even_it_up

You can apply as a senior, as a first year grad student, or as a second year grad student (but only if you have completed no more than 1 full year of graduate study). Since you will be in your third year next year I don't think you will be eligible again. But it might not hurt to check with the GRFP operations people.

Isn't this Friday Good Friday? If Fastlane is considered a government office then they would be closed for the holiday. But I'm not sure they are a government office.

It is letting you login to see rating sheets, but all you can see are previous years' reviews.

Sorry to admit, that yes (in my desperation) I have tried this. But it only tells me that the ratings sheet website is temporary unavailable. So no luck. The days are dragging by ....

I was too, until I noticed that this (Please note: Award notifications are expected to be sent out in Early April) was recently posted at nsfgrfp.org The wait continues....

This suggests that maybe there is increased funding for GRF's this year. We can hope anyway... http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?c ... &from=news

The program guidelines call for 1 inch margins, so I think it would be better to use those instead of the Word default of 1.25. Clever idea putting the references in the footer, I hadn't thought of that!

It does seem so daunting and impossible, but like everything else in the grad school experience, you just figure out how to do it. I assumed I would have a mild TA assignment in my first year, but when I arrived on campus I found out I was to be a lab instructor (meaning I had to teach two sections of an 80 minute lab/discussion for a Research Methods course) for a 300 level course. It was a crazy work load because I had to prepare my lectures and have office hours and do tons of grading. But like I said you just figure it out and you do it. Hopefully your school will have some resources to train first time teachers. At my university this was a one day seminar for teaching fellows. Your advisor and other grad students should be able to give you some tips and support as well. And don't forget, you're not the only one. Everyone else in your cohort is just as freaked out as you are. Good luck!

I am in your shoes psychstudent. I applied last year as a senior and got nothing, and then again this year as a first year doctoral student. I received HM this time, and will most definitely try again next year. It's a linear trend hopefully! The feedback was very positive with specific things I can work on to tweak for next year. If only it wasn't such a long wait

I think it is fruitless to search for any real rhyme or reason to who wins and why. There's no one thing that will get you in. I made HM this year, with no publications outside of conferences, mediocre GREs (1300), near perfect subject test scores, and a perfect gpa.