LittleBird

That is incredibly helpful. Thank you!!!

Has anyone (for any country) gotten any information regarding the pre-departure orientation? Are we supposed to book our own flights there or will they be doing that for us? Is Fulbright getting us a hotel and everything or are we supposed to be taking care of thing ourselves? I keep trying to call Jonathan Akeley about it but I haven't been able to reach him yet.

I'm not sure about China but the Taiwan Fulbright office sent out an email last night to let the applicants know that, due to "significant budget cuts for this fiscal year, the Fulbright Critical Language Enhancement Award (CLEA) will no longer be offered in Taiwan." I'm not sure if they're having similar situations in other countries but I would assume that budget cuts will have some effect everywhere.

Thanks for sharing! I've been wondering about that.

So this may have already been covered at some point but does anyone have an idea how ETA placement works? Do you have to wait for medical clearance before they let you know what city you'll be placed in? I'm sure it varies a bit by country but can anyone who has already gotten their placement give me a general timeline of how long it took them to get back to you?

According to the terms and conditions on the website: Grantees are required to attend any orientation program in the United States conducted for them whileen route to their country or region of assignment and to attend any orientation program conducted for them in the host country or region. Expenses related to such attendance are not compensated for in addition to the fixed sum of the grant. Only if grantees and/or dependents are required to attend an orientation program before beginning their trip abroad will they receive a separate orientation allowance. So, since the DC trip is a month prior to when we're actually leaving, I would say that it is probably going to be paid for. Once again, I'm hoping that they'll be giving us more info soon.

You can download the info here: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/program_regions_world.html But I'm sure they'll be letting us know more information after our medical clearance is complete.

Thanks, same to you! I did apply for the CLEA but I haven't heard anything about that yet. What about you? I can't wait to meet you and the rest of the Taiwan folks in DC this summer

I'll take you up on that offer! I got my notification today. ACCEPTED!!! ETA in Taiwan. Current Address Postmark: 4/21 Received: 4/26 (in NC) Large manilla

Where was the letter sent from: New York or Washington? And did it get sent to your current or your permanent address? Congratulations! That's awesome.

My friend called IIE and they said they sent out the Taiwan notifications today! Whoooo!

Noooo!!!!! Why, Taiwan, why?!? Okay so I'm being a little melodramatic but I was really hoping we would hear back this week. Another week or more of waiting? They're killing me here. But thanks for the update.

Thanks for the info. Do you have any idea what you're going to do at the end of the year after your fulbright ends? Just curious.

Yeah. I definitely had my fingers crossed for this week. Sad day. : (

Also, just so all you other Taiwan kids know, I heard back from Jonathan Akeley but he wasn't particularly informative. He gave me the standard line: "It's not possible to predict exactly when the final results will become available, but in the past notification letters for Taiwan have usually gone out in mid to late April." So I guess what we can take from that is that they haven't been sent out yet. So we have at least a few more days before we receive anything.

Thanks for letting us know. Did you get a CLEA? Do you have any idea about how much mandarin experience the people who received the award had?

I'm in North Carolina, so I'll probably hear fairly early too. As for my Mandarin, I took a beginning class at my University and then an intensive course when i studied abroad for a semester in Beijing. But Chinese is a tough language, so I'd still consider myself a beginner. I did apply for the critical language enhancement award. Does anyone know if the notification for that program gets sent out with award notifications?

I'm right there with you. I emailed Jon Akeley about Taiwan ETAs but haven't gotten a response either. I'm sure he's really bogged down with emails right now but it would be nice to have some idea of when notifications are going out so that I can stop having palpitations for no reason everytime I check my mail. I'll let you know if he responds.

Has Jonathan Akeley indicated to anyone when the rest of the notifications might be sent out for the East Asia & Pacific region? I know he hasn't been super reliable about responding to emails but I was hoping that maybe he had given someone an idea.

There's a chance that they might get back to us sooner. According to the spread sheet from two years ago, their letters were mailed out April 6. So they could be coming any day now! (Side note: this is what I keep telling myself. In reality, I'm bracing for not hearing back until the middle of the month. But hey, a girl can hope.) Best of luck to all the other Taiwan-ers out there (even if you are lurkers).

Probably not. He never joined the forum so I don't know that he would think about it. But I suppose I could add him.

For those of you applying to a South American country, you might be interested to know that a friend of mine just found out that he got a full grant to Ecuador. So I guess that means that some countries in that area are starting to send out notifications. If only the rest of the world would hurry up and do the same!

Thanks! Same to you!

Has anyone who applied to a country in the East Asia & Pacific category heard back yet? Anyone else in the running for Taiwan?

That's very helpful! Thanks so much!