luce373

Not necessarily. At my school, I just replied to the email offering me acceptance with "I am accepting the offer" and that was that. If you don't have an obvious form to fill out, just send a simple email like you suggested and ask if you need to do anything further.

Well, I eat my words. I wonder if they posted the notice so late in the day to keep people from freaking out/checking the website obsessively. As if.

I doubt the results would be announced tomorrow anyway because it's Good Friday and a lot of people take that off.

Just chiming to say...be careful about Lenovo. Half of their computers are the more durable ThinkPads, and half are the much more shitty IdeaPads. My first year in grad school I got an IdeaPad from their website because there was some external coupon I found and it had really good specs. But it was defective (stopped charging itself when plugged in after a month, new motherboard caused constant blue screens, etc.) and the customer service was a nightmare. So be careful to stick with the ThinkPads if you decide to go Lenovo. I ended up with a smaller 14" Dell xps, and I liked it a lot. After a student knocked it off my desk and broke it (I may actually have the worst luck with computers), I got a 14" Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook. I like both computers. After lugging around bigger laptops during undergrad, it's nice to have something light and easy to carry back and forth to the lab. Neither was on the expensive end, and both have specs that are just as good as the bigger IdeaPad.

Unless you have to start working during the summer to secure a position in your particular lab, I would take the summer off. I stayed in my undergraduate lab for the summer, and looking back, I wish I had taken a break. In grad school you don't really get time off, so rest up while you can.

I think this depends on the field. In mine (chemistry), you wouldn't ever see references in alphabetical order. Since we use numbers to cite and not full in-text citations, the references are listed in the order they are cited. I would recommend taking a look at the standards in your field. In a typical paper, how are they ordered? Then do the same.

People often post their stats when they are at your stage, asking for their chances. I bet if you go back to the beginning of the general application threads (not just the results) you can find the stats you're looking for.

I also have an NSF fellowship. I'm pretty sure the reason I got it was knowing what they were looking for and tailoring my experiences to their specific criteria through my essays. The advice from Philip Guo that Chronos just posted was particularly useful to me. My university also has an NSF committee of sorts that tries to give advice and maximize success through workshops, etc. You may want to see if yours has something similar, maybe just by asking around in the department or looking on the grad school's website. For this award in particular, the key is being able to give them what they want in the essays. You should have several people (preferably people who have gotten fellowships themselves or had students who did) read over your essays with this in mind. I also had not joined a lab (or even done rotations) when the deadline came around, so I just spoke to the prof I was most interested in working with about ideas. He gave me a starting point, and I ended up coming up with a proposal from there. I haven't done anything with the project at all, so whether it's your thesis project or not doesn't matter. They're funding you, not the project. They just want to see that you understand what you're talking about and can put something coherent together. Aside from the NSF, you can look into the Hertz (http://www.hertzfoundation.org/). It's the most prestigious, the most money, and the hardest to get. But you can combine it with another fellowship since it's not federally funded, so it is for sure worth applying for. There's also the NDSEG, which I assume is what you mean when you say DOD. But that info is here: http://ndseg.asee.org/ Finally, the DOE has a fellowship now: http://scgf.orau.gov/ It's new, so I don't think as many people know about it and they may not get as many applications. Good luck!

Someone in my program found out he got the award a week or two ago (and so did someone on this forum, according to a different thread). I think they're doing the same thing as NDSEG, where they tell awardees and wait to see who accepts before informing anyone else. Annoying.

I actually also recommend not starting early. I stayed in my undergrad lab for the summer and I wish I had taken the time to relax instead. You can get to your new area a few weeks early if you want to get settled, and that should be plenty of time. I would really only work for the summer if there's real concern about getting into the lab you want because there's competition every year.

I also got the NSF. I'm pretty sure they changed the rules last year so that you can't accept both awards even if you stagger which one you use. if we get both we have to pick one.

E/VG E/VG E/E Offered Award I think that advice from former winners played a big role in my results. The things that people told me to emphasize ended up getting highlighted in my reviews as positives. IM: -I came up with the project on my own (with some guidance from my PI, of course), and he mentioned this in his letter. -The project was a fusion of work done in my undergrad and grad labs, and the reviewers thought this was sophisticated and showed good precedence for the work. (I have heard this can go either way, though...being too tied to your undergrad projects can make you seem like you're not creative enough.) -Two different reviewers mentioned my persistence and drive, which I think was highlighted most in my letters BI: -My broader impacts were really, really thin so I overemphasized what I had. I have done maybe three or four outreach days in my life between high school, college, and grad school but I described them in enough detail it was interpreted as a long-term commitment to outreach. The way you frame things is so important. -They also liked that I was a TA and I discussed how that reflected both leadership and communication/education. I also discussed the leadership and teamwork I had in my lab even though there were no official positions. -One reviewer also noted the conferences I attended in this category because it showed scientific communication (which I said explicitly in the essay). So even things that seem like IM criteria can be twisted for BI.

I go to Columbia so I'm familiar with their NSF procedures. Sending you a DM

I was busy last night and totally forgot to check this thread before I went to bed. I'm kind of glad I did, because it would've stressed me out, haha. But I woke up this morning to a congrats text from someone else in my program and I was like...what for? Then when I checked my email I saw the offer! Very exciting.

It was an IdeaPad. Z570 I think? I also use my laptop very heavily for music and video so I wanted something with better speakers and a little more power for the price than the ThinkPads seemed to have. I have heard better things about the reliability of the ThinkPads, though. I guess that's what I get for trying to get the less expensive computer.