NSF GRFP 2014-2015

[Cookie]

Absolutely. If you don't notice when Google Docs reduces your margins by 3%, you are not worthy of a grad school fellowship. 

 

Imho, this is not the right attitude when it comes to applying to grants/fellowships. Following the rules is part of the professionalism expected of winners. If you can get away with 3%-off margin, good for you. If you are disqualified, let it be the lesson for next time. That is it. 

Have you ever seen professors prepping grant proposals? They care for every details like its their babies: proofreading a 1000 times, making the most beautiful figures etc. 

If you use a word processor thats not Word, be sure to copy it to Word and compare the 2 versions. It is not hard. I prepared my NSF GRFP application last year in LaTeX (made my own .cls file and everything), then double checked in Word to be sure everything looks right and consistent. This is a tip I learnt from a professor: Don't give them any excuse to reject you.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Cookie

[Igotnothin]

Imho, this is not the right attitude when it comes to applying to grants/fellowships. Following the rules is part of the professionalism expected of winners. If you can get away with 3%-off margin, good for you. If you are disqualified, let it be the lesson for next time. That is it. 

Have you ever seen professors prepping grant proposals? They care for every details like its their babies: proofreading a 1000 times, making the most beautiful figures etc. 

If you use a word processor thats not Word, be sure to copy it to Word and compare the 2 versions. It is not hard. I prepared my NSF GRFP application last year in LaTeX (made my own .cls file and everything), then double checked in Word to be sure everything looks right and consistent. This is a tip I learnt from a professor: Don't give them any excuse to reject you.

 

Yeah I watched a prof write an entire grant proposal this morning.

[GeoDUDE!]

Yeah I watched a prof write an entire grant proposal this morning.

 

 

Probably has a template. Probably has written a ton of grants. Probably doesn't need to be as careful as someone who is writing (probably) their first grant. 

 

Besides, we all know that the only people who get the GRF come from UW-Madison. Why fight over that? 

[katsharki3]

I put a header on both of my statements.  I haven't been disqualified (yet at least).  I copied my header style directly from a friend who applied last year and won the fellowship.  

 

Hi. I also did this, and I e-mailed them about it. I also copied my header style from a friend who had won the fellowship, so I didn't think it would be a problem, but in a fit of panic I decided to e-mail them to make sure. 

 

They responded "Applicant names and page numbers in the margins are excused, as long as the actual text of the statement (including all references, etc.) is contained inside the 1" margins."

 

Names/page numbers are fine because they don't actually add anything to either of your essays. But it is kind of "cheating" (probably not the right word to use but whatever) to put your references in a footer when everyone else had to shorten the length of their proposal to be able to include references. 

Edited November 20, 2014 by katsharki3

[poly]

Hi. I also did this, and I e-mailed them about it. I also copied my header style from a friend who had won the fellowship, so I didn't think it would be a problem, but in a fit of panic I decided to e-mail them to make sure. 

 

They responded "Applicant names and page numbers in the margins are excused, as long as the actual text of the statement (including all references, etc.) is contained inside the 1" margins."

 

Names/page numbers are fine because they don't actually add anything to either of your essays. But it is kind of "cheating" (probably not the right word to use but whatever) to put your references in a footer when everyone else had to shorten the length of their proposal to be able to include references. 

Thanks!  All my actual text is within the margins, including my references.  Hopefully this means I'm good to go!

[geographyrocks]

Hi. I also did this, and I e-mailed them about it. I also copied my header style from a friend who had won the fellowship, so I didn't think it would be a problem, but in a fit of panic I decided to e-mail them to make sure. 

 

They responded "Applicant names and page numbers in the margins are excused, as long as the actual text of the statement (including all references, etc.) is contained inside the 1" margins."

 

Names/page numbers are fine because they don't actually add anything to either of your essays. But it is kind of "cheating" (probably not the right word to use but whatever) to put your references in a footer when everyone else had to shorten the length of their proposal to be able to include references. 

Oh, thank goodness!  I put my name in the header for some review sessions and just never took it out.  I figured it would be handy for the reviewers when jostling a lot of papers. 

[Munashi]

I've got my name + the essay title (as in, "Graduate Research Statement") in the header.  I'm not worried.  Everything else is in the margins, and the title is not substantive since it's just NSF's names for the essays.

[katsharki3]

I've got my name + the essay title (as in, "Graduate Research Statement") in the header.  I'm not worried.  Everything else is in the margins, and the title is not substantive since it's just NSF's names for the essays.

