. This data is from the pdf mentioned above. I linked to this document once earlier in this thread, but here it is again since it is easy to miss in so many posts. http://www.nber.org/...Proceedings.pdf

Came to say the same thing. Every night I dream of a brilliant new insight into my research, and wake up to find that it is either trivial or total nonsense. An NSF related dream would be a refreshing change. I appreciate the traffic here, every time I see a new post I get a little adrenaline rush - maybe someone has NEWS. Good luck to all, we're almost there.

In describing my "big picture" research interests and career goals, I refer to a couple of results that had a big influence on me and wanted to cite them. I also make a couple of statements that might seem overly bold to a non-specialist without a literature citation. In other words I wanted to make it clear that it's not just me saying these crazy things. As far as research experience, yes, my name is in each of those references.

I thought the same as you when I first saw this thread - but I think they're talking about citations, not letters of recommendation. I have four citations each in my personal statement and research proposal, and seven in my research experience. I only have three letters of recommendation, should have had four, but one writer flaked out on me (thankfully the least critical).

Considering that underrepresented minorities only get 10% of the awards, and women 55%, I would have to say your advisor is wrong.

I am raising my "odds" to 60/40. Assuming the post at the link below is correct, there will be 2000 awards given this year. http://groups.google.com/group/cs404siu-s10/browse_thread/thread/68d084f380cb3c9d/db5c5230b97bb97e?hl=en&q=grfp#db5c5230b97bb97e

I estimate my chances at 50/50. I have excellent GRE, GPA and research experience. My biggest detractor is that my school is not well respected. I plan to make up for the lack of pedigree with solid research, but I think it will hurt me a lot in getting grants. I also have a pretty complicated interdisciplinary research proposal (math/computer science/biology), which may also hurt me depending on who reviews it.

In a prestigious program to boot. I love his website, I am simultaneously proud and embarrassed that the following quote cracked me up: "Im in ur graffs, dulizing yr homaloogy."

Sorry, I must have missed that part. Still, winning the GRFP but not getting into grad school seems like a very unlikely scenario to me.