BioTurboNick

And I just got the rejection e-mail. 0 for 2 (this and NSF).

Still no e-mail of any kind here. A friend of mine e-mailed them to ask and got a response saying that both finalists and non-finalists will be notified by the end of the week. This makes me wonder whether the e-mails are all being sent manually too, because there's no reason it should be this slow if it's all automated.

I guess in this case, no news is bad news. The rest of us must either be rejected or on the waitlist. Unfortunately, because of how great the fellowship benefits are, probably isn't much hope for waitlisters. Though my project was only tangentally related to the DOE Office of Science priorities, I probably didn't have much of a shot anyway. Congrats to those who did get a callback!

I know it wasn't your priority when you called, but did they happen to say whether they were done making the congratulations calls?

Who did you get calls from? Was it a specific person? If we can find out how many people are making the calls, we'd have a better idea.

Just updating my no-HM rejection with relevant info. Intellectual Merit: VG VG Broader Impacts: G G I had a very strong academic record and strong recommendations which both reviewers commented on and some broader impact-type stuff, but there were several big deficiencies they pointed out: 1. Lack of publications and external presentations. Though some people can't really help this based on how their research goes... 2. Most of my broader impacts were things I wanted to do in the future, but had only done a little bit in the past. And if it helps others: GRE V/Q/W: 720/760/5 GRE Biochem Subject Test: 690 (95th percentile) Undergrad GPA: 3.61 Grad GPA: 3.92

Nada here. Not even an HM. And this was the last and only year I could apply. Oh well... I'll just have to wait on the even-less-likely DOE SCGF.

No problem, you also added some valuable intel for those who are new this year, like me!

I don't know... I'm thinking their strategy will be to take the site down, send out all the e-mails, then bring it back up after e-mails have been sent. That way, everybody will see their official e-mail first.

That's a little weird... why would the file be live on the server the minute the site goes down for maintenance? Still, make sure it isn't actually blank, and/or isn't the one from last year, as happened earlier.

I think its also worth pointing out that numbers posted here probably wouldn't be a statistically valid sample of the population, so I'm not sure it would even help for its intended purpose.

The way the proportion works is that every field has an equal chance of getting awards, I think.

Nah. They're not going to work weekends just to get things out faster. If they were ready, they'd have gone out Friday night. It's probable that they'll go out the night after they finalize everything, which I'm hoping early this week = Monday or Tuesday nights.

I can't think of any good reason to actually start paying them off now, assuming these are subsidized loans and not just payment-deferred. If, however, payment is deferred but you're still accumulating interest, then it wouldn't be a bad idea to start paying them down. But if the former was true, just pay whatever you would have paid to them into a high-interest U.S. savings account (like Ally Bank, HSBC, ING Direct, etc.) or even start a couple CD accounts when you've accumulated enough for that to make sense. You definitely shouldn't be using stocks or other non-guaranteed investments for such a short repayment time (<6 years). The other advantage to saving the money now is that its still available to you in case you have an emergency and need it back.

I did it too. The professor was also very careful to preface what he said that it was his personal view, but I think as long as you recognize that there could be a bias, go for it.

I had to choose between JHU BCMB (That's the one at the School of Medicine, right?) and Emory BCDB when I applied a couple years ago. I loved the research at both places, though I liked the research at JHU a little bit more. However, the stipends and insurance were comparable (though JHU included Dental, which would have been nice), I liked my potential classmates at Emory a little bit better, and I liked the area a lot more than I did downtown Baltimore, where I'm not sure I would have felt safe walking around for 6 years. Although I think they have a new complex they should be close to finishing that was supposed to include grad housing right next to campus which sounded like a plus. Just take a look at all of your options, and consider what's important to you, and especially somewhere you think you'll be happy for the next 5-6 years-who cares about the research if you'll be miserable outside of the lab!

Well at least they finally changed the "Application Status" message to say we'll be notified by April 15, 2010.

Well I remember taking exams and then wondering why it took professors so long to get work graded and back to us. Then I TAed a class and realized just how much work it is to review all those exams and return grades in a timely manner. I expect a similar effect is in operation here.

I don't know about 9-month stipends, but generally in grad school, at least when you get a 12-month stipend, its like having a full time job (and possibly then some), and usually the program or university has a policy about vacation time like any workplace. Or at least, it should. Definitely something to ask about. My program officially gives me 2 weeks off per year, but because grad students don't always keep 'normal business hours', the timing and whether you can take any extra can be highly dependent on the type of work you will be doing, how well you're working, can you work extra before and after to make up for it, how flexible your advisor is, etc.

I can see putting refs in past research experience if you've got publications... but why do you have refs in your personal statement? I only put references in my research proposal.

I hadn't applied before, and only had one past example from someone (an HM) to go from. I included 5 references which I thought were the core ones for my project. I cited them in-text as superscript numbers to minimize impact, and then in normal text at the end. I kept the font size the same for fear of violating a rule, but I did the most compact citation format I knew of (#. F. Author et al., J Abbr Vol, Pages (Year).), and put them indented so that the References label was on the same line as the first reference, so that it only took up 5 lines in total.

Update from the GRFP Facebook Page: "We'll *hopefully* be awarding this year's fellows in early April, so if you've applied this year, be patient-- you'll find out soon!" Another month to go... dang.

Oh, I apologize! I assumed you accidentally swapped the C and S. What bad choices for acryonyms though, DOE.

It says on the site that they are only funding ~80 students (Fellowship Info). Considering how awesome the funding is ($30,000 stipend, $10,500 tuition benefit, $5,000 research stipend), the research stipend being the key difference between it and the NSF GRF, and since its the DOE and their mission is much more specific than the NSF's, I'm not surprised by that.