mtlve

This happened last year, so they may have planned to pull it down this year

Did you guys really see your percentile? They had that covered on the sheets last year. Maybe they had to take them down, because they were not supposed to be there. Boy I would really love to know if I had two or three sheets!

Does someone want to call and ask them what the ETA is on the release? I called them yesterday. It seems like things are starting to come out, so they might have received the list from NSF.

Someone need to send the following to NSF soon: Dear NSF, Please stop the madness: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=14349&start=255 Put these poor souls out of the misery and tell them now whether they received a fellowship or not! Sincerely, XXXX This thread is funny. They probably do not want to terminate their source of entertainment!

My left pane has that too. A bunch of those options have always been there (not sure on this one specifically), so I do not think it means anything. I am not sure, but I think the grad fellow info (meaning you got the award) was on the main part of the page last year. I do not know if anyone can clarify this point. Where ever it was last year, it was clear to those individuals that they were then fellows. From my talks with the people there, I doubt we will see any of the "tricks" until Friday at the earliest. They were telling us last year that the awards would be out in several days before people were able to access the tricks.

I agree that it gives hope for both of the online tricks this year (login to fastline and changing the web address), but I bet that they will try to pay more attention to it this year. We probably should keep logging into fastlane to see if we get the fellows page since this happened 1st last time around.

I called too, and a lady told me that it would probably be next week. The last she heard days ago was that it would next week or the end of this week at the earliest! She told me how this whole thing works: 1. NSF has to approve the list of awardees 2. NSF has to give the list of awardees to fastlane so they can set up all of the electronic files 3. Fastlane has to write award, HM and rejection letters and NSF has to approve them. 4. everything goes out It sounds like they usually know that things are going to go out a few days in advanced. They have not heard anything so it probably will not be this week. I wonder what is taking NSF so long to make the list of awardees? Maybe they lost our applications! It could also be a funding issue.

To add to this, I looked at the discussion from last year, and they were telling people at least 3 days before hand that they were sending out the notifications that week. If we keep up all of the posting we can surpass last years thread long before they send out the notifications. Last years thread had 15 pages and we are at 13 already! Well back to my paper........

I just called and they have the same story as people who called yesterday said. They said that we would be notified sometime in the first 1/2 April, and he could not say whether it would be this week or not.

negative for me

I can no longer find the page that says 30 or 31, so I bet we will not hear today.

You can accept both, but I think there is an order that you have to take them. I do not know this order. In the worst case, the probability of getting NDSEG is 1/2 of NSF chance. I think the probabilities for some of the disciplines are equal. Both of them are a good thing to have on your resume.

Has anyone tried calling? I reached the voicemail for a lady that works there. I wish that they would just tell us which of the online messages is correct (today vs later in the week). Is that too much? Maybe they are held up by NSF. The website says you have a week to accept their fellowship. Anyone know if you get both, which one do you take 1st. If you take NSF 1st, one would think that they have to wait until NSF is close to announcing. Maybe this is a bad sign for NSF too!

Sorry if this is a repeat post. I believe that the director said that ~15% get hm and 10% get the award. I wonder if this is a little high, since I do not think 1/4 of the applicants I know got the award/hm.

I still bet they send them out late tomorrow. If they had finalized everything during their last day, they probably would have told use last week. I bet they still have things to do/confirmations before they send out the emails. Good luck everyone!

They added a clause last year to the eligibility requirement saying that experience can count as grad school. The director of the NSF GRFP specifically said that this means that 2nd years that took time off to work in a lab are not eligible (too much grad school). The answer to your eligibility question: If you took time off, you are not eligible. If you did not take time off, you may be eligible next year (but not definately). It seems pretty qualitative, depending on who reviews your app. Some reviewers may throw out an app while others may not do this to the same app.

We all have a 10% chance. My stuff was well written and I have a very strong arguement for why I need the award. I am hoping that this (probably rare) arguement will help increase my probability, but is probably still around 10%. This thing is a crap shoot. The people who are reviewing the apps are going to pick projects related to their interests. If you are in this area your probability of selection increases. If you are not in this area, then it decreases. There is no way to predict which group your in. I hope they tell us early this week. I have to write this big paper for a rotation this week, but I know I will instead be checking my email every 30min until we hear back!

