sirmixalot Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 I need some advice regarding Fulbright and grad school offers. I got an RAship funding offer a few weeks ago from a professor at a PhD program I applied to. The school is one of the top two on my list of graduate schools. The professor who offered me the funding knows that I am waiting on a Fulbright fellowship, but It has been almost 2 weeks since he sent the offer and I haven't responded. If I don't get the Fulbright, I will most likely accept his offer since I've been wait listed by the other school in my top 2. I don't want to keep him waiting any longer than I have to. He has also said that I can most likely defer my acceptance to the program for next year, but the funding will not be guaranteed to be the same as it is now. I want to contact the professor just to let him know that his offer is my top choice among my graduate schools, but I will accept the Fulbright if I get it. Can you guys help me word this so that it doesn't come across as arrogant? As long as you're gracious, I can't see how it would come across as arrogant. Tell the professor that you are excited at the prospect of working with him, however you do want to make sure he's informed about your situation. If you're able to portray that you're thankful for the opportunity, but also want to take an opportunity that you absolutely can't defer, then you'll be fine. Better yet, make sure this is a conversation, not just an email (if possible). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neurona Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 Anyone else here applying to France? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beingbecoming Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 Anyone else here applying to France? Yes there are at least two others on here for France Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinguino02 Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 So I got a call last week from Mr. Newcombe for UCL that I had to apply to UCL and be accepted within two weeks in order to remain considered. ...Just got my acceptance letter to UCL. Woo. The only issue was that when we spoke he appeared to say that I was originally the applicant sent to NY (for final clarification) to be accepted...and then they found out my PhD adviser lacked the funds to take me on as a PhD student so they only could consider me as a masters student. I reapplied as a Master's applicant (well, I just said "please consider me as a MSc app)...but now I do not know if my chances are completely scrapped? Any thoughts? When does UCL normally announce? Thanks =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horb Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 I got accepted into the Leicester program. Any idea where I send the notification letter? (For the uk partnership) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neurona Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 Yes there are at least two others on here for France Are you applying for France? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmarteyMartey Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 I got accepted into the Leicester program. Any idea where I send the notification letter? (For the uk partnership) Congratulations! :-) (No idea about the notification letter but just wanted to congratulate you) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NuclearFlea Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 So I got a call last week from Mr. Newcombe for UCL that I had to apply to UCL and be accepted within two weeks in order to remain considered. ...Just got my acceptance letter to UCL. Woo. The only issue was that when we spoke he appeared to say that I was originally the applicant sent to NY (for final clarification) to be accepted...and then they found out my PhD adviser lacked the funds to take me on as a PhD student so they only could consider me as a masters student. I reapplied as a Master's applicant (well, I just said "please consider me as a MSc app)...but now I do not know if my chances are completely scrapped? Any thoughts? When does UCL normally announce? Thanks =) So are you saying decisions have basically already been made for the UK? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinguino02 Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 Not too sure. I'm really new to this process. I just wondered if anyone knew what to think about this in general, haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visanth14 Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 (edited) I got accepted into the Leicester program. Any idea where I send the notification letter? (For the uk partnership) Horb - I was in touch with IIE right around the time we got first round notifications to ask if/when/how I should let them know I was admitted to my uni. The response I got then was "sit tight and wait," and I was not instructed to send any official acceptance letters or correspondence from my uni or admin in my proposed program. That was in February, though, so now that we're closer to final notifications the answer may have changed. Edited March 16, 2014 by visanth14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbui Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 Thailand's notifications usually come out at the end of March-Early April, so my time is coming... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginagoestokorea Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 Tomorrow.... notification e-mailing begins again~~~! Well, hopefully... hahaha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cantthinkofagoodusername Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 For those of us expecting to hear at the end of March/beginning of April: my official guess is for March 25th, not that my guess is worth much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glassgirl Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 I figure about two weeks, give or take, for notifications based on the spreadsheet from the last few years. Distractions are good, and we've all gotten this far. There are so many people who don't even finish the application process and look at how far we've come. Yoga, meditation and moving onward with research is helping me. Good luck everyone and I hope you can all distract yourselves until emails go out. cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beingbecoming Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 Are you applying for France? Yup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olioliwoo Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 On 3/15/2014 at 8:21 PM, Neurona said: Anyone else here applying to France? Bonjour Neurona! There are several of us who have applied for France (you can see our names on the spreadsheet in my signature). Did you apply for a research/study grant or ETA? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olioliwoo Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 I got accepted into the Leicester program. Any idea where I send the notification letter? (For the uk partnership) Congratulations on getting into the program!