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NDSEG 2012 - Fundopolotoplotopus


andrealphus

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I agree with a comment someone made many pages back: basically, the awarding agencies are like college students, waiting til the last minute then rushing to get the results out to people. If they couldn't definitely get us the results by april 15th, they should've said a later date, then surprised us with earlier results if they came in. And it should all be at one time, not some people getting notifications and others not getting anything. For some of us (me included) this dictates the direction the following year(s) will go and getting ulcers waiting to make other decisions is not a good thing. I already figure I don't have the fellowship, but it would be nice to get a definite yes or no so I could move on.

agreed. I can't concentrate on anything due to this waiting game. I have an exam on tuesday and have yet to begin preparing. It would be nice to get a notification no matter what the outcome is so i can finally concentrate on whats important.

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They only said award notifications would go out by the 15th, but that "All applicants will be notified via e-mail regarding the status of their application once that information becomes available."

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KatKad - were you the one who said you were also going to be applying for the SMART fellowship? I'm thinking about that too. On the one hand, there's a service requirement but on the other hand, there's a built-in postdoc! I have so many friends struggling to find good post-docs right now that it's not sounding like the worst idea in the world.

Any insights about that program?

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there's a non gradcafe forum dedicated solely to the SMART fellowship. it's pretty easy to find with a straightforward google search - that's probably your best bet.

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They only said award notifications would go out by the 15th, but that "All applicants will be notified via e-mail regarding the status of their application once that information becomes available."

I didn't realize what was going on until you have posted this, but this all makes sense. I have been monitoring this forum for quite some time with many of you thinking the same thing. I have worked for the DoD and actually spoke to a number of people about the NDSEG program and how it works (i.e. the evaluation process), this might make a little more sense now.

Each of the branchs, Army, Navy, Air Force have an equal number of fellowship they give out, I believe it was 63 per branch in the past. After the initial browse through for elibility by ASEE, each of the branches receive all the applications, each of the branches ARO, AFOSR, and NRO evaluate the applications and make a list of people 1-X where x is the number of people they choose to rank. At the completion of this, a conference call takes place between representatives from ARO, AFOSR, and NRO to create a "Master List" of applicants ranking them according to the list they agreed upon.

Once this list is made, it is given to ASEE and they handle it from there. So this idea of doing it by discipline is not really true, that has already been taken care of at this point most likely. This does not mean that anyone is out of the running though. Should any of the applicants choose not to accept, the first person from the waitinglist will be choosen, and the process continues until funds run out.

I believe that that point, we will be notified of "status of our application" (i.e all the funds have dried up)

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They only said award notifications would go out by the 15th, but that "All applicants will be notified via e-mail regarding the status of their application once that information becomes available."

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUdge. Not cool. At this point, as soon as I hear a physicist say they've heard back, I'll know I'm hosed.

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I didn't realize what was going on until you have posted this, but this all makes sense. I have been monitoring this forum for quite some time with many of you thinking the same thing. I have worked for the DoD and actually spoke to a number of people about the NDSEG program and how it works (i.e. the evaluation process), this might make a little more sense now.

Each of the branchs, Army, Navy, Air Force have an equal number of fellowship they give out, I believe it was 63 per branch in the past. After the initial browse through for elibility by ASEE, each of the branches receive all the applications, each of the branches ARO, AFOSR, and NRO evaluate the applications and make a list of people 1-X where x is the number of people they choose to rank. At the completion of this, a conference call takes place between representatives from ARO, AFOSR, and NRO to create a "Master List" of applicants ranking them according to the list they agreed upon.

Once this list is made, it is given to ASEE and they handle it from there. So this idea of doing it by discipline is not really true, that has already been taken care of at this point most likely. This does not mean that anyone is out of the running though. Should any of the applicants choose not to accept, the first person from the waitinglist will be choosen, and the process continues until funds run out.

I believe that that point, we will be notified of "status of our application" (i.e all the funds have dried up)

Thank you very much for this information. So the awards all were determined at the same time. I now know for sure to stop having any hope that they're "coming out in waves", etc., and can get back to focusing on other things. I'm still really frustrated by the poor flow of information from the ASEE itself but am glad to get this answer.

