lkaitlyn

Selfishly happy to see UCI break T20 but at the same time, the reality is placement is what matters, no matter what U.S. News says. This does, however, seem to better reflect placement as of late. Yale being in the T20 is odd (no offense to anyone who goes there — talking about placement, range of research) but okay then, U.S. News ...

Congrats!

To @EggplantFondue: An NSF reviewer from a few years back who did an AMA said that NSF reviewers give number ratings we can't see, so the whole G/VG thing doesn't tell you much about what they actually said. On top of that, they use z-scores to standardize between reviewers, so that's how some people with several VGs and Gs get it while others with all Es don't — if you happened to get easy reviewers, your Es didn't mean as much, and conversely, if you got hard reviewers, positive reviews from them meant more. Not sure if they're still doing it this way but hopefully that helps explain a little? (TL;DR: This is a subjective mess.)

Legitimately shocked to be recommended and so thankful for all of you amazing people for being supportive and begging me through the app and waiting period Social sciences- sociology: VG/E, E/E, E/E

Some kind, neurotic soul from last year made this nifty spreadsheet (thank you, person in old thread!), if anyone wants to obsess more. FYI, the first to post about last year was ~11:15 EST. Edit: Also check out that thread for detailed analyses regarding average time between maintenance starting and results being released.

Oh fail re: the mass email. That's a bit funny.

Care to share any info about what school this is for? Even just a ranking or location range? This seems very strangely numeric for a lot of programs.

Congrats! That's great!

Just wanted to let soc people know that they're starting to release decisions! Got a nice rejection with some scattered (but helpful) feedback. If you're still waiting, hang in there! ❤️

Also waiting in soc! Glad I'm not alone in being ghosted haha.

To people who are alternates (congrats!): We think NSF is going to announce tomorrow based on the maintenance schedule for the website, so that will probably get some people to turn down Ford in the next couple weeks just due to the $ difference. Not sure how many actually do turn it down, but I'd imagine that the turnover is greater in hard sciences than social sciences/humanities just given the dearth of social sciences/humanities fellowships out there.

Still nothing over here. Why they haven't figured out how to mass email everyone at the same time, I haven't a clue. Reminds me of the grad school app process haha. ?‍♀️ Serious congrats to everyone on this thread, though. Just doing the application (and waiting for the results) is a lot of work and stressful, and I think you all sound like you're doing amazing things.

Congrats! Via email?

Still wishing we had crashed that Zoom meeting. ?

April Fools does not seem like an ideal day to release NSF-GRFP decisions. ?

I think it's a bit exaggerated/not as big of a thing as people think. Then again, I'm at a school that cares a lot more about their diversity in that regard than others. We have people from Ivy League schools, and people who transferred from community college to random Cal State campuses or went to schools in random other countries. I think the edge that applicants coming from these fancy schools get (at least, what I got as one of these applicants) is more application support. Most (all?) of the Ivy League-type schools have many emails and workshops encouraging students to apply to NSF-GRFP/Fulbright as undergrads. I knew my professors well and they had plenty of connections in the field (though in my case, that was gender studies specifically instead of sociology). We had a super active fellowship advising office that would help look over personal statements. We had student groups that ran GRE test prep sessions and professors who told us to contact potential advisors in advance, something one potential advisor from a program I got into said can be super important, but they've found that most schools don't tell their undergrads to do it. To be clear, I don't think my undergrad school was in any way superior to other schools just because it plays in a specific sports league (that's actually what the Ivy League means — it's a sports league). But a lot of these schools do have a lot of money to burn on resources for students applying to graduate school, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I had access to resources that some other applicants from other schools just didn't have.

What's super awkward is that means we could have crashed that meeting!

Everyone hears at the same time. It doesn't come in waves. It's one massive announcement. So no.

The results have come out on a Tuesday or Friday for the last decade so very likely a false alarm, unfortunately.

I guess I'll have to buy comfort food earlier than I originally thought ...

I would wait until the summer to email. People are really focused on recruiting this year's cohort right now.

I would add some more to the list, not because there's anything weak about you/your profile, but because applications are so competitive (especially due to COVID when funding has been decimated). You're outside of my research area, but just based on what I've heard through word of mouth and some random articles I've come across, I'd also check out UCLA, Boston U, Vanderbilt (check out CLAS), UCI, Harvard, Stanford, and UT Austin. Also, it's great that you're contacting students. In the fall when you're applying, I'd check out the websites for each program you're applying to in July/August. Unless they explicitly say not to contact faculty (e.g., Stanford), send a short email to one faculty member at each school you really want to work with (a quick couple sentences introducing yourself and mentioning that you're interested in applying to X program, a sentence about why you're interested in that scholar's specific research and/or why it intersects with your interests, and one question such as asking if they're taking students or asking about their research). If the email is short, targeted (again, references the professor's specific work), and kind, many will respond. Edit: Oh, and sorry I didn't say this, but I think your profile sounds strong. Of course, much of it will come down to fit, personal statement, writing sample, and LORs, so there's only so much those of us on this forum can predict. That's why applying to closer to 10 schools, especially as an international student, is really important.

My point is/was that your career will be helped in the long run if you don't go to Yale just because it's Yale, and instead focus on what program will set you up to land a job. It's also super important to find ways other than school prestige to boost your self-esteem. Tying it to the fact that you went to an Ivy won't sustain you — trust me, I've been there. You can do whatever you want, but I hope you at least consider this.

"Better" is to some extent relative because if your research fits Cornell much better than Michigan you'll do better at Cornell. Objectively, assuming your research fits both, Michigan.

Prestige re: name brand to those not in your field doesn't matter. Prestige in terms of the program ranking itself does.