marty3

Well, you should be proposing a 5 year project, not a 1 semester project. I don't see any ethical dilemma here, provided the project's scope is that of a PhD project, that it is something you are interested in, and that it is something you could conceivably be doing in grad school.

Yes, lots of people get the award without using headings. Just make sure your writing is clear an easy to read. People who go the no headings route will often use phrases like "this is a paramount example of the broader impacts of my work" at least somewhere in the essay.

Definitely send a follow-up email. Also, include a secretary in the email, if your prof has one.

Don't feel too behind, Pterosaur. It actually helps tremendously for the GRFP to have applied to other fellowships. If nothing else, your recommendation letters will already be written, and will have been written at a time less busy for profs. The exercise of writing any proposal or application will help with others. If you plan it out well, you might even be able to salvage the topics of your research proposals. They will be different when you write them, perhaps very different, but chances are you won't have to read a dozen or more new papers on a new topic for each. For me, reading new papers and writing introductions were always the hardest part. Turns out they can be the most reusable parts. As for the timeline, I did the Fulbright in August, GRE studying/testing in September, GRFP late October/early November, grad school apps late November/earl December, NDSEG mid December. It seems like a lot, but each thing your write gets easier and easier. Trust me. For advice, these forums are very helpful! Is there a fellowships office at your school, or someone in charge of advertising these fellowships and offering advice or organizing writing workshops? Those people are often a great resource. The advantage with the PI however is that they know you. Other people can only offer general advice, which can be invaluable, but your PI would be best for bouncing ideas off of.

My advice for this stuff is the following. In your essays, keep things positive. Spend more time talking about that notoriously hard class you got an A in (how you overcome challenges and such) rather than drawing attention to those semesters where grades were cruddy. You can also get an undergrad LOR to attest to your academic prowess. You should ask him/her to discuss this explicitly. In my case, I completely bombed a mass transfer course, but asked a professor to attest to my good understanding and practical use of the subject in research. They will know exactly how to handle this gracefully, as they read tons of recommendation letters all the time. If you can get a prof to say your grades aren't an accurate reflection of you abilities it can go a long way. Regarding the anxiety, exercise caution bringing it up in your personal statement. Treat it as a challenge you have overcome if you must include it at all, focusing on how good things are now and not on how bad things were then. And whether or not you mention it yourself, you should have at least one LOR mention it. I would guess your current research advisor would be best for this, as he/she could attest to your stability now.

I don't know how different sociology is from engineering, in terms of strategies and such, but perhaps the best advice I have to offer is to talk to professors you know. Think of who you want to write your recommendation letters, and ask them about your (long) list. They will often go through the list with you, discussing the programs at different schools, often mentioning where they have "friends". Their recommendation letters will carry far more weight if a friend of theirs is reading it. When I was narrowing down my list of schools, this was actually a deciding factor in some cases, generally for my "reach" schools. Of course, if you know the school won't be a good match for you, don't apply for it despite this friend thing. Professors might also add to your list of schools, especially if they know a very well-respected researcher at a lesser school. These kinds of schools are good candidates for your safety schools. Plus, if you don't get in anywhere else, you will still have a very good advisor, which is probably far more important than the school's name anyway. If you're presenting at a conference in the near future, you could also try to introduce yourself to prospective advisors there. They'll remember you. Applying for summer programs at prospective grad schools can also help you make contact with a professor there. Apply for external fellowships. The availability of these depends heavily on your field, but it's worth your time applying for them and stating it on your grad school applications. If you have any red flags in your application (like a low gpa or something) try and find people who can write you really strong recommendation letters. I had some low grades in a few classes and got one of my letter writers to discuss how challenging these classes were (they were notoriously hard at my school) and that my grades didn't reflect my understanding of the material anyway. I never actually saw the letter, but he claimed to have written something like this. Ultimately I applied to 8 schools, and got into 8. Again, this number may vary across fields but it was typical of my other science/engineering friends. Professors can probably give you a more typical number for your field.

