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Calling all Fulbright rejects and alternates: don't despair, you don't need a Fulbright to realize your dreams! I was really bummed initially when I got rejected for Morocco, but still reaaaally wanted to go to the Middle East next year and learn Arabic... I ended up landing a job in another Middle East country (لبنان) that provides all the same benefits as a Fulbright would, minus the 20 hour ETA work week, fancy networking and the prestige associated with the award lol. But I do get free housing and a decent expat salary that will allow me to save a good amount over the year. Not as fancy as getting a Fulbright of course, but almost as cool nevertheless! And I get to live on the Mediterranean! Go, chase your dreams people!! hahaha.

Only... financially... hahaha. But oh well, money is just paper.

Thanks! At first I was really shocked, then I felt sorry for myself, then I got angry, then I got over it lol. I'm already proud of myself for having gotten so far, especially since they said they give preference to Masters students and I'm an undergrad... and I know it's not because I'm not good enough, and for the undergrads who did get it, they're probably more deserving, so I won't let it get me down. Just wasn't meant to be this year, I can always try again another year! I was pretty set on teaching English abroad anyway and I wanted to go to the Middle East, so having the Fulbright would have been nice for the structure and so I wouldn't have to pay for transport and set myself up out of pocket. It would have been nice to find out I was rejected in January because at the time I was in Argentina, so I could have just stayed there. I don't want to go to grad school JUST yet because I'm not sure exactly what program I want to do and I don't want to rush into anything just because I'm scared of not knowing what to do. But in the mean time, I'm going to take the GRE for when I decide to apply, look for a temporary job and I'm going to research more about TEFL. Just ordered a book on Amazon with a comprehensive guide to each country, so it'll be exciting trying to decide where I should go hehe. I don't need a Fulbright to make amazing things happen for myself so I'm not going to let it get me down! Again congrats to all who won, and to all you Morocco people, I'm sad I won't be meeting you next year. And to those who are alternates or were rejected, life goes on. Rejection sucks but it's ironically relieving in a way, the fear of the unknown has been lessened. Carpe diem!

Rejected for Morocco ETA. Post marked April 15, little white envelope. Permanent address, received 19 April. Not going to lie, I'm very disappointed, but feel a strange overwhelming sense of relief knowing I can now move onto plan B... whatever that may be, haha. Good luck to you all, and thanks for all the support!!

OMG!! Gonna go check the mail NOW!! I'm in CA!!

Here's an interesting read for Egypt applicants. Edit: and another one

For those of us still waiting for letters to be sent out... just a few words of encouragement. We've already made it halfway through April! That wasn't so bad! Remember when we were freaking out in March? We can do it, just a couple more weeks hopefully!

Oh I'm sure they do... when the IIE people google their names this forum is bound to pop up. Probably #1 on google lol.

I can totally relate... I was doing that when I was expecting to receive notifications at the beginning of April. Then last week I went out of town for a week. I need more ways to make time pass faster now! Ahhh, I wish I had graduated this spring and not in December!

Ahhh thank you so much for sharing! That gets me excited (but I won't let myself get too excited...). I'm hoping "well in advance" means by the very end of April or first week of May. I don't think I'm setting myself up for too much disappointment with those expectations, though. Hopefully.

I wouldn't go and get another degree for the sole objective of getting into one of these types of programs. Their acceptance process is hit or miss. There's no strict formula that will guarantee someone's acceptance, no matter how much crap they may have on their resume. A degree requires a lot of time and money. Imagine you did all that and the person who reviews your next application doesn't even notice, or care, or if they do care imagine they think you're overqualified. I would not recommend you go get another degree just because you "might" increase your chances of getting accepted next time. That's a good way to guarantee some form of depression, haha. Unless you wanted to get into a specific field and study something practical that will definitely lead to a job (i.e. engineering), it's not worth it. What about Peace Corps? EDIT: By the way, if you can afford another degree, why can't you afford to go abroad yourself and "do something amazing" ? I know a lot of people who have done that with no assistance from a program and they're doing great.

lulu13 and berlino, I'm glad neither of you got rejected! Erica, beginning of June?! I thought I was being "flexible" by not allowing myself to expect notification until May lol. I hope all the MENAers on this board get accepted and that we can meet in DC! I feel like we all share a special bond, suffering together for months and months on this damn message board that I so *badly* want to stop looking at, but can't lol.

I completely agree with Skyfire, it's not fair to yourself. Every time you post a question that no one on this board could possibly answer you're just making yourself suffer more than necessary. If you're an alternate, chances are you did absolutely nothing "wrong" and were good enough of an applicant to receive a Fulbright. Think about it. You became a finalist, an achievement which should in itself be an honor and probably beat out 90% of all the other Indonesia ETA applicants by being named an alternate. I understand it's probably really frustrating to have been so close and in the end not being accepted outright, but you shouldn't be blaming yourself or wondering what you did wrong. I would take Skyfire's words of wisdom and take it as a rejection and be pleasantly surprised if you get it. There are so many other great opportunities that you could take advantage of, especially if you had the credentials to get this far in the application process. I'm not sure whether you just really wanted a Fulbright or just really wanted to go to Indonesia, but either way you should realize that getting a Fulbright is not the be all end all. Many people who are extremely happy in life never got a Fulbright. If that's not the case, and you just really wanted to go to Indonesia to teach English, I'm sure there are many other programs you could go through, or just even do it independently if you're motivated enough and if finances permit. P.S. I have no back-up plan either, so it's not like I don't understand where your anxiety is coming from. But I think a serious change of perspective on being named an alternate could do you some good.

