kb2 Posted March 22, 2015 Posted March 22, 2015 well, just found out they aren't sending students out to Egypt due to "security issues" which is weird because they were sending students out during the revolutions. they say this doesn't affect my application what so ever, but it is still a huge bummer. I am a lurker! I've probably given this page a ton of views too. And I'm also an Egypt scholarship applicant, which is a huge bummer. Where are you thinking of applying instead?
shoft_el_ayam Posted March 22, 2015 Posted March 22, 2015 I am a lurker! I've probably given this page a ton of views too. And I'm also an Egypt scholarship applicant, which is a huge bummer. Where are you thinking of applying instead? did you receive the email ? I am still thinking about it, but I am holding off until I hear back the results from Boren. If I do not receive the scholarship, I will end up going to Egypt. Been there a couple times recently and still confused as to why they won't send any students. where are you thinking to go?
zephyri Posted March 22, 2015 Posted March 22, 2015 Where did you see the viewer count? Any idea why the scholarship letters have gone out and nothing for the fellows? I wish others would comment, maybe some clues could come about... Something would be nice soon. Also, check out this: http://www.cies.org/sites/default/files/2014-CIES-Discipline-Peer-Review-Committee-Guidelines.pdf. It is the review committee process for Fulbright. The view count is on the main forum page, so click on "the bank" and then you can see this thread, with the view count and reply count. That fulbright page was interesting! They have a very structured process, though it serves to remind that fellowship outcomes hinge on who happens to be on your committee any given year. This isn't a purely objective, meritocratic process (I've run scholarship selection committees in my past), so if we don't get the fellowship, it doesn't mean our projects weren't good, or that we don't have potential. It just means the composition of the committee was such that they were looking for a different sort of applicant. I hate that part! Five people seems so few for Fulbright, but I guess they do get thousands of applications. kb2, welcome to the forum! Sorry to hear about Egypt, are you submitting an alternative plan to Boren as well? I hope you find a country that works!
triscuit Posted March 22, 2015 Author Posted March 22, 2015 I feel proud that I started this thread! As I said before, I put my heart and soul into this application and truly put in 110% effort. My project also has to do with international education which is what IIE is in the first place. Having said that, I have a lot of confidence and high hopes in this. So I'm scared of not getting it because it will be a huge huge bummer for me. Like someone said before, we have an 80% chance of not winning, but for me I'm like "well I'm totally gonna be in that 20% because my app is awesome!" But I'm trying to keep my expectations low so I don't end up getting super crushed if I don't get it. Sigh.
kb2 Posted March 22, 2015 Posted March 22, 2015 Thanks all for the welcome! Yeah I did get the email. I wouldn't be able to go abroad at all without the Boren so I'm gonna need to pick another country altogether. At this point I'm thinking Jordan as they seem to have the best language programs... My preference would probably be to split time between Jordan and morocco, but I'm guessing boren wouldn't allow that. But maybe they'd be nice since I can't go to Egypt haha any thoughts?
zephyri Posted March 22, 2015 Posted March 22, 2015 Thanks all for the welcome! Yeah I did get the email. I wouldn't be able to go abroad at all without the Boren so I'm gonna need to pick another country altogether. At this point I'm thinking Jordan as they seem to have the best language programs... My preference would probably be to split time between Jordan and morocco, but I'm guessing boren wouldn't allow that. But maybe they'd be nice since I can't go to Egypt haha any thoughts? I don't know if they allow you to split time in two countries on the scholarship. They allow this for the fellowship but I didn't do that in my application. You can't go wrong with those two, I have a friend studying in Jordan now who loves it. I spent the summer in Morocco studying Arabic and thought it was fantastic- although darija is REALLY hard! People and food were wonderful though.
