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It depends on the program how they're going to weight your coursework. All the programs to which I applied asked for all post-high school coursework, so they had transcripts showing my grades and classes from both community college and four-year. They asked for the GPA associated with each one too. The four-year incorporates some of the community college grades in its GPA. I just used the GPA as reported by the school. I get the feeling the adcomm didn't look too closely at my transcripts (if at all) and only checked that the GPAs were solid or otherwise explained in my statement of purpose. They're far more interested in publications, research experience, letters of recommendation and of course, what you want to study and work on in their program. My POIs liked my extra majors, but I think they're less common to have than Math & Phys together. If you write about how your math major bolsters what you want to do with your physics degree, I think it will be helpful. Though, if you can drop the extra major and devote more of your transfer time to getting in research experience and building good relationships with letter writers, that might be better to your overall application. It really depends on the opportunities available to you and the specifics of what you want to do in graduate school. If you can, talk to your future professors at your four-year for advice at reaching your goal. It's great that you're thinking about graduate school early. Keep at it and you'll put together a strong application.

...I can't believe it. I keep expecting to get a retraction email like "Ooops! System error! We sent that to you by mistake!" I wonder when I'll believe it enough to tell my advisor and letter writers... Whatever reality is, congrats to those that got one, wishes of funding to everyone else and good luck to those trying next year. I got completely rejected last year and it certainly helped me this year.

The results showed up around page 35 last year and was followed by results and then later reviewer sheet scores. I think we're making good progress.

I'm only reloading this thread. Fastlane gives me the willies. I'll probably end up waiting for the email subject line to tell me. (I want to upvote Homo studentsis but I'm out of votes... too much fun stuff on this thread already today.)

Last year there was 443 reading the topic at one point:

Each level (graduating senior, first-year, etc) is evaluated with the differences in mind. First all of the graduating seniors, then all of the first-years. The reviewers adjust their expectations accordingly so it works out to you being judged versus applications of students at the same level. I haven't heard of there being quotas per year, but I have heard that it tends to work out to be about a third of the awards to each level. (I wonder if the level 2 people who get evaluated right after they finish the level 1 applications (or level 3 after level 2) have a slight advantage as the reviewer has just read a bunch of applications of people who aren't as far along.)

withoutwords: I'm not in environmental engineering, so I can't give you a specific answer. This is something that will vary heavily by field. For example, conference proceedings are often more prestigious than journal publications in computer science. I don't know how conference proceedings are regarded in environmental engineering. Another factor is authorship--were you the primary author? This affects how the reviewers will consider it for the intellectual merit criteria as well. Your year also matters. For undergraduate seniors, not having publications is not as big a deal. For second year graduate students, it is more expected. Again, this will vary by field. Some have lots of undergraduate applicants with publications, others might have few second years with publications.

Thanks for the info syn2012! Now to scrutiznize and hypothesize what the changes might be. Here's some links to previous mentions of z-scores in GRFP for anyone who hasn't heard of this before: http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~whitmir/Whitmire_Research_Group/NSF_Graduate_Research_Fellowship_Notes_files/NSF%20GRFP%20Presentation.pdf http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/oceanography/zij/education/ocn791/reviewinfo_NSF_GRFP.pdf (Claims z-scoring started in 2005, see page 14)

That's interesting syn2012. In past threads people have discussed the z-scores, so I don't think they're new this year. Also, a friend of mine who applied in a previous year got no excellents and only one very good, but got an HM. I assumed it was because he had tough reviewers and thus the z-score made up for it. I see the problem from both directions. Like you mentioned, if reviewer A gives mostly low scores, the people who get moderate scores from reviewer A may have a higher overall score than someone who got an excellent from reviewer B. However, if reviewer B gives out lots of excellents, not using z-scores might be unfair to everyone who did not get reviewer B. I would guess this problem has been researched much in survey design (e.g. "Rate how you agree with this statement: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree"). Is there anybody with experience in that area who can explain more and suggest another way to do it? In the end, who you get as a reviewer is somewhat luck-of-the-draw and probably has one of the biggest impacts on your overall score, raw or not. It's just like how people will often get conflicting reviews back. One reviewer will love someone's broader impacts while the other will think the same person barely had any!

