Umenohana

I don't think they ever release acceptance rates per country. You can look at the CLS website to see how many language institutes each language has had over the years. Japanese has pretty much always been one. And I can say with almost 100% certainty next year it will be Okayama University again (it is a 5 year contract as far as I know). The number of institutes doesn't really give you a whole picture anyway though. Take a look at this. Both Japanese and Azerbaijani had just one institute, but 26 vs 6 participant spots. And I don't know for sure, but I think it's safe to speculate that there are a lot more applicants for one Japanese spot than for one Azerbaijani spot. I haven't been able to find the more recent counterparts to this document, but at least during Covid, it seems that the exact number of participants is not determined in advance. When I was a finalist last year, around April or May our program officer told me that the number wouldn't be determined until pretty close to the program start date. I'm guessing because people might pull out or be promoted at the last minute and they can be much more flexible with this in the online format.

The fact that they allowed extensions for the 2020 cohort despite being pretty adamant about it earlier (and likely facing restrictions with gov budgeting) should definitely make you optimistic that even if things aren't so great for the 2021 cohort by winter/spring, you'll still be able to to defer further.

Oh? Have you heard from someone you know or in another group? Any idea if it was for Flagship or general Boren?

I haven't checked the portal since submitting the application, but yeah, mine is empty as well. I think that's normal though. My previous year's application on there is also empty.

From what I understand, this is how it works. Person A and person B accept by May 2nd. In July, they're told that their country is a no-go for the fall. Person A decides to hold out and wait to see is maybe they can go in winter/spring/or even summer. So they are just deferred, but still considered to be a recipient, so nothing changes. Person B decides it's not worth it due to conflicting plans or something, and declines their award at that time. This means that an alternate of a similar profile will get promoted. (Whether they take into account approved vs non-approved for the fall countries when deciding which alternates to promote is another question! Maybe they'd like to be able to send more people abroad, as opposed to making sure to promote people for similar countries). Now, from the wording of the email we got as alternates, it seems that if person B decides to keep the award for the time being, but then declines any time after September, that funding is just gone and no alternates will be promoted. Which seems like a bit of an arbitrary deadline. Especially considering that the 2020 cohort has been deferring forever and something similar might happen this time around as well. But what can you do..

Hard to tell. There may be a wave of notifications after the May 2 deadline. Possibly one more in around July, when they announce which countries are a no-go. But otherwise, it could be at about any time.

So apparently I was not quite right on this. My campus Boren advisor says that when Boren promotes alternates, they generally try to choose someone who is a close match based on the application package. This goes for amount of funds requested and country/language (or at least the region). He didn't say it, but my guess is that academic background and career aspirations could also play into this. This was also hinted at by the Boren Asia advisor's email I recently got. So looks like alternates are not really taken from a general pool and your country choice matters more than I thought.

*** this is true but does NOT apply to 2021 Virtual Institutes. If you participate in 2021, it does count against the limit.

I totally get your feeling! It's awful that there's now this whole other level of uncertainty added to our already mess of a situation.

Nope, just the regular Fellowship program to Japan

Yep, that's right

I think another thing to consider is that Boren very likely has different standards for students of different levels. For example, I was accepted at first try for the Scholarship a few years ago, even though when I look back, I see that my essays were not that great at all. But I went to some school that nobody knows and doesn't have a Boren advisor or any other previous finalists, so maybe that bumped me up in some way. Last year, I was accepted as a Fellowship finalist, and although I updated my application a bit for this cycle, maybe they expected a lot more experience/achievements from a 2nd year MA student, so I only got an alternate. But your point about this year being more competitive is interesting, it will be good to see some data when it comes out.

That's good, sometimes a campus representative might also be able to shed some light on these things, if they've been in the position for a while. Yep, I am an alternate right now as well.

I think they would look at the strength of your application rather than the country itself, so don't worry! I meant that I don't think they have a "line" of finalists-alternates per each country. So it wouldn't be like if one person declines for Cambodia, the next best alternate for Cambodia would get it. But again, that's just my opinion, I don't really know how their system works. But let us know if you hear back!

It's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure it would be for the entire Boren program. They don't really have spots per country and some countries may have only one or two finalists without any alternates or even applicants behind in the line. They might take the country or part of the world into consideration, but I'd think in general, it would not matter too much. Just my opinion based on the data I've seen.