Writer86

Congratulations on your interview, sat0ri! I haven't yet received an interview request for the UK Open Award, so...I'm anxious. I think I did fail to mention that my application falls under the arts category -- still a research/study grant, but 'Arts' rather than 'Academic.' That changes the entire review process, so I should probably stop trying to make sense of the notification timelines for past years. From what I surmise, having been selected as a semi-finalist in the arts means I was approved by the designated NSC creative subcommittee, and now my application is tossed back into the overall UK pool for further processing...? The Arts Application Statistics PDF seems to imply that, anyhow: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/country-review-resources. It does make the "semi-finalist" designation murky. Under the 'Arts' category, it seems like semi-finalists are determined based on field (music, theatre, etc.) rather than country. I have to assume that they wouldn't tell me I'm a semi-finalist unless they meant I'd "made the cut" in both the 'Arts' pool *and* the UK pool, but...who knows! In any case, I'm happy to have found a forum where I can be an anxious puddle of confusion alongside talented strangers :-)

Last year, I applied for a UK Partnership Award, and I didn't make it beyond the initial screening. This year I applied again, but for the UK Open Award (the university I'm applying to this time doesn't have a Partner Award at the PhD level, only MA). I did make it to the semi-finalist round for this cycle, happy to say! I proposed essentially the same project in both cycles, so I definitely think it's worth giving it another shot. I think one of the biggest differences in my case is that I didn't have a firm affiliation last year; I had been in contact with members of the university's faculty, but no one had agreed to supervise my work. This year, I managed to secure a dissertation supervisor at my target university before the Fulbright deadline, which allowed me to emphasize the affiliation in my application materials (i.e., "This isn't a total pipe dream! Someone likes this project enough to supervise it!").

I was also selected as a semi-finalist for the UK Open Award, and I find myself wondering the same thing regarding the "1.5-2.0x candidates vs. awards" question. It does seem unlikely that they would only forward ~4 applications to the next round...but here's hoping!