warbrain

So apparently my host found out that I got it for the Netherlands, but I'm not supposed to know. And I haven't received any official word from NSF.

I e-mailed Rick a while back, he said we'd hear back mid-May.

Got the award, even though I didn't even get honorable mention the last two times! 2nd year computer science, my reviews were E/E, VG/VG, E/E. For those of you confused about your scores, I think there are a few things to keep in mind. First, the raw scores the reviewers give are a bit more fine-grained than what we see, and are on a scale of 1-50 where E corresponds to 40-50 and VG is 30-39 or something like that. So the average of two E's might actually be less than the average of an E and a VG, depending on where in those ranges the E and VG are. And then scores are normalized for each reviewer, that way you don't get penalized for having a harsh reviewer. Though something's definitely wrong when someone with all E's only gets honorable mention.

Uhh, I like only just now sent my GRE scores, am I screwed?

Not sure if this has been discussed already, but is it helpful to put preliminary results in our proposal, especially if we're second-year graduate students? I think for other grant applications that's actually not helpful because it makes it seem like you have less work to do, and don't need the money as much, but I've heard the opposite for the NSG GRFP.

I didn't get it for Computer Science, my reviews were VG/G E/VG VG/VG I'm actually surprisingly okay with this, my reviews were a lot more positive than last year (when I got VG/VG and F/F) even though I hadn't really done anything in the past year cuz of senioritis and stuff. I also anticipated the negative comments I got this year, which made them easier to read. Can someone explain the process in greater depth? I assumed that those who got three reviews made it past the first cut, but it seems like that's not the case since some people with two reviewers got Honorable Mention. And after the first cut, are all your reviews considered equally, or would more weight be placed on your third review, since the first two got you past the first cut anyways?

Yea, I don't have an advisor yet, and even if I did, I doubt he would be able to say much about me after only two months.

As a first year grad student, should I ask someone at my graduate school for a recommendation? I've heard that it looks bad to not have a recommendation from your advisor or someone from your school, but considering that no one even knows me yet (school starts tomorrow) I feel like the recommendation won't be that great.

Are people considering doing the MacCracken housing? And does anyone know if smoking is permitted there? I've tried searching online but couldn't find anything.

Of course, this pales in comparison to my friend who got an e-mail looking for hosts for the visit weekend before she even got a rejection letter. And before anyone asks, this department does accept its undergraduates for grad school - I can think of at least 5 current grad students who went here for undergrad, and 5 more who got accepted this year.

I guess this is over, but did most people get an e-mail after they called for their status?

I looked up where a lot of the awardees in my area who hadn't started attending graduate school yet are going now, and it seems like a lot of people are not going the school they stated. Also, does anyone have any stories about people who got rejected from a lot of grad schools, but still ended up getting the fellowship? I'm not sure if it's still worth it to be hopeful now that I've been getting so many rejections.

Did anyone not accepted to Georgia Tech have a "Note from Admissions" in their activity page?

I have a feeling that he's a non native English speaker who just means he's going to be so awesome later on that Washington is going to look dumb for having rejected him.

That analogy makes no sense. If applying to graduate school is like swimming in a shark tank to you, you shouldn't be applying to graduate school in the first place,