Physicsisphysics

You never know! I’ve see a lot of recipients who have no publications, very low GPAs, some with excellent academic record but no extracurricular involvement or broader impact mentioned — I don’t think there’s a set mold for what they’re looking for. Of course everything you can add to your application will strengthen it, but based on previous years the whole process seems a little random to me? I’m not sure if others feel the same way. There has been people who get all ”excellent” marks and don’t get awarded and some that get a couple “fair” ratings and get the award. I guess all we can do now is wait and hope for the best  

Good to see another psychology applicant, even though we're wildly different subfields! I honestly feel like I have no idea what to expect as far as results. Like you said there's really more qualified applicants than there are funding positions, so even though I'm proud of my application I'm not super confident about my chances.
I'm also in the same boat as far as no publications which I think is one of the biggest weaknesses of my application. I do have a paper in the review cycle and a handful of conference presentations, but I feel like they really expect 2nd years to have accepted papers. My lab was in an odd spot when I joined, our primary project is rather long term and we're just now getting to more of a write up stage.

To continue from everyone's posts yesterday - I'm a second year neuroscience PhD student applying for the GRFP for the first time. I went back and forth between applying under Life Sciences - Neuroscience and Psychology - Cognitive Neuroscience, because my overall PhD program is under the life sciences umbrella but my lab is in psychiatry department and specific project falls more under the cog neuro side. I ended up applying under Psychology - Cognitive Neuroscience, and I guess we'll see if that was the right decision or not... 
Does anyone else have a weird feeling they're going to get honorable mention? I'm almost convinced I'm going to get HM since my application was overall good (I think the personal statement was pretty strong and I do some fairly unique scientific outreach, but my project proposal wasn't as good as I would like it to be - I wish I had another page to clarify everything), but I'm a second year PhD student with no publications and think I'll probably get dinged for that and there's so many qualified people applying. HM would be nice, but with my lab's current funding situation I could really use the stipend. 

I checked the GRFP twitter after I saw your comment and that's really odd because they tweeted something a few weeks ago for women's history month that they have now taken took down in favor of this new women's history month tweet. I definitely don't think that's related to release times or anything - it's just a weird choice to take down a women's history post and put up a new one. Do women not deserve 2 tweets in one month? (kidding - I'm a #womaninSTEM and def don't think the GRFP took down a tweet because they dislike women) 

I would wager false alarm because the time frame is super long, not the right day (following the pattern), they don't have the message on the GRFP login page as well (https://www.research.gov/grfp/Login.do), and they had false alarms on Friday/Saturday nights in the past. But honestly, who knows with covid and everything, it could be? 

It could be, but they haven't announced any site maintenance

It could be, but they haven't announced any site maintenance

I've looked around old threads, and it seems this is the standard response. Even in months where results were released in March, the people on the phone always said early April. It could still be next Tuesday! 

Nothing on my end either ?

Hopefully it isn't delayed! I know the GRFP reviews are all virtual -- maybe it's the same with the NDSEG?

Alright I'm running my scripts again that take forever, so I decided to finish fleshing out the chart I made earlier since people seemed to appreciate it. Going back more years didn't really add much more info - it just shows the release pattern has been really consistent for the past decade (but with the current pandemic, pretty much all normal routine is out the window so I wouldn't be surprised if things were different this year). 

I've seen several people on twitter that got emails saying their proposal was rejected for being disease related, so you would likely have received an email if that was the case for you.

While waiting for my code to run for the paper I'm working on, I looked at the NSF threads from the past couple years and found for each year when maintenance was announced (or at least when someone posted on gradcafe that it was announced), what the announced timeframe for maintenance was, and when results were actually posted. Based on the pattern, I doubt the maintenance on 3/20 was related to us (this happened in prior years). I know last year was delayed due to the government shutdown and who knows what's going to happen with COVID this year, but I hope it'll come out this Friday or next Tuesday? No reason to actually expect that, but I can dream...
 

I wonder if it will be delayed due to the Coronavirus issue. I think the chances of it are less, since they probably could work from home. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was delayed. Oh well. I will have waited for a few months, so I can wait another.
 
 

Where did you hear that? Was it in the solicitation?

Originally they said they were going to reduce last year's to 1,500, but then they decided to award 2,000. You can see through the Awardee List (says 2,052 but that's due to 52 people being offered the award after others turned it down, it was 2,000 on the original release date). Also here you can see some info here: https://www.nsf.gov/ehr/Pubs/grfpoutreach2020.pdf On slide 5 they give last year's success rate of 16% with ~12,200 applications.
The program solicitation for this year and next says it will be 1,600: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2019/nsf19590/nsf19590.htm

Assuming the same amount of people apply this year as last year (~12,200), the acceptance rate this year would be about 13%, which I've placed on the graph below with the question mark (green is stipend level, blue is acceptance rate).

It's going slightly up! Last year they awarded 1,500 fellowships. This year they intend to award 1,600. Also anxiously awaiting the results!

I hope so! Tomorrow would be the 20th, which is still pretty early (but not impossible) compared to most of the dates posted above. Next week's likely dates would be the 24th and 27th which I think is getting much more into reasonable territory.

It's my first time logging back on here in awhile, but I am anxiously awaiting this result now like many of you. I'm a first year graduate student, and while I have a spot in my desired lab, earning this would be huge for me.
Is it true that fewer fellowships are being awarded this year? It's been a wacky couple of years as it is, between last year's government shutdown and now the pandemic...

Hi all! I was shocked to find out I was awarded the pre-doctoral fellowship yesterday. ? I'm in Environmental Engineering. I was reviewed by 5 reviewers and had 4/5 leave substantial comments with marks ranging from Excellent to Good.
For those who were not awarded the fellowship, I empathize and know how frustrating it can be. This was my 2nd time applying-- my first year I got an honorable mention for Ford and the NSF GRFP. I think what helped me this year was reaching out to a previous Ford fellow and my peers to get feedback on my application. Based on last years experience, I felt that my PhD advisor was not as well suited to provide input on this application. Keep at it and don't give up! Also definitely list honorable mentions on your CV because one of my reviewers commented positively on that. Si se puede!

I’m sorry to hear that - this process can be very frustrating. I also applied three times, first time got HM, second time got Alternate/HM, and this time I was awarded the fellowship. I put my HM and Alternate status on my CV because many faculty advised me to do that, so maybe you should too. I think people like to know that you are trying to get funded. I hope this helps and goodluck with everything!

Congrats to everyone who got the fellowship this year! And solidarity with those who did not. This was my third time applying to the predoc and second time receiving an Honorable Mention. The first time I applied to the Ford, I was also an alternate. I do not know how likely it is to be selected from the alternate list but I'm in the Humanities where there is a dearth of fellowships at this level so I figured someone would pretty much have to die in order to move on to the next person on the list.
I'm curious if anyone has received HM more than once? Do you include the multiple attempts on your CV? Also, what is the weight that an HM carries? I am pretty salty about the results right now so a part of me just wants to erase anything related to the Ford from my CV entirely.

I’ve run out of “likes” I can give on this site for the day, but congrats ~ glad to know the emails are still coming in waves today. Hope to hear good news about my dissertation app today.

hi all, I was awarded the pre-doctoral fellowship (about 15 min ago)! this is my 3rd year applying and my field is psychology. Goodluck everyone!