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Posted

Civil Engineering here. First time applying and first time eligible. I have 3 mo. of undergraduate research with 1 conference proceeding at the time of applying.

Posted

Aerospace Engineering, first year grad student. Applied last year with no HM, I think they said they didn't think my proposal was feasible with facilities available, haha. We'll see how it pans out this year.

Posted

Good luck everyone during this home stretch of ever mounting anxiety blink.gif

Posted

I swore up, down and sideways that I would not obsess about this silly fellowship. I thought I believed I had no chance: in fact when my advisor told me to apply, I outright laughed at him. Back in grad school after 5+ years, and at a masters college that has never had a GRFP fellow in CS. I do not believe I have a chance. I shouldn't.

But then WHY do I stalk this forum all the time??! Ugh. Hope can be so annoying. ;-)

Posted

First year grad student in civil engineering, but applied under geosciences. My research deals with hydrologic modeling integrated with other Earth system processes. I actually applied for this, NDSEG, and EPA STAR. My advisor asked WHY I would do this to myself, since I have funding for the next four years. I didn't really have a reason. I also applied to Fulbright and got that! The good thing about applying for one fellowship, is that usually you can "copy and paste" or make minor edits to others! Good luck everyone!

Posted

I swore up, down and sideways that I would not obsess about this silly fellowship. I thought I believed I had no chance: in fact when my advisor told me to apply, I outright laughed at him. Back in grad school after 5+ years, and at a masters college that has never had a GRFP fellow in CS. I do not believe I have a chance. I shouldn't.

But then WHY do I stalk this forum all the time??! Ugh. Hope can be so annoying. ;-)

I know what you mean. It is such a long shot. I wish I could stop worrying about this.

Posted

Anthropology here, first time grad, first time applying....expecting first time rejected....yet still spending way too much time on this board

Posted

@skylyon,

Great question that I don't have an answer for. I can tell you I got an HM 2009, and was all excited to get the award last year, but didn't even get an HM. Same thing happened to another buddy of mine. Moral of the story; its a crapshoot

Posted

Moral of the story; its a crapshoot

From what I've read, I agree. It seems to have at least something to do with who you get as a reviewer. If you get lucky and get folks who love your proposal, you're golden. But if you get someone that, for whatever reason, hates your project, you're out of luck.

Here's hoping they had really nice reviewers this year! :)

Posted

@skylyon,

Great question that I don't have an answer for. I can tell you I got an HM 2009, and was all excited to get the award last year, but didn't even get an HM. Same thing happened to another buddy of mine. Moral of the story; its a crapshoot

The older applicant pools are graded more harshly than the younger ones. It takes substantial improvement to maintain the same level of competitiveness. Add a little noise to that and it's easy to see why this could happen. The results seem sensible for the most part. The only major issue I've noticed is that hot topics are much more likely to get it. In electrical engineering at my school, half the awards from the past few years are from one group that works on carbon nanotubes & graphene (which just won the 2010 Nobel six years after its discovery). The young PI that heads it picks out really good students to join his group, but this is a top 5 ranked department so pretty much every group is good, which leads me to believe that working on that topic helps them a lot. I suppose it fits the "transformative research" criterion.

Posted

interesting...yea, this is my last year to apply for it...i completely changed my research proposal this year though, so the HM last year probably will be independent of if i get it this year...i wrote about industrial engineering principles applied to animal shelters last year and they totally loved it (though my research experience is what didn't put me over the line), though i probably got some animal lovers on that panel. so yea, it definitely could depend on the reviewers heartstrings

Posted

Does anyone know if hearing back about the NSF might be tied to the fact that the temporary spending measures expire on April 8? According to the CNN articles linked below, if a new plan is not approved (or the old one not extended) there will be a government shutdown. I really hope not, because I can't wait to hear back, either way.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/27/ahead-of-the-curve-the-next-7-days-23/?hpt=C1

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/17/breaking-senate-passes-bill-to-fund-the-government/

By the way, I'm a first time applicant in political science (but I don't study American Politics, so I plead ignorance on all this budget stuff)

Posted

Does anyone know if hearing back about the NSF might be tied to the fact that the temporary spending measures expire on April 8? According to the CNN articles linked below, if a new plan is not approved (or the old one not extended) there will be a government shutdown. I really hope not, because I can't wait to hear back, either way.

http://news.blogs.cn...days-23/?hpt=C1

http://politicaltick...the-government/

By the way, I'm a first time applicant in political science (but I don't study American Politics, so I plead ignorance on all this budget stuff)

A couple of people on here have tried contacting NSF and basically gotten the same answer of "we have no information on that" from the people who answer the phones/emails.

Posted

I also applied for the NDSEG fellowship. Does anyone know if that is awarded about the same time as the NSF?

Thanks!

Posted

I also applied for the NDSEG fellowship. Does anyone know if that is awarded about the same time as the NSF?

There is a that you should definitely keep an eye on.

To answer your question: both fellowships promise announcements in early April. In the linked NDSEG thread, however, one person contacted the office associated with the NDSEG and found they are waiting on DoD for something, presumably information regarding this fiscal year, which is, of course, still up in the air in Congress. NSF has given no indication (at least by the information presented in this present thread) that their announcement dates are dependent upon the current budget debate.

Posted

Does anyone know if hearing back about the NSF might be tied to the fact that the temporary spending measures expire on April 8? According to the CNN articles linked below, if a new plan is not approved (or the old one not extended) there will be a government shutdown.

Additionally there's this:

http://news.sciencem...e-s.html?ref=hp

The CR they did pass (the 3-week reprieve until April 8) included a small budget cut for the NSF, apparently? I hadn't seen this reported anywhere else. $75 million is not very much in the grand scheme of things, but I wonder if that will create enough uncertainty within NSF about what their funding would be under a real FY2011 budget that they'll feel like their hands are tied...

Crap, I hope not.

Posted

There is a that you should definitely keep an eye on.

To answer your question: both fellowships promise announcements in early April. In the linked NDSEG thread, however, one person contacted the office associated with the NDSEG and found they are waiting on DoD for something, presumably information regarding this fiscal year, which is, of course, still up in the air in Congress. NSF has given no indication (at least by the information presented in this present thread) that their announcement dates are dependent upon the current budget debate.

Thank you very much!

Posted

Also, can I just say how lame I am for the number of times a day I check Fastlane, hoping to see a "down for scheduled maintenance tonight" message like that which preceded the award announcement last year? I mean really. It's not April yet. We don't even know if they have money, but we know other federal fellowships (NDSEG) are not awarding when they said they would. I have incredibly huge amounts of coursework and research I should be doing. And what do I do with my time? Refresh Fastlane. I need a life. Or some self-control.

Posted

Oddly enough, for the number of times a day I obsessively check other sites, I don't check Fastlane. I guess I just assume I'll either find out by email (like last year) or via this thread xD

Posted

Oddly enough, for the number of times a day I obsessively check other sites, I don't check Fastlane. I guess I just assume I'll either find out by email (like last year) or via this thread xD

But if Fastlane posts a "down for maintenance" message, you'll know the news is coming hours, whole agonizing hours (!!), before it actually comes. Why would you not want to sign up for that?

...yeah.

Posted

.....yeaaaaaaah I'll probably start checking second week of April, once NDSEG and NSF are both taunting me xD At least I know results for the third fellowship I applied for aren't coming before end of May.

Posted

I obsessively check this site in the hopes of finding someone saying that they emailed NSF (or NDSEG) and found out something. :D

Posted

Did anyone else apply for NSF under "interdisciplinary"? Or also apply for the Boren Fellowship?

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