NDSEG 2019-2020

[vpaglioni3]

The official line is that decisions will be finalized no later than April 13, with notification no later than April 15. 

[SomGuy13]

21 minutes ago, vpaglioni3 said:

The official line is that decisions will be finalized no later than April 13, with notification no later than April 15. 

Where did you hear that?

[3st3rb]

2 minutes ago, SomGuy13 said:

Where did you hear that?

calls/emails.

[robertac93]

Somehow I'm not surprised that it looks like we won't find out until* tomorrow. Given all the problems this fellowship has had in the past (even if it wasn't SysPlus), and then thinking about the issues with the application this year...I'm just not surprised.

They also have  no incentive to get the decisions to us faster. They get paid to manage it regardless of when they notify us.

*edit

Edited April 14, 2020 by robertac93

[BCHGang]

58 minutes ago, vpaglioni3 said:

I leave no stone unturned in my quest for information.

I hope you are a PhD student, and if not, got offers for it. That's the perfect mindset for the PhD !

[zamboni_driver]

Yo
Their palms are sweaty, hit refresh, fingers heavy
There's vomit on the keyboard already, mom's spaghetti
They nervous, but on the forum they look calm and ready
To take Ls, but they keep on forgettin'
What they wrote down, ~December gang~ goes so loud
Call SysPlus again, but the words won't come out
They chokin', how, everybody's jokin' now
Then April 15th, times up, over, blaow!  

[BCHGang]

6 minutes ago, zamboni_driver said:

mom's spaghetti

Never forgetti !

[alcoholistic]

Lurker here. Still stuck on 12/6  not looking good. Anyone call today to see if they will release? I feel bad for the grad school applicants who will have 1 day to negotiate with their acceptances.

[robertac93]

1 minute ago, alcoholistic said:

Lurker here. Still stuck on 12/6  not looking good. Anyone call today to see if they will release? I feel bad for the grad school applicants who will have 1 day to negotiate with their acceptances.

I would think that they should have already been able to make those decisions. Two hypotheticals, either they win the NDSEG or they don't. Either way they can have made their choice pending the NDSEG decision right?

[BCHGang]

2 minutes ago, robertac93 said:

I would think that they should have already been able to make those decisions. Two hypotheticals, either they win the NDSEG or they don't. Either way they can have made their choice pending the NDSEG decision right?

Sometimes, schools give "conditional" acceptances. "You only get in if you get external funding".

Some schools accept candidates without guaranteeing funding for a full four to five years. So a professor may have funding for two years, but if he can't secure funding for the three years afterwards, then the student has no choice but to leave with a masters, or transfer to another group.

These would be perfect situations in which the results of the NDSEG matter.

Edited April 14, 2020 by BCHGang

[alcoholistic]

Well, some schools will adjust acceptances after funding comes out. One of my friends won GRFP and was accepted into a couple schools the next day. Getting NDSEG might give you some time to talk to professors who might not have had funding for you. 

[thel]

1 minute ago, robertac93 said:

I would think that they should have already been able to make those decisions. Two hypotheticals, either they win the NDSEG or they don't. Either way they can have made their choice pending the NDSEG decision right?

Some programs will give you extra money on top of the fellowship receiving external awards, which you may not find out until you have an offer in hand

In my program's case, people can receive up to $5,000 a year extra, but it depends on how many other people receive national awards that year

[GIIC]

I wouldn’t lose all hope for today (for all its worth....which is prob nothing) because I saw last year or year before notifications went out around 3pm it seemed. 

[alcoholistic]

Just now, thel said:

Some programs will give you extra money on top of the fellowship receiving external awards, which you may not find out until you have an offer in hand

In my program's case, people can receive up to $5,000 a year extra, but it depends on how many other people receive national awards that year

Major oof from my university. The graduate school kills the top-off for anyone making over 35,000 a year. Which is some bull as funded students bring in a ton of money and prestige for them. 

[robertac93]

8 minutes ago, BCHGang said:

Sometimes, schools give "conditional" acceptances. "You only get in if you get external funding".

Some schools accept candidates without guaranteeing funding for a full four to five years. So a professor may have funding for two years, but if he can't secure funding for the three years afterwards, then the student has no choice but to leave with a masters, or transfer to another group.