Yeah. I almost wonder if this outage has to do with the National Medal of Science nomination deadline being 3/31 but I'm sure that doesn't as heavily impact the system as GRFP week in November. ...maybe they're just playing an April Fool's Day joke on us. saeven - it's on the main fastlane page, not the grfp one: https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/index.jsp

I haven't found hard documentation of this, but here's what I've gleaned over the past year from professors, GRFP presentations at my school, and these forums. Various professors of mine have told me that the awards are divided up amongst the gross field of study (e.g. Math, CS, Social Sciences) by number of applicants. When encouraging people to apply they note that applying helps everyone in your field even if you don't win because the number of awards given to the field might increase. Another thing that seems to come up during GRFP presentations from those 'in the know' and these boards is that the state from which you graduated high school can give you a slight edge. Basically the top tier of applications will get awards regardless of other factors. However, when they try to determine who in the second tier is getting an award and who is getting an HM, they look at the high school state. If that state has not received many awards, they could use it as a tiebreaker to make sure funds are distributed more evenly by state. Things like sex and race are not taken into account, though I have seen people incorporate their minority status as part of their broader impacts plan in their essays. I don't know if it helped. There used to be a program for women in engineering where if you did not get a GRFP award they would forward your application to that program, but it has been discontinued. Not sure about boxers or briefs. Does one show better commitment to lab safety than the other? If so, maybe it would contribute to intellectual merit.

Getting to the test center early no only means not worrying about being late, but gives you some time to learn the layout to the building--I knew how to get to the restroom and/or water fountain and back no problem so I didn't have to worry about whether going all the way out there and back and/or getting lost during a break was going to get me into trouble. My test center had lockers for my stuff. They gave me a key for the time I was there. You might want to call your particular test center and see what their options are for storing your stuff and plan what you take with you accordingly. (It was just the proper papers, cell phone and ID for me as someone dropped me off/picked me up so I didn't need car keys. I wouldn't plan on accessing your stuff between sections. That might not even be allowed.) Dress comfortably but don't over think it. Some test centers will want you to pull out your pockets every time you enter and leave the room, so you might want to keep that in mind. However, I think comfort trumps ease of turning out pockets. The time difference isn't really that great. My center had that pocket rule but didn't enforce it. They could have probably seen if anything was in my pockets. Have layers of clothing available in case the testing center's temperature is not to your liking. I had a hoodie with me the entire time and used it sometimes and had it tied around my waist at others. If you can, just take each section as it comes and don't think about the others until they are upon you.

Your professor might be referring to some of the issues outlined in this series of advice columns: http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846/ It sounds like your professor can give you some very honest perspective on graduate schools in the humanities and meeting with her to talk about would be very beneficial. It sounds like she has a lot of knowledge to share on the subject. I'm sure she can still write to the strengths of her students as well... she's just looking out for people when she discourages attending graduate school.

You should fill out the FAFSA now. Many applicants don't hear back from all the schools they applied to until after the school's priority deadline or the state's deadline. You should list the universities you're applying to so they have the information available. Some of the schools I was accepted at would not give funding without it.

In addition to building credit and convenience, credit cards are generally safer than debit cards in the US. There are laws in place protecting you against fraudulent charges and theft or loss that are stronger for credit cards than debit cards. If you get into a dispute with a seller, you have more recourse to get your money back with a credit card than with cash or debit card. Let's say you purchase something and you get home and find out it doesn't work. If the seller won't talk to you, you can go through your credit company to reverse the charge until things are sorted out. Also, I rather not carry around a lot of cash, not just for convenience, but in case of pickpockets. Like several people on this thread, I only use my credit card when I know I have the money to pay it off when the bill comes and it hasn't been a problem. I don't have a debit card.