julip

Yes, and with all due respect-- everyone can see now what an arbitrary system this is.

Has anyone been able to access the rating sheets page?

Last year they only shut down Fastlane for 2 hours, which resulted in a number of problems. NSF's whole deal this year has to do with (1) getting emails out before people can just look up the list online and find out about other people before those people can check their emails; and (2) not having everyone inundate Fastlane at the same time to use it as their primary source of notification, resulting in the same problem as in (1) What if.. The uploading of results to The List takes around 2 hours. We will start to get emails at the end of those 2 hours, with all emails completed by 5am. Last year people received emails between 1am and 4-5am. At 5am, after everyone theoretically has had a chance to view personal results via email, The List will be posted. .. thoughts? [edit] SORRY bioturbonick, totally just said what you said already. I seem to be doing this a lot today.

FYI: THE website notification from last year, taken from the 2009 thread "FastLane will be unavailable Thursday, April 9 from 11:00PM ET until 1:00AM ET on Friday, April 10 for scheduled maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Agreed! I got a lot of flak from my fellow first years (the huge majority of whom live in school housing with roommates) since I pay $300/month more than they do, to live in a wonderful studio apartment. I definitely live month-to-month, but I would not trade it for anything. The privacy and control over your own space is priceless, especially when you've come home at night from a hard day at lab. There's just a whole other dimension of stress that is added on by interaction with another person.

WEEELLLLLL!!?!?!?!?!??!

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 6 hours and counting

west coast people only have to stay up until 2am, but we'll probably end up pulling all-nighters anyway from laughing or crying... and then we'll probably get shaken awake by another earthquake.

From the Program Announcement: Estimated Number of Awards: 1,654 new awards will be offered pending availability of funds. Anticipated Funding Amount: $66,987,000 for new fellowships in FY 2010 pending the availability of funds.

I guess we could really just believe them, that it's just "scheduled maintenance"... but it's so much more fun and bad for our mental health to think that it's something else!

Doh! so maybe last night's instance was just a bug... also new message from Fastlane: GRFP will be unavailable from 11:00 PM ET Monday April 5th - 5:00 AM ET Tuesday, April 6th for scheduled maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.

omgomgomg ok so last night while clicking around randomly, I went to the "award offers and HMs list" page. Remaining on the original page (i.e. where it says 2010 awardees not available yet), I clicked on "export to Excel". One heart attack later, I saw that it had loaded all the 2009 awardees and HMs into an Excel sheet. BUT when I did the same thing just now, the excel page has been made blank! ... ok that is all. [retreats back to lair]

Might as well, since I've been IMMOBILIZED in front of my computer, still wrapped in a blanket since I got up, refreshing sequences of pages like a lunatic. I should really get to the lab and start something, though [loudly] I'm sure that an NSF award will get my butt out of my seat pretty quickly!!!

Though I agree that seeing some type of statistical pattern in successful applicants would indeed have some impact (hence I am not opposed to posting mine)-- I fully see that the impact would be either comforting (if we see ourselves fitting into the pattern) or devastating (if not). And in agreement with the above posters, neither comfort or lack thereof should discourage students from applying-- especially if they need the money to complete their desired education. Also, I think it's been proven that this process is not number-based in any shape or form. Students who win the award have GPAs that range from 3.0 to 4.0, 0 to 10 publications, and so on. Even the rating sheets given by the GRFP panel itself seems to have little predictability. A friend of mine with no "excellent" ratings was able to win an award, while another with several E/E or E/VGs got HM. This is my first and only time applying, and I made new contacts and re-forged many old relationships through just preparing the proposal. I'm gonna really try to continue psyching myself into believing that this is all just a learning experience, and that anything beyond what I have right now is bonus. :strains:

If I get an award, I'm sure I'll be happy to post anything you want up here.

Does anyone have any idea how many awards are supposed to be given out this year? Only 1 or 2 people have gotten it in my subfield of Life Sciences in previous years...