I think it depends a lot on the quality of your undergrad rec letters. If you have 3 stellar ones from grad schools applications you might as well keep them unless you've already done summer research or something with your grad school advisor. I only knew my advisor for 2 months before applying, and it didn't make sense to cut out one of my other letters for his one. That said, if your third letter would be something that's just good and not stellar, then it probably doesn't matter either way. Everyone has different opinions on this sort of thing. Your best bet is just to ask your advisor blatantly what you should do when the time comes. Your advisor will want you to win and should give you an honest answer about the competitiveness of his/her rec letter.

I fully agree with Chrissytine. Mdog3000, best of luck with the Fulbright application. Winning that will really help future applications stand out. But also realize that all fellowships are hit and miss. Others can just be less frustrating (in some ways) because they don't provide review. And bold IM stuff as well, not just BI.

I think educational BI stuff makes more sense in the personal statement than the research statement, but I guess it depends on what you say. You've got plenty of time to mull it over. Hope all this helps.

Wow, I'm shocked to hear your course instructors won't give you the necessary time. If it happens again try talking to the deans at your school, or anyone who has more power than your course instructors. Legally they cannot deny you accommodations, provided you have the appropriate documentation and follow whatever rules for notifying profs and such. I've been given attitude from time to time, but never (since high school) denied accommodations. In regards to NSF my best advice is to limit discussion in your essays to personal experiences you have overcome, but leave these details of grades to professors who know you well. Perhaps a research advisor who knows from first hand experience that your grades don't reflect what you actually know. I generally ask at least 1 of my references to discuss this explicitly, and it has worked very well for me in the past.

Does anyone know what reviewers are told to put in these "reviews"? I've applied twice now, and both times my reviews felt like lists of things I did well. Perhaps reviewers are only told to comment on what put an applicant above or below a "good" score, rather than offer tips for improvement. This year I won and my "lists of things I did well" were just slightly longer than last year's "lists". Almost nothing changed in my application between years, either. Perhaps the only significant change was that I wrote in my personal statement that I had taken many grad level courses as an undergrad. The courses were already on my transcripts when I applied the first time, but nobody noticed it or commented on it until they read a paragraph about it. Now they all commented on it (very briefly, of course) and I went from E/VG/VG to E/E/E in my IM score. All I can really recommend is read any review you can get your hands on and make sure you explicitly state the things that are viewed favorably. The only reason why I thought to talk about taking grad courses was because I read it in a review. Don't trust a prof to mention it in a rec letter either. For anyone who feels they got shafted this year, apply again if you can. I too was furious last time when I didn't get it. I had a lot riding on winning a fellowship last year. On the bright side, it takes minimal effort reapply if you're confident in your application.

I think around 50-100. If you check the results from previous years where 2000 awards were awarded, the number of awards is not exactly 2000. In 2012 for example, the number is 2067, so I'm guessing 67 HM's were bumped up that year. But who knows.

In the past there's been mention of the reviewers' z-scores being the deciding factor rather than unnormalized scores. I'm sure it depends a lot on the field as well.

Got it! E/VG, E/E, E/G I don't see too many win with any G's. I'm a little surprised.

Every time you click refresh, take a drink. Seriously though, don't.

Having dependents isn't really a problem. I knew a few postgrad Fulbrighters who brought their girlfriends/fiancees with them to Aus. Fulbright pays you, not them, that's all. Dependents tend to get their own jobs since the Fulbright stipend would be really tough for 2 people. Since they don't give dependent funding, I doubt they would care if you brought one. If you win, just be sure to ask the commission soon after winning, not shortly before leaving.

The Australian Fulbright Commission gave us no info on taxes (commissions for other countries might be different), but there is info on the IIE Fulbright website. Taxes are definitely complicated to file, but there are foreign exemptions you might qualify for. If you're abroad for a full year you can be exempt from paying. You still have to file, though. Fulbright grants are so common there are IRS web pages devoted to it, so it is easy to get help.

