zephyri

Is anyone else really glad April's almost halfway through? I totally forgot what a horrible waiting game this month is. Last time I felt this way, was senior year of high school waiting for college admission letters. It's hard not knowing where in the world you're going to be next year! Next week is going to be tough- even though I know we aren't likely to hear on Monday, I'm still going to be checking my e-mail constantly! Fingers crossed for Friday!

Here's hoping! I'm already driving myself crazy trying not to e-mail the other fellowships I've applied for, asking when results will be announced. I know objectively that it's pointless to email people before the stated notification date, but try telling that to me while I'm refreshing my inbox every 5 minutes!

I was also wondering about the budget email- wondered if fellowship applicants would get a second one ,or if the one we got in February was it. Getting close to the end here, guys! My university's fellowship advisor said (last Wednesday, April 1) that she hadn't heard anything through the grapevine about Boren updates (fellowship advisors have a listserv where they give each other updates on notifications).

I completely understand your concerns. I too had a comps study group that ended up being kind of a blah time suck. BUT the good news is, that with comps and/or dissertation writing groups, you can always extricate yourself if it becomes too time intensive and not the kind of help you're looking for. One idea would be to set up a diss writing group that meets only once a month for a semester. Then you can reassess at the end of the semester and see if you want to continue. That way you're locked into 4 meetings max. I belong to a writing group with two faculty, which is turning out to be really helpful. One of them is on my committee and invited me to join the group. We meet once a month- the writer for that month sends her/his chapter/article one week ahead of time, and then each of us provide 'discussant'-like comments on the paper. A friend of mine was involved in a grad student writing group for a few weeks, but it ended up being a time suck as they met every week, and one of the students dominated the conversation. In the end my friend and I agreed it would be more helpful to exchange drafts of our writing on an as-needed basis, sending each other feedback using track changes in Word. This allowed us to avoid having an extra time commitment each week/month, and still get feedback from someone we know cares about our work. I suppose the best advice I could give is to think about who you'd like to invite to your writing group- do you have classmates that you know provide good feedback to others? People you think you can rely on to meet monthly group deadlines? It would probably be easiest with a small group, say 3-4 people including yourself. What do you think? What kinds of writing groups are your cohort involved in?

Oh they said third week? Awesome. I didn't know they would be so specific. Was this for everyone, or just scholarships or fellowships?

Haha good one, if only! I'm still sticking to my prediction of hearing on April 24. I hope I'm wrong and it's sooner, but that seems like the likely date in the "late April," the notification period.

Glad the OPI went well I replayed my first OPI in my head for WEEKS afterwards, and they didn't even tell us the results until after the CLS program. I remember going in thinking it'd be ok (I'd had 1 year of Arabic), and then after 5 minutes of talking about my family and the weather, the examiner asked me to do a scenario- 'at a restaurant.' We reached the limits of my abilities pretty quickly! It seems like a useful test, but it can be stressful.

Ah, I see. That makes sense. Thankfully the selection process is more straightforward for the fellowship, as far as I know it's not related to Flagship

Welcome, Frodo. I think the consensus is that the budget e-mails don't tell us a whole lot anymore. Though I agree, it seems like they did in earlier years. Another scholarship applicant was asked to do a pre-selection Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) language test. Seems like that would be a good indicator, though I wonder if Boren does this for all languages. I do not believe they have pre-program OPIs for fellowship applicants.

Yes I hope we're 2-3 weeks out from hearing back. Feels easier, now that it's almost April. Boren's turnaround is really fast though- three months from application deadline to notification.

Wow, that's really great! I remember my first OPI for Arabic last year- I was so nervous! I hope your French OPI went well I didn't know they did initial OPIs for scholarship applicants. Sounds like an extra layer of pressure, but also a good way to find out about where you stand in the process. Good luck!

Yeah, it's weird. I don't get it. I guess this year's applicants have better things to do?

Nah I don't think they care enough about our waiting game to mess with us Letters have most definitely not gone out, because people who win usually post, and it's way too early given Boren's "late April" notification timeline. I agree we'll probably get another budget/date email... or rather some people will get that e-mail, I don't know if I will! I bet they have their hands full with students whose program plans have been derailed by recent events. Crossing all my fingers and toes that this doesn't happen to any other countries...

