Boren 2013-2014

[aepafrica]

From facebook: 

 

Boren Awards for International Study

 

This year, we received an amazing 526 applications for the Boren Fellowship and 947 applications for the Boren Scholarship. We'll announce our winners at the end of April. Stay tuned!

[cm125]

How many fellowships are awarded?

[aepafrica]

Guess we won't know until they are announced...=/

[djevojka]

From Boren's website regarding 2012 stats (so last year's apps): "[in 2012] 1014 undergraduate students applied for the Boren Scholarship and 161 were awarded, while 575 graduate students applied for the Boren Fellowship and 119 were awarded." So apps are down, slightly. Whether that effects the # of awards available is anyone's guess

[nosleeptildoctorate]

To add to Djevojka's post about 2012 stats... 

 

Here's a link to a statistical summary of the 2012 Fellowship awards:

http://www.borenawards.org/document/download/boren_fellowship_summary_stats_42.pdf

 

And the scholarship awards for 2012:

http://www.borenawards.org/document/download/boren_scholarship_summary_stats_41.pdf

 

In 2011, "944 undergraduate students applied for the Boren Scholarship and 152 were awarded, while 625 graduate students applied for the Boren Fellowship and 117 were awarded."

 

In 2010, "925 undergraduate students applied for the Boren Scholarship and 138 were awarded, while 519 graduate students applied for the Boren Fellowship and 99 were awarded."

 

In 2009, there were 499 applications and 98 recipients for the Boren Fellowships and 896 applications and 130 recipients for the Boren Scholarships.

[StyLeD]

Who knows whether the sequester will affect the rate of acceptance. I do know that the Boren budget determines the number of winners, but then again, the entire Boren program probably is probably worth less than a drop in the bucket to the DoD.

[qaiswalayla]

This is just pure speculation (to be fair we're all speculating), but perhaps the people who only received the date confirmation email and not the budget email are alternates? I find it hard to imagine that they would send a date confirmation email to everyone! Anyone had a similar experience? Would welcome more speculation/thoughts! Hang in there everyone!  

Edited April 11, 2013 by qaiswalayla

[cm125]

I mentioned this on the previous page, but Boren directly told my friend that they had only contacted people if information was unclear or missing from their application. I find it hard to believe they would lie.

There hasn't been a budget email yet. People had mentioned being asked to provide information like their home institution tuition for the fellowship period. This was information that I know I put into my budget, so that would make sense that I didn't receive an email.

[Lauren2013]

I could see that being a possibility, since I agree it seems a bit tedious. And i don't really know what about dates would be considered unclear on the application. The style of this years "budget email" would be a little weird though. (But then again, who knows!)

[desmonster1018]

I don't know what to make of the lack of official budget email this year. Maybe it's specifically to torture everyone.  

 

cm125, I don't know that the Boren staff would outright lie, but they do tend to be cryptic about communication (as aepafrica kindly put it ). If you check the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 threads, the staff said the exact same thing to people who called to inquire about 'the' budget email, and we know in retrospect that this was not the case. I also included my home institution, etc. fees in my original budget and justification (and went back to check), and still received one of the odd budget emails. 

 

Still not sure how to interpret any information thus far, but I'm glad we're all hanging in there!  

[shakazulu]

ive had three communications with the boren personnel in the last few weeks... one was a clarification about budget stuff, another concerned extending my time abroad for a week, and another was the date email a lot of people seemed to have received. im a bit concerned about the lack of the notorious budget emails, but i take it all together as a good sign. hang in there everyone. the wait is painful but we'll make it.

[Lauren2013]

Desmonster1018, was their anything that you had to change when they emailed you for that clarification? If not, I'm feeling more like that alternate theory may be right! (The only email i have received is the dates email) at this point I would just love to know yes or no haha

[mcelone]

@desmonster I thought it was strange that they requested that budget clarification for me, since I had included all the information in my original budget.  The revised budget I sent to Boren was almost identical, but just formatted a little differently.

[qaiswalayla]

I'm really starting to think more and more that for those who only received the date clarification email that the "alternate theory" may be right. I doubt they would ask "everyone" for date clarifications. I also agree that Boren does not "lie", but is certainly careful in choosing language and how they phrase things. I find it odd that they can't be more straight forward simply because having different stages of elimination would be easier for them (oh and us to!).  

[cm125]

The other thing is that Apeafrica didn't get a date email, but then later got an email asking her to find an alternate in-country language program. It wouldn't make sense that she was eliminated, but Boren would go out of their way to ask for an updated plan. That doesn't fit.

[shakazulu]

In the absence of hard data or any correlation with previous years, this is all speculation. It seems clear that thos budgets won't come out (if they do in the next week that's a different thing). My gut tells me we'll only know once final decisions come out.

[nosleeptildoctorate]

Regarding the alternate theory, I think we still have reason to be cautiously optimistic.  From the Boren website:

 

 

"The regional panels meet in March, review the applications primarily based on world region, and recommend a set number of applications to be reviewed by the national nominating panel.  The national nominating panels meet in April to review the results of the regional panels and make final recommendations.”

 

The communications and information so far for the fellowship folks has been:

 

Week of March 11:  some people received emails asking them to correct some small errors on their applications or for further details on their   budget

March 21:  Survey email to all applicants

March 28-29:  Selection Panels met (according to Djevojka’s post), and they would have recommended a set number of applications to be reviewed by the national panel.

