Pauli

Ditto on the e-mail. One week sooner than last year too.

For new EAPSI fellows, I wanted to give some perspective of last year's coordination for the upcoming pre-orientation. In 2012, the pre-orientation started on March 25, and fellows received an e-mail to start booking their flights about two weeks earlier on March 9. Since the pre-orientation for 2013 is, I believe, on April 2, I think we should be hearing back about next week for purchasing our flights?

Well, almost every university in America with a research program has an REU program...

My host advisor contacted me yesterday and said that the science division in his host country hasn't reached out and contacted him yet, so it looks like NSF side is still in the process of contacting the different research divisions around East Asia and Pacific.

They've previously don't get finalized until the first day of pre-orientation in April (i.e., if they fly you to D.C., they have the funding to send you overseas).

Based on the responses on this thread, the following countries have already been announced: Japan China New Zealand Taiwan Singapore It didn't see like anyone in this thread announced having applied to the following countries: South Korea Australia But to the best of my knowledge, if offers go out for Japan, then South Korea tend to go out around the same time. The same for Australia when New Zealand offers go out.

Oh, man...that totally sucks for people who don't check their e-mails in a timely manner, haha. But congrats to the 2nd rounders that got in!

Not very likely. It's almost always in the best interest of the host countries' corresponding research division to accept EAPSI fellows, since it allows for mutual research collaborations that benefits their host countries' own researchers in furthering and expanding their own research progress. I think there's a higher chance of NSF rescinding before the host countries' research division counterparts do, since the American government can say that there isn't enough funding for EAPSI (in the extreme case). And I can only think of one instance when fellows were denied acceptance: the China/Taiwan program in 2003 due to the SARS outbreak? As a side note, the acceptances are tentative because the NSF program works jointly with their research division counterparts in East Asia and the Pacific, and those partner research divisions are free to change their minds at the last minute if they really wanted to (but that's for really extreme cases). In other words, final acceptance requires approval from both NSF and the partner research division. When NSF approves, it's tentative; when the partner institution also approves, then it's final. The tentative moniker is more of the NSF program's way of saying "the acceptance isn't quite 100% yet" as opposed to "there's a chance that acceptance might be rejected". On another side note, the host countries' research divisions do have complaints about the EAPSI program, but their complaint isn't that they're accepting American/Canadian students (Canada has their own version of EAPSI) to do research at their host countries; it's that the NSF and its Canadian counterpart aren't reciprocating with their own graduate students. But with so many international graduate students in America already being funded indirectly by NSF grants through their American research labs, they technically already are.

I have no qualms with saying that the original poll was very flawed: it wasn't exhaustive and repeated certain fields by listing their different subfields. This poll is more exhaustive and more accurate to give us a better feel of people's demographics in this subforum.

gzahn, there were quite a number of people from the thread. That might be a good place to find some fellows. Alternatively, the 2012 EAPSI Japan program had their own Facebook group that was pretty active (they eventually split into subgroups by city since they were spread out all over Japan), so there will be some more fellows there.

Singapore tentative offers went out as well today. AntClimbsTree, I participated in the Taiwan program last summer. Feel free to message me if you have any questions.

I totally love how the poll doesn't explicitly list Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), one of the most popular fields in computer science. Several of the "fields" listed in the poll are actually subfields within a larger field.

I would like to share some advice to people who have not received any notifications recently and would like to inquire from the experiences of the EAPSI fellows from last year. What you can do is to first make a phone call directly to Dr. Carter Kimsey (phone number at program solicitation). After you reach her, introduce yourself and then inquire whether you are on the list of tentative nominees for the host country you applied for. Then she may provide some additional information as to whether your chances are good or not. That's what some of us did last year and how we were able to get our status a couple weeks in advance. Hope this helps.

I got this info from Elena earlier this afternoon, AntClimbsTree. Looks like they're going to send out the notifications to Singapore fellows before the Taiwan fellows. Notifications for the Taiwan program is the most grueling since they are the last ones to know.

For Singapore program applicants, tentative offers will be sent out at the end of the week.

Hey gzahn, the EAPSI program is getting more competitive each year because more people are applying each time, and I also didn't get in the first year I applied. But I discovered that the application process was much easier the second time around. When the 2014 thread shows up, feel free to ask any questions on pointers and the alumni like myself will be glad to help out!

