MagicMan

@laveritecestla Just curious, was it someone from the department or just the GEM Representative? If it wasn't the GEM Rep, was it a faculty member or someone involved with admissions or what? I've only been in contact with a GEM Rep at the Uni

@aldburg I'm playing the waiting game too. April 15th is the deadline and want to know for sure on GEM opportunities whether University or Associate Fellowship. GEM seems unresponsive when I ask they have just said they'll update us on what to do after companies have made their decisions if we weren't offered a Full Fellowship. I am in no way the person to trust 100% but I say while you wait to hear back from GEM you try to get in contact with the GEM representative at the school for your MS and see if they know anything of possibilities of funding. Some people have mentioned this has been successful for them and that some schools are not able to because their budget has been planned, only provide funding for Full Fellows, etc. See if they have any input. Also, I guess the more important decision would be deciding which track you would want to take. Those are two very different paths and that life decision is up to you. Depends on how much financial aid is important to you. If you would hands down choose the MS program if you received full tuition then I would say go with that one. Regardless, contact who you can before April 14th and if nothing of substance comes back then make the decision. I'm not sure how difficult/frowned upon it is to back out of accepting a PhD offer, obviously try not to. A lot of people have April 15th deadline so hopefully GEM takes this into account and gives us an actual update before then.

Just contacted GEM about any specific deadlines of University decisions to be considered for the Associate or University Fellow. They said, "Once employer selection are complete. We will send notice to all applicants with next steps in the application process." So just hang on tight. I have until April 15th to make my decision between my Universities so I guess I'll wait for GEM until I can't anymore. I also got put on Held last week randomly. So other people are correct in that some employers are still looking.

Long time reader first time poster. Appreciate all of the updates and congrats to anyone who has been accepted for a full fellowship with an employer and to their respective programs. I wanted to double check with anyone here to see if I misinterpreted things. The process to become a University or Associate Fellow somewhat makes sense. We get accepted by a University. The GEM Program can offer us a University or Associate Fellowship. The University can then accept us as a GEM Fellow. However, I am wondering if there is a certain timeline for this. Is there a deadline to declare on the GEM Portal which University you plan to attend? From the information provided it seems like there is one for mid-March. For example, if a University does not make you aware of their decision until late March but the deadline to let GEM know your school of choice is mid-March what should you do? I have been accepted to about half of the programs I have applied to which are partner schools but haven't heard back from anyone else yet. One of them is unlikely but is still one of my top choice programs. Any information would be helpful. I could be misunderstanding something very simple but I've read over things and still am not confident. Thought I would ask you guys before contacting GEM. Thanks!