Krypton

Um, of course. They're not going to fund someone who says their contributions to broader impacts stops when NSF's funding does.

The northwest graduate dorms may not be on "campus proper," but they have no physical separation from the rest of MIT.

Frankly, I think the proposal is the area of the application with the least room for changing standards. Funding an undergraduate senior's proposal that is "sound enough" for an application at this stage but somehow not "sound enough" had it come from a first-year seems fairly ridiculous to me and contrary to the NSF's goals.

Last year: HM from three E/VGs. This year: VG/VG and VG/G. What's particularly strange is that I received no negative comments, so it's impossible for me to pinpoint what might have influenced my reviewers to assign me these scores. My intellectual merit certainly hasn't worsened (I even slightly improved a proposal that already got perfect marks last year). In addition, I thought I vastly improved my broader impacts between this year and last (the positive comments I received seem to corroborate this), yet my score went down...

I don't say this with any certainty, but my impression is that they are unlikely to actually contact the people you've listed. I suspect it's more an extra precaution to ensure integrity of the honor system in applications that require you to self-report your qualifications.

Absolutely. Last year, I received an HM for essays that I wrote with no feedback. This year, I had professors and previous awardees galore provide advice and suggest improvements to my application. In addition, I addressed all the shortcomings mentioned in my reviews. This time, I did not receive even HM status.

HM 2010 --> nothing 2011? Ah, well.

I'm less tense about NSF and NDSEG not making clear when they'll release results and more tense that the DOE SCGF still hasn't made clear when they'll open the application (also delayed due to the budget). Just open it already or cancel the competition for this year! *sniffle*

Sounds like all you have to do is go have another discussion and change "am considering staying" to "absolutely want to stay." There's no need to beat around the bush; the whole point of a rotation is that there was initially a chance of you deciding later on to join the lab, so just come out and tell the PI that you've decided his lab is the one for you.

Yes, I think living with GradCafe people would be interesting for this reason. Probably run less of a risk than moving in with a random stranger, anyway!

I believe the quoted number is 25% of NDSEG recipients also received the NSF, or 50 people.

There are at least 10,000 applicants. This is the usual case: If your fellowship doesn't exceed how much you're already getting internally, then your internal source will supplement up to your current amount. So you'd get the $15,000 from the fellowship, plus $10,000 internally to bring it back up to $25,000. The generally unstated function of fellowships is not for you to get more money, but instead for your internal source to be paying you as little as possible. You may get a little extra from the internal source since you're saving them money anyways with a fellowship award, but they'll never continue to pay you what they did previously after you receive a substantial fellowship.

Neither. They would give Tsujiru $3k internal, for $33k total.

It's late March / early April.

Your program is absolutely going to want you to get supported fully by NSF so that they do not have to continue funding.

Fellowships that are awarded, starting this year, can be used only at U.S. institutions. I imagine that means, at most, you can be an exchange graduate student abroad but cannot receive your degree solely from an abroad institution.

OMG LOL.

The NSF GRFP funds Master's students, but they have to apply in their first or second year.

All the programs I know do not admit by faculty interest. Interests change, as do labs' space for students, so it is impossible to predict how lab choices will turn out. Therefore, it's a useless factor for admission decisions. That said, if you convey interest in only one or a few faculty at a particular institution, and it is likely none of them can take on students for the coming year, you will probably not be admitted.

Fixed.

Columbia CMBS: Jan 21-23 / Jan 28-31 Duke: Feb 4-5 / Feb 18-19 Gerstner Sloan-Kettering: Jan 18-20 Indiana U IBMG: Feb 3-5 / ??? NYU Sackler Institute Biomedical Sciences: Jan 13-14 / Jan 20-21 / Feb 3-4 / Feb 10-11 Rockefeller: Mar 3-5 / Mar 10-12 The Scripps Research Institute: Feb 24-26 / Mar 3-5 U Alabama - Birmingham: Jan 13-15 UC Irvine CMB: Jan 27-29 / Feb 3-6 UCLA ACCESS: Jan 29-31 / Feb 12-14 / Feb 26-28 UCSD Biomedical Sciences: Feb 17-20 UCSF TETRAD: Feb 3-5 / Feb 24-26 U Maryland - Baltimore Neuroscience: Jan 21 / Feb 11 / Feb 18 UNC BBSP: Jan 27-29 / ??? / ??? USC PIBBS: Jan 13-14 Wake Forest Neuroscience: Jan 13-15 Washington University/WashU, Neuroscience: Jan 27-29

What was the application like last year? Was the research proposal basically similar to the one you wrote for NSF?

I LOVED the Princeton MolBio faculty. I hope you have a great time!

I don't think that's true. At least in biology, all 2nd-years have been working on their projects for only a few months now. I think, as with college senior- or 1st-year-submitted applications, the foundation for what you're proposing just has to be there. That's not the case, either. I know people who have applied with proposals for which promising preliminary data (i.e., for Aim 1) has already come out. I did this myself, and one reviewer cited this as good evidence my project had the potential to even move past its initial stage.

Yep, since NSF is federally funded, balanced state representation among fellowship recipients is government-mandated.