I am waiting for this one too. This app seemed very stats happy (good but not outstanding stats), so I think my chances are nearly zero for this one. I am hoping for some good news from NSF though. Good luck to everyone else waiting! They notified everyone late in the day last year, so the notification may be late afternoon. Does anyone know if we get any sort of feedback on this application (rating sheets....)?

I am a 1st year at Duke. The significant others of my classmates all easily found jobs. One of them works in an elementary school, but they are not a teacher. We hope to see you at Duke. Good luck deciding.

From what I picked up from last years thread, there is no order in which they send email notifications. It did seem like they sent the positives for a particular area before the negative (not completely sure of this). Amongst all of the areas, people were posting positives and negatives pretty much simultaneously for several hours (initial few were all positives). They said that emails were going to be sent out last year before the list was published, but I received my email (a negative) after the list was published. People did hack into the system before it was published so lists of HMs were floating around online before that list was published, and that was probably why it was published before the emails went out. People also figured out that they won when they logged into the application system and there was a page for NSF Fellows. People that have their review codes from the prior year could also access their reviews. If you had three reviews, there was a chance that you may have got the award (2 means you did not make the initial cut). I do not know if any of these tricks will hold for this year. They might have fixed the glitches!

I agree that admissions is not the reason. Last year the director of the NSF GRFP told me that the minority of the applicants that apply/get the award are not currently graduate students. If this is true, it does not make since that they would delay notification due to a minority of the award applicants. If the purpose of the April notification was to not change admissions, then why would they not wait until after April15 to let people know? People are fairly deadlocked in so their fellowship decisions would be less of a factor. In the past few years they have notified people anywhere between Early/mid March and the first week of April. Based on all of this evidence, I just can't see admissions as being the whole factor for an early April notification. Having worked for the federal government for several years, I suspect that it has more to do with the administration/funding of the fellowship (or a combination of things that may or may not including not wanting to change admissions decisions).

Maybe they are delaying it because they got lots more money and they need to decide who else to give awards too!- I know this is wishful thinking.

For those checking fastlane, they do not post the results on fastlane. You have to wait until they post the results on the website or get an email (or if you have the review codes from last year-unlike me). If remember correctly, fellows were able to log into fastlane and get a fellows page before they received email notification. I do not know whether this was all of them or a fraction of them. Here is to a couple more weeks of waiting. I too am waiting for NSF and NDSEG.

Your posts suggest that you just want assurance that you should to go to Cambridge, so just go to Cambridge. We do not want unhappy grad students (who wanted to go Cambridge or school x) here at Duke. I am currently a biology grad student at Duke. In regards to the environment at Duke, everyone is an intellect and the school is known for this in the states. I cant compare the intellectual environment to Cambridge. Within the states the general public will probably be more impressed with Duke grads than Cambridge, because the non-intellectual arent that familar with the British system. Duke is at the same level academically as the ivys here (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc). Intellectuals in the states probably view them fairly equally. If you are interested in doing a post-doc in the states in my field (molecular/cell biology), you should be aware that some PIs here view doctorate degrees in the states as better than the British system because they are longer (my old boss, a big name, was very hesitant to hire British system grads strait from grad school). In terms of getting a job in the states, both schools are fine. Students here are very intellectual, but they are well rounded and have lots of different interests outside of school. You would need other interests outside of being an intellect (a basketball fan also helps), if you want to fit in at Duke. You will also need to loose the attitude you displayed in your post or you will make enemies here. Good luck with your decision. Go to Cambridge if you really want it that much! In regards to the Southern comments by yankervitch, research triangle lacks a lot of similarities with the rest of the south. The exceptions- we have southern hospitality and the nice southern weather. As a northerner that never wanted to live in the south, this area is nice-lacks the major cons I associate with the south.

Don't be afraid to tell the middle level school that you are also interested in better school, but make sure that you do not come across as believing the other schools are better. I did this with UNC last year when I said they are my top choice along with Duke, Yale, and Hopkins (actually was since they have some of the best cytoskeleton research in the country). This seemed to work very well. I think lower schools love to take people from the top schools. I would have concrete reasons that you are considering them along with the other schools. Again do not give them any hints that you do not think they are at the same level as the other schools (or you will be rejected). Best of luck