eruwaedhiel

Is anyone else here also a SMART applicant? I emailed NDSEG asking if I can get an extension for the reply date until we hear back from SMART (since they're both managed by ASEE I thought it might be possible), but was told no extensions are allowed. I'm not sure what to do because I would love to work for the SF that contacted me for SMART (and be guaranteed a job with them in my field doing research when I graduate), but obviously NDSEG is a fantastic deal that I cannot turn down.

We have until April 25th to get back to them.

I did get my award email at 5pm (EST). However, my portal still says I have to reply by tomorrow, while my email says I have two weeks. I'm still waiting to hear back from SMART, so I might email ASEE and ask which it is.

I had been checking around every hour (I know, I'm impatient...), so the notification is very new. But, like I said, I'm pretty sure it's not official due to the date listed and the lack of email.

I just logged into https://ndseg.asee.org/award/ and got a message that I won! I don't actually believe it, though, because It says I need to respond by April 12th (tomorrow), and I haven't gotten an email. Other people should check, maybe everyone has this message.

great minds think alike

I believe everyone has that message now. A couple of weeks ago, if you tried to log in you would get a message saying you declined the award.

A request for an NDSEG update on the facebook page has been up for over 3 hours now without a response. Maybe they're getting ready to start sending results? I feel like if they're still waiting on the DoD they would have responded with that information by now.

Replying to the OP's original question: My husband and I own a home near where we currently work, but I will be starting my PhD next year most likely at a school that is 3 hours away. Because he has a good job and I intend to get another job where we currently are located (we're both aero engineers near a good hub for our field), he will be staying here while I go to school. Our plan is for me to rent a room near my university where I will live during the week, and since 3 hours really isn't that far I will be driving home during the weekends. So really we're only pseudo-long-distance, but to even do that I decided to forgo applying to any schools that were even further away.

Thanks everyone for the advice! As a distance student, I didn't have a regular academic advisor (I picked classes on my own and didn't have anyone to talk to about planning my program), my research advisor was only selected automatically for me during my last semester based on what I stated my research interests were, so he's only known me for the 3 months I worked on the project. I'm not in a rush to get the letters (I'm putting in applications during fall 2016 for starting fall 2017 - I think I missunderstood the "application season" profile setting), so I will email my MS research advisor and get his opinion before I officially ask for LORs.

Hello everyone! This is my first post here, so I apologize if I could have made this better/more clear: I graduated from undergrad 3 years ago and have been working/getting my MS since then. Since PhD programs require 3 recs, and they prefer tenured faculty, I am having a tough time deciding who to ask for LORs. Here is who I'm deciding between: Undergrad senior project research advisor: She was a new professor when I did my research project. The project was 3 years ago and with a partner (so it wasn't just me alone), and it was in human factors (not exactly the subfield I'm going into), but I think she can write a decent letter for me. Undergrad summer research advisor: He is a NASA employee (no PhD, not faculty), but the research I did was more closely related to what I want to study and was entirely my own (I also elaborate more on it in my SOP than any other research I've done). It was also 3.5 years ago, though. Grad professor: Okay, I did a distance-learning MS (not a for-profit degree, it is exactly the same as the on-campus program but instead of having myself physically in the classroom I had to watch the lectures online a couple of hours after they occurred in real-life). I had the same assignments and requirements as on-campus students, and did a research project in the end. This particular professor taught my favorite class, which, based on his comments, I did better than most on the assignments and exams. I had decent email interaction with him, but never face-to-face, and I didn't do any research under him. Grad research advisor: This would seem like a sure choice since it was recent and, while the project was not as related as #2 for what I want to do, it is more closely related than #1. However, my advisor was really hands-off on my project, and he never responded to my request for comments on my rough draft, so I honestly don't know his opinion on my work (other than the fact he gave me an A for the final report - I don't know what he liked/didn't, what to improve, etc.). Since I was a distance student, most of my communication with him was through weekly email updates I would send him, which he frequently did not reply to unless I explicitly asked for a reply in the subject line. Work supervisor: I work for a research organization that is tied to a good engineering university (the same one I got my MS from), and I have had the same boss since I started. He's worked really closely with me, so he can write a great rec and possibly go into even more detail about my grad research than my advisor (I did my MS while working, so I frequently discussed my plans and progress with him and also used the model I created for that project at work for a customer). However, he is research faculty like me (so no PhD), and my job is not directly related to what I want to study (it's modelling and simulation, which is related, but in electronic warfare, so not close to aerodynamics). In my situation, I believe the best LORs would be from 1, 2, and 5, but that set completely removes anyone from my MS program and only has 1 PhD. However, that group would give the best picture of what I can do in terms of research, which I feel would be more valuable to the application than the unknown elements of 3 and 4. I'm also worried that my distance-learning degree will be looked at negatively (it's from a top-5 aero program, and the distance aspect is not actually mentioned anywhere since the work is equivalent, but the committee will know because I don't work in the state the university is in....). Any advice?