 

Yeah, I did the same thing, as I said copying the style of a friend who had won the fellowship. I figured those things might actually make it easier for the reviewers. And, as I said, basic title/name/page numbers don't add anything to our actual essays.

 

I wasn't really worried at first, but I did have a random fit of panic after I had submitted the application, so I wanted to e-mail them to make sure. And it seems like all of us are fine. Just wanted to pass on the message I got from them. 

[prospecting]

Yeah I watched a prof write an entire grant proposal this morning.

 

wat

[Dubblebubble898]

Wow, they disqualified for that.  Now I'm scared that it will happen to me, but I think I had the correct margins.  Did they email you RP15?

[juilletmercredi]

I'm glad this is sorted out.  On the one hand of course we should follow the rules of any fellowship we apply to, but on the other it seems silly to disqualify someone because their margins were 1.05" instead of 1" (especially when the concern is that people will shrink their margins to fit more words).  I do remember obsessively checking my margins the year I applied, lol, because I normally just use the Word defaults.

[katsharki3]

Wow, they disqualified for that.  Now I'm scared that it will happen to me, but I think I had the correct margins.  Did they email you RP15?

 

It should be easy to check your margins? I assume you have a copy of your statements saved somewhere. But, I mean, they are very clear about how large they want the margins to be. So I'm not sure why you would be surprised someone was disqualifed for having their margins the incorrect size.

[katsharki3]

I'm glad this is sorted out.  On the one hand of course we should follow the rules of any fellowship we apply to, but on the other it seems silly to disqualify someone because their margins were 1.05" instead of 1" (especially when the concern is that people will shrink their margins to fit more words).  I do remember obsessively checking my margins the year I applied, lol, because I normally just use the Word defaults.

 

I do agree that it is odd to disqualify for the margins being LARGER than they should be. Very odd. I definitely checked mine a lot too, even though I always have it set to 1" since that is APA formatting for all of my school lab reports/essays.

[kbolya1]

I emailed about side margins being greater than 1 inch (between downloads and edits from friends and advisors mine were switched back to the default which is 1.25). They e-mailed me back next business day that margins greater than 1 inch would not result in an application being returned without review, since that gives you no unfair advantage over other applicants. Woof. Hope this helps anyone else freaking out about the same issue.

[katsharki3]

I emailed about side margins being greater than 1 inch (between downloads and edits from friends and advisors mine were switched back to the default which is 1.25). They e-mailed me back next business day that margins greater than 1 inch would not result in an application being returned without review, since that gives you no unfair advantage over other applicants. Woof. Hope this helps anyone else freaking out about the same issue.

 

That's good, and would definitely make sense. I do remember someone saying that in the past someone had gotten disqualified for having their margins too large. But maybe NSF realized that makes no sense, since, yeah, it gives you no advantage over other applicants. Glad it was able to work out for you!

[doomination]

I just noticed a somewhat significant typo in my personal statement.. I left a comment from my university's fellowship office that says "try condensing this down to one sentence" in the body of my text...

 

I wonder if the reviewers will notice and mark me down for it.

[shadowclaw]

@doomination... I obviously can't predict exactly what the reviewers will do, but a lot of the websites and blogs that offer advice on writing the personal statement say that the reviewers are going to read the statements very quickly. If that's the case, they might just skim right past the comment. Then again, you might have a reviewer with lots of time on their hands who will pick over every sentence!

[nsfapplicant]

I've got my name + the essay title (as in, "Graduate Research Statement") in the header.  I'm not worried.  Everything else is in the margins, and the title is not substantive since it's just NSF's names for the essays.

 

Same

 

I was looking over my statements, and for some reason in pdf form, on pages with footnotes the bottom margins are slightly smaller. Just barely so such that the bottom part of a lowercase "y" will be inside the margin. I'll be surprised if they care.

[BioBum]

Anyone else forget about the GRFP recently and then realize that the announcement is still months away *quietly sobbing*.

[kbolya1]

I keep checking this page in the hopes of I really don't know what

[buckshot]

kbolya1, me, too.  at least you're not the only one!

[Munashi]

Well it's January, and no one has posted about received disqualification emails... that's probably a good sign.  Good luck with the waiting, all.

[geographyrocks]

I saw that there was a post in here and my first thought was: Holy crap! Did someone hear something already? 

Patience is not my strong suit. 

[Munashi]

Oh man, sorry for the false alarm, lol.

[kbolya1]

Only because I check fastlane too much (for seemingly no reason) you can no longer sign in and view your 2015 application (at least I can't) decisions have been made??