Unfortunately, it wasn't immediately. I didn't see the change until around pre-orientation at Washington, D.C later that spring. According to the program coordinators for last year's program, the offer became guaranteed once the fellows attended the pre-orientation since that's when the program knew that funding was approved.

I was accepted to the Taiwan program last year and was notified in the first week of March. My labmate was accepted to the New Zealand program that same year, and she received her confirmation in the middle of February. FYI.

Is anyone applying to NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for U.S. Graduate Students (EAPSI) fellowship program for Summer 2013? Info: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5284 Deadline: November 8, 2012 Synopsis: NSF and selected foreign counterpart science and technology agencies sponsor international research institutes for US graduate students in seven East Asia and Pacific locations at times set by the counterpart agencies between June and August each year. These Summer Institutes (EAPSI) operate similarly and the research visits to a particular location take place at the same time. Although applicants apply individually to participate in a Summer Institute, awardees become part of the cohort for each location. Applicants must propose a location, host scientist, and a research project that is appropriate for the host site and duration of the international visit. An EAPSI award provides U.S. graduate students in science, engineering, and education: 1) first-hand research experiences in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore or Taiwan; 2) an introduction to the science, science policy, and scientific infrastructure of the respective location; and 3) an orientation to the society, culture and language. It is expected that EAPSI awards will help students initiate professional relationships to enable future collaboration with foreign counterparts. The NSF award includes participation in a pre-departure orientation, a summer stipend, and travel expenses to the research site. EAPSI partner agencies pay in-country living expenses during the Summer Institutes.

@ponylevel: You get your info from a small random sampling of people on the internet, and you also rely heavily on the strengths of a program based on a tier-system. You are one angry, ignorant individual who shouldn't be giving advice to people. I'll be surprised if you actually last in your PhD program. As I said, mscho147, remember to focus on the strengths of an overall package and give compelling reasons that explain your GPA. Members of adcomms for programs in CS who are also faculty members are looking for graduate students who have qualities that are a fit to their programs. The respected adcomms are not going to seriously judge the criteria of a candidate heavily on a single number, because they are not shallow like that. Also, people who give advice like ponylevel who rely on word-of-mouth and not actual first-person experience are not people that I recommend that you give advice from. You could also e-mail the admissions office or particular faculty members of schools you're interested should help give you better specifics on an overall package. In the mean time, while ponylevel tries to google his way to defend his weak stance and resort to throwing irrelevant words around like "Tier-1", I'm going to go back to doing better things that grad students do and work on our next exciting research paper submission for a top-level conference. Has ponylevel even been to a conference before? Hmm...

If you're indecisive about the PhD route, then it would be very risky to jump right into one. You could try experimenting with the Master's route and get a taste of PhD life. If you like it, then you can continue off into the PhD route at either the school you received your Master's in or at another university. Otherwise, that Master's degree is pretty valuable in its own right if you decide to opt for an industry job afterwards.

I like how you say that without justifying why my logic is incorrect. Most likely you are basing your judgement on what you read on forums and not what faculty members on adcomms actually look for when looking over student profiles. If you actually talked to members of adcomms (which they change occasionally as some schools rotate them), they gauge GPA only as one of many factors. For example, the "prestige" schools (high rankings stem heavily on perception, so some lower-ranked schools are great in their own right) also select candidates with decent (but not stellar) GPAs for factors that can explain their GPA, such as intense course schedule, taking challenging grad courses, a strong research background that skews GPA for research publications and results, etc. EDIT: mscho147, feel free to ignore ponylevel's comments. Most likely a troll. I have no idea why ponylevel would post ignorant feedback that contradicts what adcomms say they actually do (I've had lunches with these guys from various universities while attending top conferences in my research subfields, and what I say are based exactly on what they've talked about).

You must not understand how adcomms work for computer science graduate programs in America. They judge candidates by their overall package, and GPA only serves as a filter, not a deal-breaker. The person's GPA more than satisfies the minimum even for high-tier programs.

I disagree. The GPA is fine.

It wouldn't be put under a Publications section, but it would be ideal to put it somewhere else like Presentations or Awards.