xanax.tonight

The ironic thing is that he/she didn't even achieve that, as I'm already in a top grad school with no funding worries.

To just.for.the.grfp, how about being constructive or GTFO? I have no interest in getting into an argument with you. Not that it's any of your business, but I am guaranteed funding by my grad institution, which happens to be one of the top schools, i.e. I'm not an uncompetitive graduate student. I'd still like to get the GRFP for obvious reasons. And I wasn't talking about the actual merits of "machinery." I was talking about at the end of the day what politicians can justify without looking bad. I think we've all seen the charades that have been going on recently where a Republican congressperson attacks the stimulus by going through a list of expensive pieces of machinery and how much they cost. This reasoning was the result of a conversation with my advisor. Look, I still may be in the running. Others may still be too. I'm definitely not optimistic here, but as another said we've invested enough time that we might as well continue to do whatever we can to influence the chances of those that still have a shot. To the others who have asked, if you think you may be in limbo, you can call and they will look up your name and confirm whether you are in limbo or have been rejected.

I agree writing/calling your own senators/congresspersons is a good idea. I tried to call today, but they were closed for good friady... trying again Monday. I think its more important, however, that we figure out which senators/congresspersons actually play pivotal roles on committees so that they might be able to wield some actual influence on the budget. Then ALL of us can start calling those senators/congresspersons offices. I haven't found out much. While I follow the news pretty closely, I'm now realizing I understand very little about the interworkings of the federal government. Can any polisci people help?

I'm not very hopeful either, but they've only given 950 and requested (before all the craziness) 1600 and some discipline counts are way down. I still say that if the budget is in fact not finalized then we start calling congressmen and figure out who can actually make a difference with the budget. I bet some of the important people involved don't even really understand what the GRFP is and definitely not the implications for people who won't be able to continue graduate school, etc. These type of awards are very easily justifiable (to the taxpayer) because they do provide American jobs which is the point of the stimulus (as opposed to expensive machinery, which is not easily justifiable). Plus some Congresspeople are very persuadable on issues like this if enough people speak up. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that if we all started calling the congresspersons offices who do have a say in the budget, we could get them to increase the GRFP allotment (assuming it hasn't been finalized). I don't know who these people are yet, but we could try the people on the link posted earlier.

So uh... nobody wants to call some Congresspeople? Beg for increased funding in the final budget.. tell them about all our problems and how getting the award will provide a job for another American worker... boost the economy and such?

So here's a though. If this is where the hold up is, then maybe we've been calling the wrong people. There are a number of Congresspersons listed on that link that might know something about how much the increase to the GRFP budget may be and when the budget may be finalized. We could of course call their offices. (I'm sorry, I had to suggest it).

I just called to see if they could tell me whether I was in category II or III. She said they had not broken things down into categories yet... which doesn't seem to jive with the fact that presumably the top 7% were notified and bottom was notified.

anyone else here in limbo and from (went to high school in) a state that typically doesn't produce a lot of recipients? I asked this last night, but again does anyone know if there are statistics on recipients from previous years by state?

To winners who have not received an email: have you checked you spam filter?

What 3-4 more batches? We don't know anything yet.

does anyone know if statistics for former recipients by state is listed anywhere? (I did not go to high school around the coasts and am currently in limbo)

Yeah, that's about how I feel.

I don't think we can jump to that conclusion yet.

yup... email free.

sigh... still not really satisfied. I wish an "in limbo" email was coming. for those of us in limbo (if we really are), this may go on for weeks.