cullenish

So first off, after speaking to a professor who has reviewed for NSF before multiple times and is familiar with the process, apparently NSF did away with panels this go around due to the government shutdown, which means their internal people are reviewing our applications. Can anyone verify this? Assuming that is true, what that means for us I don't know. I would assume we are less likely to be reviewed by experts in our fields though. I had to dig to find an explanation of the scoring, but here it is: E = excellent VG = very good G = good F = fair P = poor Regarding reviewers being mean, I'd assume they just get tired of reading applications and start writing as concisely as possible while still communicating their problems with an application, which I can easily see leading to sounding mean. Someone could just be an asshole, though. I'd imagine it's similar to reviewer comments from academic journals. Sometimes they're nice and sometimes they're mean.

Even if I get the email at 5am, I'll probably take a few shots of something strong before opening mine up lol

In 2017 they were released on March 23rd I think so I'm betting it's this coming week

Oh for sure the funding is better; the GRFP stipend nearly doubles my maser's stipend. I didn't seriously start thinking about PhD until getting my master's position, and I was surprised to find out just how little PhD positions pay. I think I need to just take things one step at a time and be take whatever help I can get, whenever I can get it.

I've applied to two other national scholarships (Udall and Goldwater) and wasn't given the time of day on either of them. I know for a fact I put down solid applications for both scholarships since a) I believed in the material and b) I worked closely with the staff at my university whose job it was to advise students applying to those things. I've seen plenty of people saying they question the value of their NSF application, but the most important thing I've learned so far is that not being selected for these things doesn't mean you're not good enough or that your application wasn't good enough. They pick applications and people they believe fit their organization. Pretty much everyone applying for this thing is top notch - ultimately there's probably no real rhyme or reason to who gets selected and who doesn't. We'll all be fine regardless of the results. On a separate note: thoughts on at what school level the GRFP helps the most with? I'm an undergrad that was accepted in February to a program with mixed TA/RA funding for master's position that pays fairly well. If I do get the fellowship, I'll of course be ecstatic, but I don't NEED the money or prestige to get into a program now. How might this help me in 2-2.5 years when I'm moving on to my PhD other than being a shiny spot on my C.V. from a couple years ago? I don't know why I'm just not questioning the utility of this thing, especially since they haven't announced winners yet.