k99jm06

Hi! Great to finally hear from someone who is applying for the fellowship this year! DId they give you any more info on when they might try to notify you or when exactly the pre-departure orientation would be? They really couldn't give me any dates at all except that the D.C. orientation would probably be sometime in August.

So here's an update. I've made it to the next step in the application process. First there was a 30 minute Skype interview with representatives from the US embassy in Thailand, the IIE in the US, and also a Thai citizen Fulbright Alum. The interview was partly in English and partly in Thai. A few days later I was contacted again and told that there would be a follow-up language evaluation in the form of a Thai reading and writing test. That involved reading a short article in Thai, summarizing it in English, and then writing a 1 page commentary on the subject in Thai that needed to be completed in three hours. Suffice to say, they are very serious about host country language fluency for this program! In the interview they mentioned one of the possible job duties as a special assistant in the government ministry could involve policy speech writing in the host language! As for the questions on my background, I studied in Thailand for seven months as an undergraduate and have been back multiple time since then for travel and work. Most recently I've been working on a dual Master's degree in Urban Planning and Southeast Asian Studies. I would say my language skills are high intermediate.

Hi, glad you discovered this fellowship and I'm wishing you good luck in advance for your application next year. What country are you interested in? I have lived and studied in Thailand previously and have a reasonable level of skill with the language. To be honest, I also think it helped that not too many people seemed to know about this one and therefore I'm competing against a lot fewer candidates than in the standard US student Fulbright program (where I was not recommended when I applied a few years ago).

Hi all, I've been following the Fulbright 2012-2013 thread on and off but have not seen anyone there or in other threads here talking about the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship. This is the first year for the program, which is geared towards professionals with an advanced degree interested in working with a government ministry on policy issues in one of 11 different countries. More info is available here: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/fulbright-public-policy-fellowships.html I've applied for a position in Thailand and was recently notified that I have reached the recommended candidate stage. Is there anyone else out there who has applied for this and if yes what kind of feedback have you received so far and where are you hoping to go?