April 2:  Some received dates email (some did not)

April:  National nominating panels meet to make final recommendations

End of April/beginning of May:  Final decisions go out

 

Based on this information, my guess is that those who received a dates email on April 2 (or in aepafrica's case, a notification to select a new language program) were selected by the regional panels to be reviewed by the national nominating panel. 

 

So, I think receiving the dates email is reason to be hopeful at this point.

[steppeandsky]

Consider the language of last year's "budget" email:

 

"Thank you for applying for the Boren Fellowship.

 

At this time we want to make sure that you don’t have any small changes with your budget or timeline. We want to make sure the we have a clear idea the exact costs of your program (as near as you can tell at this point) and the exact dates. If you have large changes – i.e. you want to go overseas for 6 months, instead of 3, please do not send us those changes at this time.

If you have changes, please email them back to me by Wednesday, March 28^th. If you are changing your budget please use the same categories as you originally used, which can be found at - http://www.borenawar...hip/budget.html (you should then specifically look at the overseas and domestic guidelines).

 

If you have any questions please feel free to call or send us an email. 

Thank you."

 

It's not simply a budget update request, but it also asks to provide information on any possible program date changes: which was the purpose of the most recent "date" email?

[aepafrica]

My guess is as good as anyone's here.  It's so hard to figure out.  I've been so stressed with finding an alternative program and get Boren a budget by tomorrow.  I'm happy to report that after emailing and calling from my campus place of work at 2am on Wednesday, I've been able to find two universities to work with me on an alternative program.  I got a estimated budget from the one that makes the most sense (interestingly, the university where the AFLI program was supposed to take place).  I have a letter of commitment (yay!) and a budget.  It seemed a little high but I still have room for costs I need for my research.  I sent it over to the program manager to get his opinion on it.  He said it looked fine and to redo my budget to reflect it (mind you this is the second time I will have amended my budget).  He told me earlier in the week to have it by tomorrow but now has said I can get it to him by Monday.  Nope, it's going in tomorrow.  It's stressed me out enough.  I kept him updated as I really thought I wasn't going to have something work.  I hope this was not all for nothing...I've basically had to stop almost everything I've needed to do to make this work in such a short amount of time.  It has exhausted me.     Good luck everyone.  When they say we will know by the end of the month, they mean 30 April, right??

[aepafrica]

Turned in my amended budget to include an alternative Zulu language program.  Now...we wait....

[Ingenue]

Not too put too fine a point on it, but I also suspect the date confirmation email serves the same purpose as the infamous budget email from previous years.

The fact that they were human generated and quite brief doesn't diminish the significance of that email. What it probably means is that the Boren program, as a government institution, went through some major layoffs and staff turnover that left the program in a bit of a chaotic frenzy at the beginning of the calendar year (I think someone else mentioned sequestration cuts?). In other words, the usual staff person who would generate budget emails to applicants who passed the regional reviews is probably no longer in existence, or something along those lines. And if the program is understaffed, then it probably means they are eliminating midway steps like making small changes to our dates before doling out awards. [edit: I could be wrong about faculty members on our selection committees sending emails to us directly]

And like dontstoptilldoctorate(?) outlined, the timing of it all makes it pretty clear.

Perhaps I'm also speaking from a place of optimistic anticipation since I am one of the people who received the date confirmation email. But the more I think about it (and I'm also agonizing over the wait) the more obvious this becomes.

Edited April 14, 2013 by Ingenue

[JustChill]

I still think that the number of us who received the dates email far exceeds the number of previous years' budget email recipients. Off the top of my head, and based on conversations I've had with people I know, it almost seems like up to 80% of us got the dates email.

[cm125]

Not too put too fine a point on it, but I also suspect the date confirmation email serves the same purpose as the infamous budget email from previous years.

The fact that they were human generated and quite brief doesn't diminish the significance of that email. What it probably means is that the Boren program, as a government institution, went through some major layoffs and staff turnover that left the program in a bit of a chaotic frenzy at the beginning of the calendar year (I think someone else mentioned sequestration cuts?). In other words, the usual staff person who would generate budget emails to applicants who passed the regional reviews is probably no longer in existence, or something along those lines. And if the program is understaffed, then it probably means they are eliminating midway steps like making small changes to our dates before doling out awards. [edit: I could be wrong about faculty members on our selection committees sending emails to us directly]

 

That theory doesn't work. The Institute for International Education--a non-profit, independent org that also handles certain Fulbright awards--administers Boren on behalf of the National Security Education Program. 

 

JustChill has pointed out one of the many inconsistencies in the "dates email is the new budget email" theory. There are others. We're all reasonably smart, so if there was a pattern at work here I think we'd all be able to see pretty clearly. Right now we're just reading tea leaves.

 

Since clearly the protocol has changed, how about we fill out this googledoc? Come notifications, we'll be able to see if any pattern emerged and applicants next year can know what to expect.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ak8VXdo5DCQmdHBKamV4b0NPa3hBRUJqRkxlZGdpRGc#gid=0

[Lauren2013]

The boren is managed by the IIE, but is funded through the NSEP. Does that make a difference? I think it does seem strange that so many people have received the dates email, but I don't really know any applicants outside of here to ask about it. I guess we'll just see what the google doc reveals come May (or end of April lol.)

[ARdancer87]

Do anyone know if ALL the scholarship applicants received the "budget email" ??? The confusion with the fellowship applicants has made me a bit worried