mmk

Hopefully NSF's lack of comment on the issue can be taken as a good thing. An earlier poster called/emailed about this issue and was told they have no information about it....

The prospect of a timely announcement looks especially bleak given the budget debate in Congress. :-/

I think the definition of "holding another major fellowship" is important here. Does it mean one cannot have 2+ concurrent sources of funding? Or does it mean that one cannot accept 2+ fellowships, but defer all but 1 for a period of time (e.g. NSF + NDESG: defer NSF to use NDSEG, then fall back to NSF after NDESG)?

My comments were in fact targeted at this particular scenario. I think even after April 15th, if you end up with NDSEG (which of course you could not have notified them of...time-space being what it is and all), you have a very strong case to make for admission to any of the schools whose offers of admission you did not accept. If you explicitly reject their offer, maybe things look differently to them. You should call the admissions staff and ask for guidance in this particular case.

The late notice is likely a result of the ongoing budget debate in Congress that has yet to be resolved. A related discussion has been ongoing in the NSF GRFP topic. Though I'm not sure I understand your wording completely, it is reasonable to expect that if you were to be awarded an NDSEG fellowship, your application would be reconsidered. Money has a way of changing minds. Moreover, it seems reasonable to expect the school(s) in question would be at least somewhat sympathetic to the situation, especially if it is a public institution with federal funding... If you do win, be relentless in getting after them about reconsidering your application.

The GRFP FAQ addresses taking time to work (presumably your fellowship is put on hold):

The document linked in my previous response indirectly addresses these issues. The GRFP FAQ addresses the first question specifically. As Eigen stated previously, you have a choice as to when you receive funding within the allowed 5 years. It would seem the answer to both questions is 'yes'. On a practical note, I'm uncertain of how prudent taking time off to work in between your masters and PhD would be...especially if your PhD program requires a qualifying examination.

Do a search for "enrolled" in the program solicitation. The discussions of enrollment surrounding the search hits indicate Fall 2011 is the deadline for proving to NSF that you are in an appropriate program at your institution. I would say this means that if you choose to begin your fellowship this fall, you are good to go. In fact, I know many people who have done this very thing. As in most cases, a call to NSF will (hopefully) clear up any doubts you might have.

Haha, agreed that it is somewhat tacky, but the original question wasn't concerned with tackiness. If this issue is a concern, perhaps a more suitable way of stating one was qualified for the honor should be used. That is the point, after all, no? Is the fact that one didn't spend the three years as an NSF pre-doc as important as the fact that one was qualified for it? Does accepting the fellowship and using its three years of funding somehow make one more qualified? As long as one continues to meet the stipulations for funding throughout their graduate work, being qualified for the honor and actually utilizing it are not so completely different (notwithstanding is the prior discussion of preferential treatment by NSF in the future according to whether one has been funded by them). Moreover, some other more prestigious fellowship likely took its place if one is in a position to decline, so it's simply one more way to draw attention to one's qualifications, which seems to be the point of CVs.

Um, yes! I've seen "declined" next to prestigious awards/conferences on so many CVs...

As for how many: Assuming all goes well...