I think they would still accept people or at least make everyone an alternate with the grant depending on the security situation, rather than just outright rejecting everyone (or so I would like to think). Then they would have no Fulbrighters for next year in the case it ended up being deemed safe enough for students to go! Fingers crossed that it will be! I applied to Morocco (ETA), which luckily has been calm and is predicted to stay that way. But it would be naive of me to believe Morocco is the exception. I'll never say never but I'm feeling pretty ok about it for the moment! No State Department travel warnings = good sign.

Erica Charves- I see someone got rejected for a full grant to Bahrain. Hopefully this marks the beginning of ME/NA notifications!

Haha, omg. Me too!! May this soon be over with.

Thanks for the update! But the end of April??? Nooooooooo!! :-( did he happen to give any hints as to why or was he vague? Oh well... at least that means I can allow myself to "relax" for the month of April and start worrying again in May... :-/

I'm a finalist for Morocco too (ETA though), and I have no plan B or C either, haha. If it falls through I plan on going to teach English anyway. Perhaps not in Morocco because I think that would be more difficult to do independently... but I'll go somewhere... other plan B is to take the GRE this summer to apply for grad schools next year. Good luck!

Looks like USG got an extra week of funding. That's good I guess... for now... we'll see what happens next week. Ugh, I interned at State last summer, I wish I was still there so I could just walk over to ECA and find out what the heck is going to happen. Hahaha. They probably don't even know though. Yay for bureaucracy. EDIT: Never mind, got too excited and I didn't read the whole article, it's probably gonna die in the senate and Obama would veto it. Government, please don't shut down tomorrow.

Skip this if you are sick of hearing people talk about how stressful the wait is. I just need to let it out. You're the only people who understand and I need support, hahaha. The wait is starting to get sooooo stressful for me. I graduated undergrad in December, so I don't even have school to distract me anymore. Luckily I was able to travel from Jan 1st to mid-March. I've been home for almost two weeks now, tentatively job searching. Partly because I don't know whether to look for a temporary job or a "real job", lacking 100% motivation to apply to either because I just don't know what the heck is happening, learning toward the temporary job so I could do that until I find something better, but at the same time, now is recruitment season, so I know I should be looking for a real job, but I won't be able to commit if I get the Fulbright. My last semester was so stressful I didn't have the time/energy to apply for anything other than the Fulbright (well, also because I hadn't taken my GRE yet and wanted to wait a year before before going to grad school. I needed a break). So I really have no back-up "thing to do" if the Fulbright falls through. It's ok though, I know it's 100% my fault for letting myself put my life on hold for only this one super super super super competitive thing and I realize how lucky I will be if I get it, considering it's the only thing I applied to... but oh god I just want to know already!! I want to be able to know whether to go for the temporary job or the real job, to know whether this summer I should enroll in a GRE course or an Arabic course. I know I probably only have to wait another month, which is really nothing, but the days are passing sooooooo slowly, mainly because I think about it all the time and don't have much else to distract me at the moment. I'm just so thankful Jan-March went by so quickly with all the excitement of traveling. Either way, if I don't get it I realize it's not the end of the world. There are so many other things I could do. I'm pretty set on going abroad and teaching English for a bit anyway, and of course it would be really nice to have the support and prestige of the Fulbright because, well... it's a Fulbright... and I think it would be difficult to independnetly go to an Arab country right now and find a job without it, but I know there are definitely other ways I could go abroad... if not an Arab country, I'll just go to South America and work on my Spanish instead. As long as one has motivation anything is possible! Ahh... I feel better already just having written this lol.

I've given up freaking out about when the letter's going to come. Last year's applicants for my country received notification 3/10-15... but this year, nothing yet, and IIE said hopefully we'll know within the month. My advice to everyone: try not to freak out too much about last year's spreadsheet... seems like most notifications this year vary from last year's... I'll start freaking out again if I don't receive anything in a month... (yeah, easier said than done, hahaha).

I'm not sure what the penalty would be, but you should verify with the State Department just in case... someone on the CLS thread said this: "CLS and ETA conflict, so I'm worried that if I accept CLS and then get and decide to do Fulbright, I'll have to pay fort he entire cost of CLS. What are you going to do? " and on the CLS website it says: "In addition, participants may not accept both the Fulbright Critical Language Enhancement Award, part of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, and a CLS award in the same academic year. In addition, if participants receive a Fulbright grant with a mandatory pre-departure orientation in Washington, DC, he or she may need to choose between accepting the CLS Program award and the Fulbright grant."

I'm an ETA finalist for Morocco too! I e-mailed J. Jones a few days ago and he responded saying decisions were still pending but he hopes to be able to send them out within the month...

Ranita- he only responsed saying Morocco notifications are still pending and has no idea when they'll be in (he said hopefully within the month). He didn't answer my other question about the status of the program, damnit. I don't want to bother him again by asking again lol... Oh well... at least I feel like I can calm down a bit now with checking the mail. I'll allow myself to start worrying again in a month. Until then, hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised to find something in the mail.

I also caved and e-mailed J. Jones and asked about Morocco notifications and about the status of the program for next year because of all the unrest in the Middle East. I'm sure Morocco is fine, but maybe he'll mention something about the status of other programs in the Middle East. I'll let you guys know if he does! Last year Morocco applicants heard around 3/10-3/15, so hopefully soon. Ahh.