Dan334477

I got honorable mention as well. I got Very good or excellent in everything except one reviewer gave me a poor for broader impacts. The criticism was that I did not sufficiently explain how I was going to disseminate my research among my discipline's community, and that I should have specified which conferences I would attend to present my research. That seems a bit specific to me, but it's a reasonable criticism. But is that much really worth knocking me down all the way to poor? The reviewer ignored all the other broader impact stuff in my application (which the other reviewers thought was substantial). I guess everyone interprets this broader impact stuff in his/her own way, and you just have to hope you get lucky. And congrats to everyone who finally got an award! Question for other board members: Hypothetically, if I were to change my intended PhD field of study before applying for NSF next year ( (I have not started a PhD program yet, nor will I by the time I apply again), would my chances get worse? I have a lot of undergraduate research experience and a few publications and presentations where I'm a secondary author, so I feel I have a pretty good evidence to show a strong aptitude for doing research. However, none of these UG research experiences are related to the field I'm thinking of switching into. Do you think my chances would get worse, and if so how much?

I really don't understand the compulsion to call NSF all the time. Knowing what the source of the delay is won't make the delay any shorter.

just.for.grfp is the person who, in his/her first post, called on all of us to entertain him/her. I don't believe any of it.

"What's your act called?" "The Aristocrats!"

Hi, I've been lurking on this forum since page 4. I've registered because I think you are mistaken. Here is an excerpt from the Information for Graduate Research Fellows document. It clearly states that any 2 of the 5 years may be put on reserve if you want to "engage in activities other than graduate study." It also says that the institution you stated on your application will be used as your affiliated institution if you choose to reserve the year after getting the award. So if you haven't even been accepted to a graduate institution and you choose to reserve your first year, they will just use whatever institution you stated in your application as your affiliated institution for their records. When you figure out which graduate school you are going to and are ready to start getting your cash after a year or two of reserve, you notify NSF of your new affiliated institution if it's not the same as the one you put on you application. Sorry if the formatting of the excerpt is ugly. Copied and pasted it from a skinny PDF.