Physicsisphysics

Yeah! I wish there was more talk about fellowships other than the GRFP, but of course, the Ford is targeted towards an entirely different audience.
By the way, does anybody know what the acceptance rate is for the Ford? I'm sure it's selective, but I have no clue and couldn't find anything online!

YYYEEEESSSSS!!!!!!!!!! I was 4/17 and selected!!!!  Thanks to everyone in the chat it was very entertaining and kept me from doing anything else besides hitting refresh the past few days.  To those who didn't get it best of luck in the future.  There were obviously many qualified people on the google doc who had higher GRE and GPAs that did not get it.  My advice is keep working hard and it will eventually work out.  I was rejected my first round of grad school and got into a master's by a fluke at the last second, two years later I got into the grad school I was rejected from.  I applied to multiple fellowships along the way and never got any until now.  Ahhhhh   I am super excited, I've been TAing for the last 4 years (2 in masters and 2 in PhD) so this was a huge relief especially since my adviser emailed me yesterday saying that he didn't have the money and I would have to TA another year.

I thought about this more. Not only did they deny the dates meaning anything, but we made them aware of a major flaw in their system and they chose to do nothing about it. 

Looking at the spreadsheet, it looks like there are a ton of waitlisted people (myself included). If the spreadsheet is representative and all 4/16 and 4/17 updates represent all the accepted and waitlisted people, 25% of applicants were waitlisted or accepted. If the acceptance rate is about 5% as expected, this means there are 4x as many waitlistees as acceptances. I think a waitlist is more like a fancy rejection than anything--the chances you get off the waitlist seem pretty low. 

Not selected, December gang. Any idea how to know what stage the app got to?
 
edit:
also, December gang may be last in the NDSEG but we are first in my heart. ❤️ 

I've officially lost all hope in what these dates mean

He's doing the best he can with the information he's given. Hindsight 20/20. There's no one individual at fault, and no matter how anxious we feel, the people on the other side are almost certainly more stressed trying to get the decisions out asap.

All I know is that I would absolutely love to see at least one person in the December Gang find out that they made the cut. That would absolutely make my day. To feel like we were cut almost immediately (I know I struggle to shake that feeling) and then get surprised with a "You're In!"
#DecemberGangGoals
 

Only the best of quality from the lowest bidder

What?  Systems Plus having IT issues?  You mean the same company that has unsecured source code on their website and managed to accidentally wipe one of their servers for the SFFP program?  Surely you jest.

Gotta keep moving those goalposts

"IT issues" oh boy

Bad news y'all. I emailed Ellen Robinson, who manages the NDSEG, and she said decisions will be released tomorrow...

Bad news y'all. I emailed Ellen Robinson, who manages the NDSEG, and she said decisions will be released tomorrow...

It would be incredibly shitty if a bunch of us applied to BAA's that didn't even have funding - I really hope it's not that, for all of our sakes. I guess we will find out soon (hopefully) what, if anything, the dates mean. As of right now, I truly can't tell. It would make sense that the later your update, the further you made it, but the size of ~December Gang~ makes it seem like this may not necessarily be the case. 

I'm 12/5. It's interesting how some people have their last update around 12/20-23. while some like us have our last updates before the due date. If the dates meant selection rounds, then it makes sense that there'd be an initial cutoff for GPA screening and such. But what does it mean for us? Did we just screw up our applications somehow and we didn't even make it to an initial round? Were our BAAs/disciplines just not up for funding? It's a mystery. 

I know one person who did, a member of ~December Gang~ (not on the spreadsheet I think)

We should strategically email Rob throughout the day to find out when they received results from the DoD.

Rob talking to his coworkers like

Was going back and found this. Same!! 12/24 AFRL and physics :DD 

Maybe Rob meant April 15, 2021?

Holy shit it literally just dawned on me that my boi's name is Bob Ross. 
Hope he's as chill as the OG Bob Ross.
Edit: 875 posts - let's keep up the momentum, y'all