sat0ri

Yes as @NikkiC asked, can you please share what country and program? You know, for the benefit of other, future applicants. Also, I didn't see you list yourself in the spreadsheet (listed below); I could even add the info for you https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AlU2xDiiVhQjK3quPy6qXJuhgXYghzzG8L4YNT0unX0/edit?pli=1#gid=1893879233

You can check what day of the week based on past years' data. For example, for the past 10 years for UK Fulbright awards, all notifications were sent out on Saturday or sometimes Sunday. Further it tended to be the 3rd or 4th weekend of the month. As far as time of day, I don't think you can be that precise with your neuroticism! Which isn't to say I wouldn't totally love to have that level of precision myself

So, you are a Fulbright hopeful coming from Egypt hoping to study in MD? From my experience with the US Fulbright, they have a searchable database with the value of the grant. So for UK partnership Fulbrights, they typically pay for whatever cost of tuition and provide a ~13,000 USD living grant, which is enough to not necessarily have to work there, but obviously not enough for a lavish stay either. For Baltimore there are some cheap areas, but that is also a very dangerous city.

So for UK Fulbright, based on previous years, it looks like notifications are sent on either the 3rd or 4th weekend (on Saturday or Sunday) of May. That will be a nerve-wracking weekend...

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Actually it is the other way around. They do not want you to have too much experience in the country. However, at the same time you need a compelling reason for wanting to study in the host country (I imagine the language involvement you mention might be considered a compelling reason). EDIT: "For most programs, applicants who have had extensive previous foreign experience in the host country are at a competitive disadvantage, but are still eligible to apply." Source (under the "Eligibility" tab; http://us.fulbrightonline.org/about/eligibility)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AlU2xDiiVhQjK3quPy6qXJuhgXYghzzG8L4YNT0unX0/edit#gid=1893879233 @bgp5 @Dilemma1 Thank you for the well wishes! I hope we all get our spots in the UK!

Has anyone sent a follow-up email after their interview?

So I think it is definitely possible, but I don't know about MIT specifically. Before deciding to do a master's degree abroad I looked into Harvard's policy on this. The website for Harvard Chemistry PhD FAQ's says the following: "If I apply and am accepted, may I defer my admission for one year? Requests to defer admission must be approved by the admissions committee. Generally, deferrals will only be approved for "notable" Fellowship Awards (e.g. Marshall, Fulbright, etc.), medical, and military reasons."

A few people here got interviews for the Polland Fulbright, I think it is just a few pages back. I also just received an interview invite (for open award UK on 2/15--I was dying of dread and barely had an ember of hope) and I will be doing some "homework" going through the old forums. If I unearth anything worthwhile, I'll post a reply to you. Something that was said earlier in this thread by a previous Fulbright fellow that I repeated to the other Polland Fulbright semifinalist was that they either have you as accepted or alternate. You can be downgraded to an alternate if you bomb your interview; however, doing a killer job on the interview won't get you bumped up to alternate. What I take from this is just be confident and don't stress too much, because it is basically out of your hands at that point (just don't do horrendous, which isn't so hard, right?). I really need to find the original quote to confirm the ethos/veracity on that...

@bgp5 Did you get any word yet? I looks like someone here was notified as late as 2/10, so really I guess you never know

You are the absolute best!!! Thank you so much for this. EDIT decrease space.

MPhil in Chemistry at Cambridge (so an open award). I have a professor and a designated project lined up, which is maybe why I got to semi-finalist. I noticed a few typos in my application, so I'd be pretty upset if that's what stopping me from moving on haha. It could also be because I'm not hitting the cultural exchange aspect of Fulbright hard enough. Essentially, one of the main reasons for choosing Cambridge was only a few people in the world are doing this particular research. I think this process would be a lot easier if they just let us know one way or the other. I think I just want some closure at this point, but I'm still keeping an ember of hope alive.