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@Tali2 -- The problems that are coming out with notifications are an ASEE problem not a DoD problem. The NDSEG is a pretty straight forward selectrion process from the DoD side of things. I am with everyone here being frustrated, but I think I have my answer that I did not get it.

Congrats to those who did and anyone who goes to a private school and has a funding some place else, feel free to share the wealth :)

Edited by BJ745
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I didn't realize what was going on until you have posted this, but this all makes sense. I have been monitoring this forum for quite some time with many of you thinking the same thing. I have worked for the DoD and actually spoke to a number of people about the NDSEG program and how it works (i.e. the evaluation process), this might make a little more sense now.

Each of the branchs, Army, Navy, Air Force have an equal number of fellowship they give out, I believe it was 63 per branch in the past. After the initial browse through for elibility by ASEE, each of the branches receive all the applications, each of the branches ARO, AFOSR, and NRO evaluate the applications and make a list of people 1-X where x is the number of people they choose to rank. At the completion of this, a conference call takes place between representatives from ARO, AFOSR, and NRO to create a "Master List" of applicants ranking them according to the list they agreed upon.

Once this list is made, it is given to ASEE and they handle it from there. So this idea of doing it by discipline is not really true, that has already been taken care of at this point most likely. This does not mean that anyone is out of the running though. Should any of the applicants choose not to accept, the first person from the waitinglist will be choosen, and the process continues until funds run out.

I believe that that point, we will be notified of "status of our application" (i.e all the funds have dried up)

THANK YOU! Nice to have some insight into why the procedure looks so haphazard from our perspective :)

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I feel pretty lucky that I have good funding from my program. I was just really hoping to bring in my "own" money because my PI went out on a limb taking me, since my research isn't covered under any of his current grants. Guess it's time to start writing my own grants! Maybe this is a good opportunity to learn a new skill... :P

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i'm kind of confused about what they said on their facebook page. All awardees will be notified by the 15th and all other will be notified as soon as the information becomes available. If they have information on all of the awardees then how do they not have the information on everyone else? Couldn't they just tell people they are waitlisted(if there even is a waitlist) and that if they are moved up they will be notified in the future? This waiting game still continues and it is really starting to piss me off. What are your thoughts on this?

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i'm kind of confused about what they said on their facebook page. All awardees will be notified by the 15th and all other will be notified as soon as the information becomes available. If they have information on all of the awardees then how do they not have the information on everyone else? Couldn't they just tell people they are waitlisted(if there even is a waitlist) and that if they are moved up they will be notified in the future? This waiting game still continues and it is really starting to piss me off. What are your thoughts on this?

I think that their statement makes them not have to. My interpretation is that, if you haven't received an award notification yet, you're on a waiting list. As people reject the award in preference to others, more awards go out. Once all of the awards are accepted, the rest of the waiting list will get a rejection letter. The difference between this and getting wait listed for a school is that a much smaller fraction will reject the award. So, yes, it'd have been nice for them to send out a "you're on the waiting list", but I think that they would view this as a waste of time.

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I think that their statement makes them not have to. My interpretation is that, if you haven't received an award notification yet, you're on a waiting list. As people reject the award in preference to others, more awards go out. Once all of the awards are accepted, the rest of the waiting list will get a rejection letter. The difference between this and getting wait listed for a school is that a much smaller fraction will reject the award. So, yes, it'd have been nice for them to send out a "you're on the waiting list", but I think that they would view this as a waste of time.

This is correct. I emailed the NDSEG team this morning and asked if applicants on the waiting list would receive emails. This is their response:

All preliminary award notifications have been sent. All applicants who are selected for additional awards will be notified as soon as possible. Once we have reached out 200 awards limit' date= all applicants will be notified of their final status in the 2012 NDSEG competition.
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Yeah, they just posted a similar statement on facebook "The NDSEG Program Office has issued all preliminary award notifications. All other applicants who are selected for additional awards will be notified as soon as possible. Once the 200 awards limit has been reached, all applicants will be notified of their final status in the 2012 NDSEG competition. Please feel free to follow up with ndseg@asee.org should you have any additional questions. Thank you."

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