giles

I've gone through the process twice (and lost out both times, so you can take or leave my advice), but I'd say only include those outreach and broader impacts type of activities that are relevant to science. Remember, you're essentially writing a research proposal in the hopes of being awarded money. The grounds on which you will be awarded this money is primarily dependent on NSF's perception of your ability and likelihood to: 1) do good science and 2) fulfill their mission statement. For the broader impacts, they are specifically looking for the enthusiasm of scientific communication to a broader audience (outside of academia). As a rule of thumb, anything in your essays which doesn't contribute to, or detracts from, these overarching criteria should be axed.

Further evidence for leappho2012's theory is that last year, the maintenance message appeared at ~8:59 PM EDT (based on the previous forum), just one minute before the Fastlane user support phone line is set to close.

You're actually probably spot on.

stmwap is correct. My HM email last year came from info@nsfgrfp.org

The hell? DID THE MESSAGE JUST GO AWAY. Am I going crazy?

Welcome to the FastLane Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). FastLane will be unavailable from 10:00 PM ET Monday March 31st - 2:00 AM ET Tuesday April 1st for scheduled maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.

They're available once the decisions are up. They eventually get taken down after some number of weeks/months, so I advise saving them as soon as you get them.

See my previous post, doctordestiny.

I knew of someone at my bachelor's institution who had this happen. He didn't find out until later in the summer that his HM was bumped up to an award. I don't think he received any additional communication from NSF before that happened, so I think that NSF just takes extra time to judge which HMs are most deserving.

Not a terrible plan, but we need to pace ourselves to last until ~3 AM since that's about when the results come in.

Yeah. People. Chill. And as an to alternative to getting in a tizzy when Fastlane goes down tomorrow (I'm betting winners are announced Friday morning), may I suggest a relaxing evening of the drink of your choice (be it scotch, whiskey, wine, beer, etc.) while you're obsessively checking this forum? Worst case scenario: you get denied any form of congratulations from the GRFP, but at least you spend the night with cool internet buds while forgetting about all your past/present/future sorrows. And after all... who gets work done on Friday?

If memory serves me correctly, the "scheduled maintenance" message appears on the actual Fastlane login page. So, I wouldn't sweat that this may be an announcement. However, it may be an indication that they're prepping for the announcements later that week (Tuesday or Friday according to previous years). I'm putting my bet on Friday morning, 03/28.

There's a delay between the time you get the e-mail and when the winners are posted. That's why people obsessively check the winners link because it's gets updated there about an hour before the e-mail comes.

Thanks for the essay prompts.I recently submitted my application for the NSF GRFP. NSF expects to see quite a lot in the essays about the "broader impacts" of your work, especially things like outreach activities and research/teaching integration. I see a bit of "broader impact" type material in the first essay prompt ("...to advance knowledge or capabilities in a scientific or engineering discipline.") Do you think it would be a good idea to add in some description of possible outreach and teaching integration activities, or would I be better served to devote more application to description of technical and scientific details? Also, as ApplMathProfile said, if you could somehow post your essays so we can see an example of what a winning essay looks like, that would be awesome. Thanks!! SG

You're in chemical engineering? Yeah, it's too late. Also, that fly GIF that you have on your post totally tricked me. Well played.