[NDSEG 2019]

1 hour ago, Entangled Phantoms said:

To get people to stop calling. It is why they lied last year. STI-TEC is a for-profit defense contractor and not the NSF or a foundation like Sloan, Ford, or Hertz. Different values and different levels of interest in helping students.

I think it's equally possible that last year they sent out really late details because of only 1-2 program offices taking forever (they were a little more transparent that they had laggy response from some of the DoD offices).  So, they may have sent out the first of 2-3 batches and there may legitimately be more first round picks awaiting final ranking from the funding sources--in my government experience, I'm actually a little surprised anyone didn't wait procrastinate until the absolute last minute to make a final decision.

[NDSEG 2019]

My 2 cents.  The new contractor is pretty rough around the edges, but the number of awards was largely linked to an increase of cost per award (maybe some "startup"costs like building a website, but hopefully not graft).

The mid-March emails were a complete failure: with some actual awardees not receiving them, and revealed a lot of poor management.  I think it was meant to be a nice status update, but ended up making their job a lot harder (probably led to a big spike in phone calls afterwards).  I could be wrong, but I'd bet they just don't say anything until the awards are announced this year.

Thoughts?