These would be perfect situations in which the results of the NDSEG matter.

I totally get  this, what I meant is that those who are in that situation should be able to theoretically have made their decision. "If I get the NDSEG, I'll go to school A. If I don't, then I'll go to school B."

[fl1989]

My department pays 19k a year (in a very high COL area, i.e southern california) something like the NDSEG would essentially double my salary lol

[BCHGang]

5 minutes ago, alcoholistic said:

The graduate school kills the top-off for anyone making over 35,000 a year. Which is some bull as funded students bring in a ton of money and prestige for them. 

Claim that you make less by donating part of your salary to an offshore charity, hidden by shelve corporations obviously, that you start. Then use a VPN to access your offshore bank account tied to the charity and buy Monero from a decentralized exchange, and send the monero back to your wallet. Convert to bitcoin, and withdraw in a coinbase account, and route to bank account. All transactions will be hidden. And by donating, you can claim that you make less than 5k a year as far as the university is concerned.

This way, you can have your cake, and eat it too !

Edited April 14, 2020 by BCHGang

[thel]

Just now, alcoholistic said:

Major oof from my university. The graduate school kills the top-off for anyone making over 35,000 a year. Which is some bull as funded students bring in a ton of money and prestige for them. 

To be fair, this is a new policy for us (started a couple years ago), some alumni started a fund for it specifically.

[cellbiogal]

A haiku:

 

What do the dates mean?

~December gang forever~

Results soon? Never.

[alcoholistic]

2 minutes ago, BCHGang said:

Claim that you make less by donating part of your salary to an offshore charity, hidden by shelve corporations obviously, that you start. Then use a VPN to access your offshore bank account tied to the charity and buy Monero from a decentralized exchange, and send the monero back to your wallet. Convert to bitcoin, and withdraw in a coinbase account, and route to bank account. All transactions will be hidden. And by donating, you can claim that you make less than 5k a year as far as the university is concerned.

This way, you can have your cake, and eat it too !

Instructions unclear. Used University VPN and now there are federal agents following me. 

[GIIC]

Has anyone contacted them yet today? 

[throwawayndseg]

Lurker here... what the fuck is taking them so long? How is it possible that the NDSEG is still this poorly run after so many years (since the 1980's I think)? This is the DoD we're talking about.

Edit: and I'm not even talking about the delay in releasing results. Back in January or December they had a situation where they deleted some reference letters and one of my references had to resubmit. How is that level of incompetence possible? This isn't just some average-joe fellowship too; this is a 100k+ fellowship.

Edited April 14, 2020 by throwawayndseg

[vpaglioni3]

4 minutes ago, throwawayndseg said:

Lurker here... what the fuck is taking them so long? How is it possible that the NDSEG is still this poorly run after so many years (since the 1980's I think)? This is the DoD we're talking about.

I worked for two years for the DoD... this isn't that surprising. There are a lot of legacy systems and procedures/protocols that make no sense in a modern context, and small-ticket items like the administration of a fellowship don't have money for upgrades. There's also momentum for stuff like this - if it works, even nominally, then it's fine and they'll figure it out once it breaks for real. 

Edit: the system is throwing errors for us, but if it doesn't really affect the way they do business, then it stays on.

Edited April 14, 2020 by vpaglioni3

[thel]

3 minutes ago, throwawayndseg said:

Lurker here... what the fuck is taking them so long? How is it possible that the NDSEG is still this poorly run after so many years (since the 1980's I think)? This is the DoD we're talking about.

It seems like it gets punted to a new contractor who has no idea what's going on every couple of years. I assume they every reset means the loss of a bunch of knowledge about how the program should be run

[throwawayndseg]

Just now, thel said:

It seems like it gets punted to a new contractor who has no idea what's going on every couple of years. I assume they every reset means the loss of a bunch of knowledge about how the program should be run

Why was it punted to STI-TEC in 2018 and then SysPlus this year after being run by the ASEE for so many years? We're out here working our asses off to help this country (which I love) advance our technologies where this fellowship could provide hundreds with the resources to do so, but they're just twiddling their thumbs up their butts. They spend so much money on trying to recruit new scientists and graduates to join government agencies after graduation, but shit like this just turns us all off and they wonder why.