Well, I'm in the same boat as you, but as you know, interviews are expected to be completed in February, and given that they seem to be 2 weeks out from the invitation date, I'd say me and you probably should give up hope by the end of this week. Given that other UK interviews went out there is cause for concern, but being in the top 3 most applied to location could conceivably give rise to some delay. It's really tough to say without better data though

So I think others getting interviews at your partnered institution has some diagnostic value. If people are getting interviews were you applied to, that's a bad sign. It looks like the UK awards come out in a staggered fashion. What uni did you apply to? If no one received an invite from there yet, I don't think you need to fret quite yet. The data to draw on is very limited. This year, the 2 UK semifinalists who reported the dates they received interview invites were within the same week. Last year, only 2 people self-reported their dates of interview invites, so it's really difficult to draw any meaningful insights from the data here. Given that Fulbright's are so competitive, and no so more than for US-UK awards, regardless of how strong your application is, it is a good idea to be making preparations for a back up plan. However, at the current time, I don't think you should give up hope--it seems a bit early for that.

Hey there, also an UK open award semifinalist (see Google doc) and I have not received any interview invites yet. Have you received an interview invitation?? I'm guessing not by the fact you are asking. I'm fairly worried myself based on seeing all these UK partnership awards being sent out, but based on last year final decisions notifications open awards might be sent later. @Writer86 was also a semifinalist but s/he hasn't been on the cafe since their original posts. Earlier in the thread we were wondering how many open award semifinalist there were. They say 1.5-2 amount of the awards (so 3-4) but open awards might be different given the low numbers (so more interviews would be feasible) and high competition (more qualified applicants).

@Writer86 Did you receive an interview invite?

Was your friend applying to UK partnership or open award? Do you know what university they applied to?

So that was a very short waiting game haha (less than 48 hours?)... but congratulations! It sounds to me like you're the first on this board to get an interview invite. What did it say in the email? How long is the interview supposed to last? As far as interview tips I'd say 2 things I would add--which are exclusively based off what I read in this thread--are: 1) Someone here said something to the effect of, if you have an interview, they already have in mind if you are a principal or alternate and the interview is just to make sure you don't bomb. So, if you are a principal, a bad interview could knock you down to alternate or even nonselect. However, if you an alternate a good interview will not bump you up (comparatively it's less likely). Provided this is valid information, to me, I would take this as a bode of confidence, that your fate is already determined to an extent so don't over stress about making a big, positive splash on the interview; just be confident enough to not totally fall apart because it is mostly out of you hands at that point. This information (if true) should ease some of the pressure of the interview. 2) Again I'm getting this info through this thread, people have cited in the past how important having strong affiliations with the host location. So apart from having everything in your application totally down pat, I'd pay special attention strengthening you reasoning of, in your case, "why Poland?" and really be well prepared to knock that particular question out of the park. Again, just my thoughts, hope my two cents adds up to more than nonsense!

Congratulations. It looks like me and you are applying to entirely different programs (Chemistry and English). Reading your other post, I also had a really strong affiliation with the university, and had a fully planned research project, so it seems that is a very big factor. How are you handling the decision? Excitement? Anxiety? I'm practically shaking with nervousness as I keep imagining endless permutations of receiving vs not receiving the award :S Also, do you have official acceptance into the university you selected? I received informal notification via email that I was marked as accepted, but the university has a complicated and multi-tiered admission process, so I don't know exactly how much water that holds.

So they requested a transcript from the bachelor's degree granting institution -- so that's the only one we need to submit, right? All my course work from every institution I attened is on the transcript from my B.S. degree university, so I'm guessing I don't need to submitted any other transcripts because I didn't get receive a B.S. degree from those institutions? Any thoughts?

Thanks, I wanted to make sure I was getting disproportionately excited by the news, for instance, if the semi-finalist only had a perfunctory review of their applications. PS. EDIT - Above it stated that for UK awards, GPA might figure in more prominently. However, I have found absolutely nothing regarding quantified GPA's of successful applicants.

I was selected as a semi-finalist for UK - open award. Does anyone know what was entailed in the selection process for semi-finalists (formerly called finalist)? For instance, was our entire application read through before being selected, or was it based on some standard metric like GPA? Also it says here ( http://us.fulbrightonline.org/information-for-recommended-candidates ) that 1.5-2.0 candidates where recommended (i.e., semi-finalist) compared to how many would be offered the fellowship. For the UK - open award where there is only 2 openings, does that mean ~4 people were recommended? ("What is the ratio of candidates recommended to grants given in each country? The National Screening Committees typically recommend 1.5-2 times the number of candidates as there are grants available for a particular award.") Finally, anyone want to hazard a guess what the average GPA is for UK awards? 3.5? 3.9?