Dilemma1

Yep. I'm spending my time refreshing my email (even though it probably wont' be a few more weeks until the UK announces) and contemplating everything I wished I would have said during my interview.

I hope you will be able to get bumped up! Being an alternate is really bitter sweet and the feeling of uncertainty doesn't help. Best of luck to you!

WOO! Congrats to our community's first acceptance!

I think that would be completely reasonable. This time of the year a lot of decisions are being made between jobs, internships, scholarships, etc. They would certainly be understanding of the pressure you're under to make a decision.

That's right! I forgot about the snail mail! Finding out in the subject line (P/A/NS) is almost as bad as finding out by the shape of the envelope! I would probably be driving my parents crazy by now pestering them about any mail that's arrived I'm rather lucky because there are a few other scholarships I can apply for that will help me pursue my program regardless of the Fulbright. Don't get me wrong it would be an absolute DREAM to be a Fulbright Scholar, but I don't think I can put everything on hold again. Good luck with your applications! Job applications can be so stressful

I agree! The first announcements are definitely going to help give us a better idea of if there are any delays. The last four years (2013-2016) the first announcement dates were March 3 (2016) and March 4 (2013-2015). The four years before that (2009-2012) were between March 8 and March 13. So the last four years of being early March seems to just be a recent thing. Personally, I would find it strange if absolutely no one has heard anything before the 20th. I'm really grateful that this forum exists and that we have access to several years of other applicants information. It's making the wait much more tolerable!

It varies greatly between awards. Last year I found out in the morning and from the spreadsheet it seems like afternoons are just as common. It's a hard thing to prepare for since there's no way of knowing what day the announcements for each country will happen!

For my interview they asked the same questions about what I'd bring to the UK, where I would go, leadership experience/style, and why Fulbright was important but the US question was: "What is a current US issue/topic that you would have to* explain once you were in the UK. *(need to? I can't exactly remember what word they used) I chose to talk about immigration. I was prepping for a question about a current UK topic or something about the current administration, so it was a slightly different twist. I think we are asked the same questions from a list but maybe they can't get to all of them in the 15 minutes if they ask a lot side questions or if the interviewee's response takes up a larger portion of the interview.

Last year every UK semi-finalist was notified on the same day (this is typical for every country, although research and ETA can differ). I feel like this should hold true this year. Although the notification information that was found on that page held (pretty) true for the first round. My interview is at 3:30pm UK time, which is a very narrow window to send all of the recommendations to the FFSB. It could be that the UK decisions are sent to the FFSB in batches and the final notifications from the FFSB are sent to applicants at the same time. I'm not entirely sure how the internal part of the process works...hopefully I'm not adding to the confusion!

Thank you for sharing! I hope you can relax now that the interview is over Hopefully it's only a month until we find out!

Thanks! The Skype interview is going to be interesting. I've done a casual interview via Skype but never anything serious. I'm planning on practicing to make sure the lighting and audio will be good. I wish you the best of luck!! You're going to rock it!

I received an invitation to interview this morning at 7:40am CT for the UK! It's going to be a Skype interview on March 3. Fellow UK applicants that have been interviewed: was your interview over Skype?

Oh wow! That's so early! I'm sure you did great Yeah, it's gonna be a long wait until late March...fingers crossed that notification time stays true.

Last year I received the interview invite on Wednesday the 10th and received confirmation of my confirmation on Friday the 12th. You should hear back early next week. If you don't receive an email confirmation I would recommend calling the individual who sent the initial invite and get verbal confirmation that way. Did the email say when the deadline to respond was?

Congratulations! Thank you for sharing this information. It's a relief to hear confirmation that they are still sending out interview invites!

No worries! How did your interview Monday go? I'm in the exact same position as you are. I had an interview last year (found out about the interview the second week of February) and was named alternate...I'm planning on emailing my FPA on Friday about what this could mean or if she has heard anything (like maybe they aren't doing as many interviews). Part of me wants to hope but really I'm going to assume that I need to pursue other ways of funding my study this coming fall. Looking back at previous years I have not seen a single person on this Forum who has received the UK grant without receiving an interview. I've read other people's response saying things like "they don't interview everyone" and every combination of that but from the data available I'm not sure how true those statements are. Regardless, none of us will definitively know if we are going to (P), (A), or (NS) until the final selections happen mid-March. So the best bet is to get it out of our minds (easier said than done) and have a little faith for good news come March. I do strongly recommend making a plan B just in case to ease the mind. I'm trying to find a mix of optimistic and realistic.

I'm not handling it that well...I'm trying to find things to distract myself but it's not working that well. Thankfully I have to go to work soon so that will take my mind off waiting for an email for a little while. I'm starting to wish the UK didn't have interviews so it wasn't another thing to worry about....

I noticed on the spreadsheet this is your second time applying! Did you apply to the UK the first time as well?

There's always been some confusion about this in previous years. This is from the 2014-15 forum by visanth14 who said on Feb 14, 2014 about how yes the Fulbright US/UK website seems pretty definitive when it comes to interviews BUT: "..... I'm not sure that that's entirely the case. My FPA contacted some of her FPA "listserv friends" to see if other FPAs have had UK applicants with a similar experience. Their responses suggest that you and I are definitely not alone in being invite-less and that not all invites may be sent out at the same time. Additionally, some of them seem to think some candidates who are being seriously considered aren't interviewed at all. Also, I came across a message posted in a similar Fulbright forum a couple years back written by a UK applicant who was recommended but didn't get an interview invite. The applicant contacted the International Advisor to find out if his/her application was still under consideration. The applicant posted the International Advisor's response: ""Not to worry... It simply means that the committee has sufficient info without requiring an interview, but the candidate is still in play. As you can imagine, we just can't interview all 600+!" So, basically, there's really no way to know anything just yet. Cheers to hanging in there and waiting it out!"

Hey @minswho would you mind adding your interview info to the spreadsheet? It's really helpful for current and future Fulbright applicants to get a sense of how long the wait is and when to expect certain news. Thank you in advance! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AlU2xDiiVhQjK3quPy6qXJuhgXYghzzG8L4YNT0unX0/edit#gid=929221519

Nope! They are spread out. Last year the first one went out Feb 3 and I received mine Feb 10 and sat0ri's was received on Feb 15! I wouldn't start to worry until it's past mid-February. Even then some places truly do not do interviews...there is absolutely still a chance!

Congrats! I had an interview last year and questions included "If you had a free weekend what would you do and why?" and also "what is a contemporary British issue you have been keeping up with?". At least those were the questions that stuck out to me. Expect a couple of questions about the program you chose and why. Also on page 30 we have been talking about the very high possibility that a question about the current political climate and Trump should be expected as well. Also here is a good resource (it's from 2011 but it is still useful): http://www.depauw.edu/files/resources/ukfulbrighttelephoneinterviewquestions_pomona2011.pdf

I'm going for a partnership with Leicester. I messaged the finalist as well! She mainly focused on responding the the cultural ambassador type questions. Last year the earliest interview notification was Feb 3...so some might be finding out by the end of this week! Last year I found out on the 10th and had the interview on the 26th. You have a week to respond confirming you want the interview and that the contact info is correct.

I completely agree with you! Are you competing for a partnership or the open award?

People close to me have been telling me "don't bring up politics...no matter what!!" if I get an interview, but at this point there is no way to avoid it. With the UK parliament having scheduled a debate to to either ban the state visit or relabel it an official visit I feel that the US/UK are very interconnected right now and it would be a glaring oversight to not comment on it if asked during an interview. Thanks for your tip and thoughts @daishahistory