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horb Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 Thanks guys! It happened so quickly! A three week turn around. My US programs didn't even do it that quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymondnorth Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 I need some advice regarding Fulbright and grad school offers. I got an RAship funding offer a few weeks ago from a professor at a PhD program I applied to. The school is one of the top two on my list of graduate schools. The professor who offered me the funding knows that I am waiting on a Fulbright fellowship, but It has been almost 2 weeks since he sent the offer and I haven't responded. If I don't get the Fulbright, I will most likely accept his offer since I've been wait listed by the other school in my top 2. I don't want to keep him waiting any longer than I have to. He has also said that I can most likely defer my acceptance to the program for next year, but the funding will not be guaranteed to be the same as it is now. I want to contact the professor just to let him know that his offer is my top choice among my graduate schools, but I will accept the Fulbright if I get it. Can you guys help me word this so that it doesn't come across as arrogant? As long as you're gracious, I can't see how it would come across as arrogant. Tell the professor that you are excited at the prospect of working with him, however you do want to make sure he's informed about your situation. If you're able to portray that you're thankful for the opportunity, but also want to take an opportunity that you absolutely can't defer, then you'll be fine. Better yet, make sure this is a conversation, not just an email (if possible). Hey NuclearFlea, just to reflect sirskipsalot's sound advice above, you definitely shouldn't worry about coming across as arrogant. It seems to be pretty standard practice for students to ask to defer for a year based on being selected for a Fulbright grant. I'd go ahead and let your professor know this was why you hadn't responded to his message right away a few weeks ago, and that you hope to have a final answer on or around date based on previous notice dates for your country. I'm just going to copy below part of my message to the graduate director at my eventual PhD department. Just FYI, before you email the professor you may want to just check to see if there are any published guidelines on deferral for your particular department - for mine there weren't. Also, it sounds like this particular professor made you the funding offer, so it would seem appropriate to email him directly with your question, but I know that for my schools all of the communication about accepting/deferring/etc has been done through the graduate director. The prof might not have the final say in the decision, and if you can figure out who does that may save him the trouble of figuring it out for you. At any rate, my top school was not only amenable to deferral, but also really encouraged me to take the opportunity should it arise as it would only improve my academic portfolio. "_______________ is my top choice for graduate study, but I am still weighing my options for next year while awaiting notification from a few final programs. One of these programs is the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship grant to Colombia for the 2014-2015 school year, for which I was named a finalist in late January. In previous years Fulbright Colombia has issued final notifications between mid-March and early April, and as such I hope to have a definite answer from them before making a final decision about enrollment for Fall 2014. While this is not an issue right now as I have not yet been selected, I wanted to consult with you in advance with regards to the possibility of deferring my admission to pursue this opportunity. The Fulbright ETA program's scope is in line with my research interests, and would offer an opportunity to do field research in Colombia prior to entrance into a graduate program. If I am accepted, I am wondering whether the Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese would consider allowing me to defer admission to the Fall of 2015 so that I could accept the Fulbright ETA." I should also make clear that I sent a similar message to another school that had made me a comparable funding offer, and they said they would not allow me to defer. I think funding is always a big question mark because of how the budgeting works (sometimes they simply can't guarantee the same funding is available from one year to the next). The program that said yes to deferral also said they would offer me the same AI-ship funding even if I were to decide to wait a year- then a week ago they offered a separate fellowship that would only be available for a Fall 2014 start date. Oof, sometimes I feel like I'm bargaining without even really meaning to due to this long wait for Fulbright, but I definitely won't complain about having more and better options than I did when this whole thing started. Best of luck to everyone this week, may it be a deluge of final decisions olioliwoo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkdude02 Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 I'm a finalist to an ETA Venezuela...now wondering if that's still gonna happen... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blue_bird Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 Norway study grant applicant here - would love to hear from other potential Norway Fulbrighters! Congrats to everyone who applied and made it this far. My fingers are crossed for all of you, including people who (like me) are also applying to graduate programs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olioliwoo Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 To all our new forum members, please don't forget to carefully add your information to our spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/a/mail.usf.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsJrSSHnssqFdHNPell4VVZwWDgtWUpQcTVVeWM0bWc&usp=sharing#gid=1 The data from past cycles has been very helpful for us and we want to be able to share our information with future applicants Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sel386 Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 I'm feeling so stir crazy today! I just realized that in all reality...the decisions have already been made. I got to the point this weekend where I just want to know either way. I need to figure my future out a little bit! I feel like I'm just living in limbo! Good Luck to everyone who may find out this week! I think I've got a couple more to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginagoestokorea Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 According to the spreadsheet, someone was promoted to principal status today for Romania! Congratulations to him/her! :-) olioliwoo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbui Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 Today I woke up and got 14 emails. I fervently scrolled through the list to look for "Fulbright" and "congratulations," but there were only emails from my student loans. Lol... *sigh* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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