I think we are one month out from notification. Who wants to place a bet? Last year they notified on April 18, a Friday. I predict they'll start sending notifications on April 24 (also a Friday). I predict they'll be a week later this year, since the snow storm and tech problems meant they extended the Fellowship deadline past Jan. 31 this year. So I'm thinking that'll add a week. Other bets? Any predictions on whether they'll send a second budget/dates e-mail after the regional panels meet this month?

Wow, a 3 year wait to be published is rough! I am wondering about publishing now because I'm writing my first paper (not first ever, but first article based on my research) and am hoping to get it published by the time I graduate in 1.5-2 years. Though looking at this thread, I should scale back my ambitions to 'accepted' at a journal, rather than published! Thank goodness for advanced publishing on journal websites!

I don't know if they allow you to split time in two countries on the scholarship. They allow this for the fellowship but I didn't do that in my application. You can't go wrong with those two, I have a friend studying in Jordan now who loves it. I spent the summer in Morocco studying Arabic and thought it was fantastic- although darija is REALLY hard! People and food were wonderful though.

The view count is on the main forum page, so click on "the bank" and then you can see this thread, with the view count and reply count. That fulbright page was interesting! They have a very structured process, though it serves to remind that fellowship outcomes hinge on who happens to be on your committee any given year. This isn't a purely objective, meritocratic process (I've run scholarship selection committees in my past), so if we don't get the fellowship, it doesn't mean our projects weren't good, or that we don't have potential. It just means the composition of the committee was such that they were looking for a different sort of applicant. I hate that part! Five people seems so few for Fulbright, but I guess they do get thousands of applications. kb2, welcome to the forum! Sorry to hear about Egypt, are you submitting an alternative plan to Boren as well? I hope you find a country that works!

Haha yes, it could actually be us checking the forum. There's something to be said for waiting it out together. Every time I get tired of waiting, I try to imagine the real process the panels are going through. I think in March, the regional panels met, and then next month the national panel meets to make final decisions. I wonder what it's like to read all those applications. And the readers could be anybody- faculty at our universities, sometimes people we know. I wonder if Boren has readers not read candidates from their schools.

I'd also like to give a shout out to the lurkers Please join us if you applied for a Boren, we're all in this together, right? Just calculated that this thread has 2,359 views, but only 43 posts. That means that even if those posts were from 43 different people, each of us would have read the thread 53 times. ;D

Thanks for your reply, and I hope re-adjusting your study plans works out in the end too. Sounds like a huge hassle, but I suppose we're bound to encounter stuff like this since we're not studying something straightforward, like art in Paris, right? Can't be fun to have to come up with a new proposal, but hopefully you can retain the major elements of your Egypt plan. Good luck!

Did they e-mail you to let you know, or did you have to call them? I applied to go to one of the "iffy" countries too- hopefully they will let us know sooner rather than later. Strange that they didn't tell applicants this from the beginning! They must have had some inkling. Did they ask you to supply an alternative country or plan of study?

Oh absolutely, I agree that higher education is hopelessly elitist and reinforces various horrid intersections of racial, class, and gender discrimination. Take political science for example: there are 4-5 people of color in my program, out of 40 graduate students. Most minorities who come from less means, are encouraged to go into more lucrative professions with a polisci degree, like law. So as a result, polisci grad programs are predominantly white and (somewhat less so, but still) mostly male. This produces a professoriate that is over 80% white and nearly 80% male (from last year's APSA stats, can't remember exact numbers, but in the ball park). And that's not even factoring in class!

I quite agree that this school's policy would create an unhappy environment for grads. Heck, my school promises 5 years of funding to its funded students, and the atmosphere still sucks! I've never heard of a polisci PhD program not offering funding the first year as a matter of policy. My polisci PhD program admits students in March, notifies them about funding in April, and lets them decide if they want to attend. Nearly all of the unfunded PhD students find TA/GAships inside or outside of our department after their first semester or first year. At first I thought it was unethical to admit PhD students without funding (I joined when the department was relatively flush, so no issues with funding), but now I think it's better to give students the opportunity to attend and find funding later. That way you're not losing great students who want to attend your school. And let's face it, some of the "sure bets" that programs admit, turn out to be duds or drop out for various reasons!

Yes I second that- I don't like not knowing what I'll be doing next year! I tell myself that given the odds for the fellowship (20% chance), I won't be going anywhere (80% likelihood of not getting the award), but it's hard to believe it until you get the letter. Boren has the best odds of pretty much any grad fellowship (that I know of anyway). Most dissertation fellowships have 1-5% odds.

It looks like the type/number/timing of Boren emails has changed every year! Keeping us guessing, I suppose.