[Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship]

Hello all! Congrats to everyone who was awarded and the honorable mentions! I have a question for those of you that got awarded this time: 

1) If you applied more than once, what exactly did you change when you applied this time around? 

2) My references are definitely people who know me well and know my work well. But in the feedback one of the reviewers thought the letters were alright but not great - do you have any recommendations on what I should do to change that this time around for the application? 

Any other advice/recommendation/help is much appreciated! Thank you in advance!  I am a second year school psychology doctoral student, btw. 

[Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship]

11 minutes ago, Today12345 said:

I received the award; this was my third try.  I applied before starting grad school, during my first few months of grad school, and then at the beginning of my second year.  A number of things changed.  First, I changed my research focus.  This was not because of the fellowship, but it may have helped, because this time around, I had a more focused research area grounded in theory as opposed to practice from my prior employment.  Second, the third time around, I had done some preliminary work on my research proposal.  It is possible that they want to see that the study can actually be conducted so that they reward folks that can show that they have begun work on it.  I had access to a proposal by someone that received the Ford a few years ago and he had also already conducted some research on his topic.  Hope this helps and I do encourage you to reapply.  Do not be discouraged. 

Thank you! That makes a lot of sense. I am currently in my first year so I did feel like I could have been a bit more focused. What field are you in? It's encouraging to read your response. 

[Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship]

For those of you who got awarded after applying more than once...what changed? what did you do differently? I want to reapply next year and i know i'll have different research experiences and stuff by then but i'm curious to hear about your individual situations. congrats

[Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship]

Got rejected too   sorry guys...next year

[Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship]

I spoke to someone from the office and they said they'd be sending out email notifications by the end of next week or the beginning of the following week. Fingers crossed!