Also, this isn't an actual breakdown, but the total is award amount is about 40,000 AUD. http://www.fulbright.com.au/scholarships/for-americans?id=249

I was a fulbrighter in Australia a few years ago. The cost of living there is certainly high, but the stipend is generous enough to live very comfortably and travel a lot. No need to stress.

Whoa, I've heard completely different things, at least in the general sense. The responsibility of TAs varies widely from course to course, and it probably won't help get you a faculty position if you're just grading papers or even holding office hours. Teaching recitations/sections (whatever you call them) regularly is a completely different story, especially if you win awards for it. Filling in for a prof by teaching the whole class when he/she is gone is fantastic experience. After all, faculty often (not always) have teaching responsibilities. Anyone who has experience teaching and proven excellence at it will be a step above the rest. Of course, it won't matter a whole hell of a lot if your research is crap....

This isn't the first time I've heard anyone complain about the number of GRFP awards. Back when the number of awards first began increasing from 900 awards (or whatever it was), a professor of mine was complaining about the fellowship losing prestige. I guess applicants for the fellowship and full professors looking to hire new assistant profs view these things very differently. I guess I could understand this prestige complaint for other fellowships, like the Hertz or DOE, but it seems to go against the NSF mission statement for the GRFP.

I can't really comment on how much disabilities are weighted, but they can be viewed positively. I discussed mine in my essays, specifically the challenges it creates, how I've overcome them, and how I have learned from them to be sensitive to the learning needs of others. 2 of my 3 reviewers from my last application mentioned this explicitly and very favorably in their comments. After discussing reviewer comments with several friends, it seems to generate the same enthusiasm (and perhaps overall "weight") as females who discuss the challenges of being in male-dominated fields. Simply being disabled probably won't help a whole lot by itself. But it can give the applicant interesting experiences to discuss. Those experiences are unique and, if relevant, can help. And I too am extremely antsy. I got an HM last time as an undergrad.

I don't think you should be concerned with repercussions if your mental health is in jeopardy. As far as prestige goes, you're still a Fulbright ETA. You didn't complete it, but you still have some experience from it that can go on your resume (if worded carefully), and you still won the award. Remember, that any award you win, whether you accept or decline it, can still go on your resume. You'll still be a good candidate for a job, so don't worry about that. Do check your Fulbright contract regarding early termination. My Fulbright scholarship was the worst year of my life, and I wanted to leave early, but I couldn't without having to return my entire stipend up until that point. Needless to say, I couldn't afford that. Mental health can be a work-around for that, and it probably would have been in my case, but the people at my commission were by no means friendly or willing to help. I should have been more determined to leave, and actually regret that I hadn't left early now. If you are willing to stay, your commission might actually be of help to you as well. You won't be the first unhappy scholar, and you won't be the last. Perhaps they'll relocate you or give you some useful information or contacts, like alumni, to help make your current situation work. You won't know until you ask. The only thing that made my Fulbright experience slightly positive was traveling. If you can afford to see some of the major sights in the rest of your country, or even nearby countries, go for it. It will give you something to look forward to and help you get through the weeks and months, and really helped me through the toughest times. Alternatively, you could try and spend a weekend in a hostel even in your own city/town. It's easy to miss out on some of the local sites when you are actually living and working there. I spent nearly a whole month in a hostel just a few blocks away from my dorm at the end of my scholarship, and I would have spent my whole year there if I could do it over.

Sure it helps, and I'm doing that this year. In the past though, I did that as well and my third reviewer still destroyed me for not "dwelling on the societal broader impacts of my proposed research" despite the entire second page of my research proposal being labelled in bold "broader impacts" and one of the paragraphs (just under half a page) began with "The societal impact of my research...." Tough luck, I guess. Better luck this year! And like you said, it can't be a bad idea, so why not highlight what the reviewers are looking for if it makes sense in the context and arragnement of your essays' content?

Does anyone share their research proposals, and perhaps personal statements, with profs writing their rec letters? I'm trying to decide if sharing it with them is a bit much or if it would actually be helpful for them (and also me!). They know me well, and all, and should have plenty to say anyway.