NSF Fellowships

[Guest guest]

I'm in Econ, using a PC. My ratings sheets are also "damaged". They seem to be about 200K each, but my computer stops downloading after the first 100K or so...

[Guest guest]

Are you on a Mac or a PC? Was there anything particularly useful in your rating sheets? I've heard they range in terms of helpfulness.

[Guest GT to Stanny]

"Based on the results of reviewers' evaluations, your application was in the top 6 percent of reviewed applications."

w00t!

[Guest guest from 2:08pm]

2/3 pdfs work for me now while the 3rd is broken. I'm surprised by the variation between the two rating sheets I'm seeing so far...one is excellent/excellent with great comments while the other is very good/good with comments that pretty much directly oppose what the first guy said. O_O

[Guest guest]

Has anyone downloaded damaged files and then REDOWNLOADED and had them be not damaged (this has NOT happened to me, but I was wondering if I should keep trying).

[Guest guest from 2:08pm]

And finally I get the last pdf...excellent/excellent with great comments. *sigh* Such is life.

[ophiolite]

Geez...you'd think they'd put some bandwidth on the server hosting these surveys! Maybe I'll get them...sometime...

My main page is very vague and says I was in "the 63rd percentile or below"...

I'll see what they say...my guess is its my subdiscipline in addition to only above average grades and lack of sending GRE scores...do they go into that much detail as I wait patiently?

[Guest Guest]

Those NSF Rating sheets are shockingly superficial, qualitative and subjective. One reviewer's Excellent is another's Good.

[Guest dave]

I don't get it, one reviewer gave me an excellent and a very good. The next gave me a very good and a 'less good'. Ugh... wtf.

[Guest Anon]

I've only been able to get one of my sheets to download so far. Last year, though, I didn't win the award or honorable mention, and got completely different ratings from the reviewers. One gave me an Excellent/VG, and one gave me a Good/Good and had scathing comments. It just goes to show that sometimes the reviewing process can be very subjective, especially if the reviewer has a different theoretical perspective than you or something like that.

I got an honorable mention this year in psychology, and the site says I'm in the 79th-93rd percentile. Last year when I didn't win anything I believe it said that I was in the 64th percentile or below.

[Guest guest]

i got:

good/good

excellent/excellent

good/very good

these comments aren't all that helpful...

[Guest disgruntled]

does it say "service unavailable" for anyone else?

[Guest guest]

yup

[Guest guest]

I got:

excellent/excellent

excellent/excellent

very good/very good

This put me in the top 6% and I won the award.

Last year I was in the bottom 64% (they don't get more specific than that, sorry), and my ratings were:

very good/very good

good/excellent

Order matters; intellectual criterion is more important than broader impacts (hence my failure to go to the 3rd round last time; a "good" on broader impacts and "excellent" in intellectual merit would have been ok, I think.)

You get 2 reviews if you lose; 3 if you get honorable mention or the award. If you got the HM and you thought one reviewer was really harsh, that was probably your last one. They are tougher in the final round and I expect my very good/very good came from that round.

You will have a broad percentile as well, no matter what. But, often it looks like they have two groups in the HM category and two in the winner category. So the guy who posted with an HM but was in the 79-92%, that's the higher end of HM. 63-79 is not that close to winning the award.

Obviously the whole process is subjective. I'm the same person both times, but this time I won. Was I really in the bottom 64% last year? I doubt it. I think I was a bit better. Am I really in the top freaking 6% of applicants this time? No way! I'm not saying I didn't desreve the award, but out of the people who are deserving (more than 6%, for sure), I happened to get lucky. Those of you who can apply next year, do it again!

[ophiolite]

ROFL...

One reviewer commented in my broader impacts section:

"Although the applicant has shown good skill in preparing her proposal, based on other evidence, I don't think she will be a leader in the field compared to others applying for GRF."

Whatever...I'll show them...there is more to being a leader in the field than winning a stupid fellowship competition!

Now...if he only knew that the "excellent problem to tackle" that I outlined in my research proposal was ALL my idea!

[Guest guest]

You get 2 reviews if you lose; 3 if you get honorable mention or the award.

Is that really true? Did you see that written somewhere? I did not receive HM or the award, but I got three reviews. Three quite positive reviews, actually. It almost makes me wonder if there was a mistake.

[Guest dave]

To those who did well in the broader impacts area - did you acutally *do* something in your academic career that fell under that category or did you just waffle about it

[Guest guest]

i'm in sociology and i'm studying health disparities, so my broader impacts section was pretty solid.

i think it might be harder to connect to in math, though. but what do i know?

[Guest dave]

i'm in sociology and i'm studying health disparities, so my broader impacts section was pretty solid.

i think it might be harder to connect to in math, though. but what do i know?

Well, as far as talking about your research in relation to possible broader impacts, that's easy, I did that - perhaps excessively. I haven't done much in the way of research that *has* applied to broader impacts however.

[Guest no luck]

Is that really true? Did you see that written somewhere? I did not receive HM or the award, but I got three reviews. Three quite positive reviews, actually. It almost makes me wonder if there was a mistake.

I also got 3 reviews, but I didn't get HM or the award. Maybe it's a new system this year?

[Guest guest]

A friend of mine who didn't get HM or the award got 2 reviewers this year, so who knows how that works.

[Guest guest again]

Actually I'm in math, I got excellent from both reviewers on my broader impacts essay, they just vastly different opinions on my research proposal. One said that the research goes into two different fields, mechanical engineering and mathematics, but I did tell them that my intended major was APPLIED MATHEMATICS, Jeez!

[Guest guest]

Excellent/Excellent

Excellent/Good

Good/Good

earned me an HM in physics. I'll have another run at this next year.

[ee@byu]

did anyone else get something like this:

"excellent academic preparation and evidence of understanding technical issues in photonics. participation in competitive intellectual programs."

that is exactly what one reviewer wrote for the explanation of intellectual merit criterion, yet he rated me as good. does anyone else find this confusing?

[Guest GT to Stanny]

The standing must be based on more than just the subjective rankings. I got:

Excellent / Very Good

Very Good / Very Good

Very Good / Less Good

And I was awarded the fellowship (top 6%).

So my 3 reviews weren't all that good, but I have a great GPA and decent GRE scores, along with a lot of undergraduate research, several papers, and a few respectable awards here and there. Surely this had to come into play, since my reviews were less than spectacular.

Anybody know the system?