Hi everybody. I was in your shoes last year and thought I'd speak up now. I'm in the 2010 class of STAR fellows and have some insight to share on the award notification process. I'll summarize my experience from last year; take from my account what you will.
April 7 - I received an email from an EPA address with a subject line that says "call me at [phone number]" and there was no body text. I called immediately and spoke to the person who is now my project officer. He said "if we offer you this award, will you accept it? The paperwork process is extensive and time-consuming and we want to be sure you're not accepting another fellowship (i.e. NSF GRF, DoD, etc.)." Upon my verbal confirmation, he notified me that the notification was not "formal" and it was "illegal" for me to publicly discuss my award (only adviser, family) until 1) my "final" application had been filed (see original description of process above or in RFP) 2) my contract had been offered, signed, and accepted, and 3) my congressperson (representative) had a 7-day period to make a public announcement about the award. Super weird, right? Basically he wouldn't even fully admit I was getting the award.
~June 5 - the "new" online system for the final application went live and I completed that step.
~July 15 - contract arrives; I signed it and shipped it back overnight
~August 10 - "formal" acknowledgement of award via letter.
Of course my congressperson didn't make a peep. The whole thing was so cryptic that I wasn't ever sure until the entire process was complete. I think I was in the first round of offers; some of my colleagues received rejections about the same time as my email while one other received the email/phone call bit about 2 weeks later (presumably second round). This timeline is further stretched if you consider the topic here last year:
The whole notification/acceptance process was painfully slow, fairly disorganized, and oddly cryptic. As I was "bound" to keep quiet about it, I did so (in my dept., on this forum), even while others were floundering in agony....this may be happening now.
Of course it has been completely worth it, even as a pay cut from my RA (pre 2011 STAR is only 20k at 12/mos 1/2 time salary and it is fully taxed). I think the funding rate last year was around 5%. I figure ~20% were great proposals and some (like me) were just fortunate. Interestingly, I had 2 "excellent" reviews and one "very good" review.
Hope this helps for the new fellows and those that have yet to hear. Cheers and good luck.
