Kexin Renlei

Oof, my rejection came a lot more quickly this time around. Possibly because my score's worse this time? Good luck to the rest of you!

Hmm, don't quite understand your posting, but if you got an email "a few weeks" before your posting of September 17, that's 4 months, not 5. So what I was saying is that that could be one of the 4-month-compliance-check emails, rather than one of the 5-month-stand-by-for-cold-hard-cash emails. Not to jinx you, knock on wood! I mean, whatever, minor detail and all. We're all just here to unproductively obsess anyway!

During the last W-G cycle, they checked budgets for compliance 4 months and 1 week into the application cycle (early March), and these emails were not good or bad news. Then the prized budget emails came out 1 month later, 5 months and 1 week into the cycle. So possibly a budget email sent in early Sept would not be a good or bad thing, while the "hearing back" mildredp is talking about in early Oct is the budget email of the best kind? (Side note: How obsessive do I need to be to go back and read my old posts from forums 6 months ago?)

Thank you, cz-linguist and Snowblossom. I was having a bitter day when I put up my earlier post and was worried about what people's responses might be, and I appreciate the words of support and consolation. Reminds me that getting our research done in the current funding climate is a shared struggle. Best of luck to everybody on the next round of everything!

Sorry to respond so late. Turning down a FH was so heartrending that it was hard to come back here. Fulbright IIE wanted $17,000 in clawbacks - yes, after I'd been here one week. With the added benefits of Fulbright (mostly affiliation tuition that's required for a visa, at least in China), switching to FH would have been a wash financially, and not worth the upheavals in my research schedule. At least I can think of some other grad student saving all that lovely FH money, coming back to the US and putting a down payment on a sweet little bungalow, instead of it just entering the Fulbright-CLEA black hole. (Which I have reason to believe exists, based on some odd emails coming from different parties involved that don't QUITE match up with each other.) For the benefit of any future applicants caught in this situation (though this should be a 2012 one-time thing): Despite official Fulbright IIE policy, it is actually up to their discretion what size clawbacks they demand. If you were sick or pregnant or something, obviously they'd let you go, none the worse for wear. If you get a far more prestigious research grant delayed for the first time ever by Congressional incompetence, apparently that doesn't fit the bill. I think there may be some denial going on at Fulbright about the relative weight different grants carry in academic circles. (For those of you who think this sounds entitled, save it. Unless you've been an Anthro or History PhD student at a public US university within the last 15 years, you have nothing to say to me.)

Thanks Elli, Yeah, I think the best case scenario is that I am allowed to relinquish the Fulbright IIE, accept the Fulbright-Hays, and pay for the CLEA out of the more generous Fulbright-Hays stipend. It sucks that I would be out about $9,000 just because this was the year I applied to everything (I turned down a free language prep program to do the CLEA, ughhhh) - but at least everything could at least hopefully work out this way. Since you point out that link, Elli, I now have hope that doing this CLEA has actually saved me from Fulbright lock-in! Funny how things work out sometimes (if this does indeed work out. And if missing out on 9K qualifies as things working out).

Hi all, thank god this forum exists, I really hope someone (anyone) can shed light on my situation. It seems I got it (though my campus rep is really bad at email, bless her heart, so still waiting on confirmation. I'm already in-country on a pre-Fulbright IIE CLEA (the language study period Fulbright sometimes funds), and the acceptance form they sent me for the Fulbright-Hays says I can't accept the Fulbright-Hays if I've already accepted a Fulbright. But this year MUST be a special case, right?? Any word on this at all? Freaking out over here. Am I really going to miss out on $20K due to bureaucratic failure/congressional budget brinksmanship? Edit: I'm not trying to receive both, just to switch from Fulbright to Fulbright-Hays!

So, potential problem. I just learned I received a Fulbright-Hays (which provides more support than the Fulbright). Aaaaand it seems that technically if you've already accepted a Fulbright you can't accept a Fulbright-Hays even if you give up the Fulbright (what the what, right?). My situation is further complicated cause I'm already abroad on a CLEA. Oh, somebody, please, tell me you're in the same boat! Is there any word yet on whether Fulbright-Hays and Fulbright are going to be flexible and reasonable about this, given FY 2011-2012's 8-month delay in the Fulbright-Hays? So desperate for information and really afraid to reveal my situation to either side at this stage. (Take heart, alternates, in case they do decide to be nice!)

Are you SURE you can't apply through the school you just graduated from? Did you have your Fulbright advisor ask the IRB whether you could? Your school should be proud to be able to claim you and should provide you with that kind of support. When I graduated from undergrad they kept contacting me years later to find out if I wanted to renew an old IRB (no Fulbright involved), so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to apply for a new one after graduating. Given, that was a private school and resources were flush back then. I just thought of a workaround though: Apply through your undergrad advisor listing him/her as "Principle Investigator" and yourself as "Co-Principle Investigator." Voila!

Fulbright alternates, take heart! After suspension for a year, the Fulbright-Hays doctoral dissertation research grant was reinstated May 15, due June 14, for announcement soon thereafter, grants to begin as early as October. Many, many PhD student Fulbright awardees should be currently applying for this, as it provides more financial support than the Fulbright. Don't give up before Fulbright-Hays awards are announced!

If anyone has any info at all about how China full grant funding works, will you please, please PM me? I have another grant application due in 2 days and no idea what to put in my budget!

Full grant to China! Am I correct that this is the first year notification has come by email rather than snail mail? Definitely an improvement, and all the more pleasant when you're not expecting it at all! I've never created a facebook page in my life but I nominate one of you young whippersnappers to create one and post it here! What a relief - looks like I get to finish my PhD without taking loans out after all! Thanks, everyone on this forum - even when you all didn't even know it, you were all there for me during the nail-biting and the soul searching.

I'm out too - I guess this was the first round of rejections cause I was "not recommended" (as opposed to "recommended - low" or the like). For future readers of this thread - my friend and I with panel review dates a week apart received our rejections by email within an hour of each other.

I've also heard of someone funded a couple weeks ago in Cultural Anthropology (I didn't know about this before) - review date in late March. So there are tiers of recommendations it seems, and this person must have been "recommended - high." Reading the posts on this thread from a year ago is consoling. It seems that recommendations should still be going out for a while, maybe even as late as July (though of course there was the budget crisis last year). Not time to give up yet, though it is definitely strange that no rejections seem to have gone out for Cultural Anthropology.

Wow! So China is past the 2010 notification date and only 5 days away from last year's, but they say they have no idea when?? Well that's just not good at all, is it? (I know this post contributes nothing, but incredulity loves company.)