kbui

I have so many things going on at once that it hasn't hit me what an important email this will be to my next year.

If I got accepted into an MPH program and a Fulbright, I would choose Fulbright and go to Thailand for a year while deferring my acceptance into the MPH program. During that year abroad, I would look and apply for fellowships and funding to fund my two years in school. This is my ideal dream for the moment.

Yes, please give us some good news Fulbright! I've been applying to things and getting interviews and acceptances--so I hope Fulbright is going to keep this ball rolling.

I've just watched this video on the Fulbright selection process in Kabul, and it's incredibly useful! I just wished I saw it earlier... lol.

The numbers of applicants for each pool are now flipped? How did we find that information?

That's exactly why I'm not going to look over my SOGP or PS ever again. It'll just freak me out!

That's not very encouraging at all; that's a ~15% acceptance rate overall.

Oh my Jesus.

My FPA is of no help. She just glances over my applications and then that's it. And last year when I was having difficulty accessing my deleted email account, she KNEW I didn't get into the finals but CONTINUED to tell me to ask Fulbright to send me an email because she "didn't want to ruin it for me." Eventually, after emailing Fulbright three times, they sent me the rejection email. Thanks a LOT FPA for making me go through all that for a rejection email.

I hope all this waiting is worth it.

I hope so too... *fingers crossed* I also hope that you're going to get accepted into your top choices for your MPH!

Well the first year I applied for a Fulbright, I also applied for a Boren scholarship. When Fulbright ultimately rejected me, Boren accepted me within the same month. From there, I continued to study Chinese in Taiwan where I increased my language skills from intermediate to advanced. I entered a couple national Chinese competitions and placed in all of them After returning to the arctic tundra that is Minnesota, I found a position as a health educator with a non-profit and also became a public health consultant. And just recently, I got recruited to be a health educator with a non-profit in Los Angeles, so I'm moving over there next week!

But what have you been up to after hearing news from Fulbright until now? Besides obviously applying to MPH schools.

Thanks! I'm really hoping that my tenacity pays off, lol. I feel like I'm maturing every year, and I hope that the Fulbright commission (and Jesus) sees that and let me have the grant this year.

I'm very curious about your academic endeavors. What made you decide to pursue an MPH? And then now a PhD?

Wow. That's... I don't even know what to say.

Congratulations!

That sounds like an amazing opportunity!

I'm sorry to hear that. :\ But thank you for the answers!

Do people get letters of rejection from MPH schools before the end of March/April? Or does everyone wait until schools stop accepting and then get an email? I know people have been getting acceptances, so I wanted to know if the same is true for rejection.

So I just read the entire article, and now I feel like my application was lacking in the "connect it back to why the U.S. would care" part. Even though I'm applying for the ETA grant, and it might seem like it doesn't need to be explicitly said, I should've said a couple sentences about it anyways.

And after looking at the statistics from the previous years, the grant numbers for ETAs in East Asia/Pacific have only decreased. I hope that the both the number of applicants for Thailand decreased and the number of grants increase. *fingers crossed*

I was talking with a fellow prospective Fulbright scholar, and we are dying to receive the grant! This is my third year applying, and I feel like I've done everything right this time around. I had former/current fellows look over my application and essay. My recommenders were chosen strategically. I emphasized on why I want to teach English in Thailand, and I made it specific enough so that it's not just a generic choice. I wrote about a cultural exchange beyond the classroom through teaching Western piano theory and learning a Thai instrument. It's so nerve wracking to wait for this email.

I just found out today that for China research grants, there are 60 fellowships and 130 applicants. That's almost a 50% chance!

...to get an MPH? What are the pros and cons for you? For me: Pros: Academic leverage, learning more about a topic I enjoy, meeting new people, being in an academic environment again, building networks, living someplace new, having an excuse to go abroad, being eligible for Fellowships abroad, getting a brand name degree (Harvard or Yale) Cons: Probably have to take out ~60-80K in loans (OMG!), missing out on money I can make if I worked for two years (~60-80K), possibly making the same amount I would've made even if I didn't go to public health After applying... if I don't get full tuition funding or a large part of it funded, I don't know if I want to go... What do you think?