Chiri12 Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 I feel proud that I started this thread! As I said before, I put my heart and soul into this application and truly put in 110% effort. My project also has to do with international education which is what IIE is in the first place. Having said that, I have a lot of confidence and high hopes in this. So I'm scared of not getting it because it will be a huge huge bummer for me. Like someone said before, we have an 80% chance of not winning, but for me I'm like "well I'm totally gonna be in that 20% because my app is awesome!" But I'm trying to keep my expectations low so I don't end up getting super crushed if I don't get it. Sigh. I feel the same way. It seems that previous years between now and the next week there was some sort of sign. I started going to Church again to pray, gave up vices, among doing other random acts of kindness everyday to put some good karma out into the world for this lol. I am so serious about this. I am not sure about all of your motives, but for me it would be the leg-up in the competition for the foreign service. Maybe someone who reads this board has some sort of news? If not, we continue to wait!
triscuit Posted March 24, 2015 Author Posted March 24, 2015 For me it's just that I have so much invested in this country (Korea). I lived there for 4 years and have close relationships with Korean people. My boyfriend is also Korean. I'm really passionate and knowledgable about the culture and want to educate more foreigners about it. I have already put a lot of time, money, and effort into the language but because of my full time work schedule while I lived there, it wasn't possible to devote enough time I needed to become as proficient as I want to be. Also I believe that people really need to be more educated about the peninsula because it plays such a huge huge role in geopolitics and global security.
zephyri Posted March 24, 2015 Posted March 24, 2015 I think we are one month out from notification. Who wants to place a bet? Last year they notified on April 18, a Friday. I predict they'll start sending notifications on April 24 (also a Friday). I predict they'll be a week later this year, since the snow storm and tech problems meant they extended the Fellowship deadline past Jan. 31 this year. So I'm thinking that'll add a week. Other bets? Any predictions on whether they'll send a second budget/dates e-mail after the regional panels meet this month?
Chiri12 Posted March 25, 2015 Posted March 25, 2015 I think we are one month out from notification. Who wants to place a bet? Last year they notified on April 18, a Friday. I predict they'll start sending notifications on April 24 (also a Friday). I predict they'll be a week later this year, since the snow storm and tech problems meant they extended the Fellowship deadline past Jan. 31 this year. So I'm thinking that'll add a week. Other bets? Any predictions on whether they'll send a second budget/dates e-mail after the regional panels meet this month? I would say that next Thursday we receive some sort of sign and then the 17th we find out. I have it marked off in my agenda as announcement day and my agenda is NEVER wrong lol. Do you think someone from the office monitors these threads and they saw in years past that those notifications are clues so they have decided to do away with budget updates or dates updates? Also, not many people are posting on here, that either means only us 4 applied lol or maybe letters have already gone out to winners? I'd like to think it was just us 4 that applied haha...
zephyri Posted March 25, 2015 Posted March 25, 2015 I would say that next Thursday we receive some sort of sign and then the 17th we find out. I have it marked off in my agenda as announcement day and my agenda is NEVER wrong lol. Do you think someone from the office monitors these threads and they saw in years past that those notifications are clues so they have decided to do away with budget updates or dates updates? Also, not many people are posting on here, that either means only us 4 applied lol or maybe letters have already gone out to winners? I'd like to think it was just us 4 that applied haha... Nah I don't think they care enough about our waiting game to mess with us Letters have most definitely not gone out, because people who win usually post, and it's way too early given Boren's "late April" notification timeline. I agree we'll probably get another budget/date email... or rather some people will get that e-mail, I don't know if I will! I bet they have their hands full with students whose program plans have been derailed by recent events. Crossing all my fingers and toes that this doesn't happen to any other countries...
shoft_el_ayam Posted March 26, 2015 Posted March 26, 2015 I agree, I think the staff has a lot on their hands and have not even thought about looking into these threads. I feel a bit left out as I applied for the scholarship well I received the budget email, received the notification that there won't be awards for my country, but I am just playing the waiting game. I am going to have plan A, B, and C at this point. I was obsessing over it a couple of weeks ago but I realized I should take it easy haha i am still wondering why the thread isn't as busy as previous years...its not so hard to find and i know many people applied...hmmm..
zephyri Posted March 26, 2015 Posted March 26, 2015 Yeah, it's weird. I don't get it. I guess this year's applicants have better things to do?
Chiri12 Posted March 26, 2015 Posted March 26, 2015 Yeah, it's weird. I don't get it. I guess this year's applicants have better things to do? Yea, maybe? I mean, I do have better things that I could do, I just would like to be in the loop as to what is going on. I had reached out to a winner this year to ask for some pointers when crafting my application and she was way more than helpful. I had spoken again to this applicant and asked her about estimated dates as to when she received word from the Boren office and she said she can't remember anything between that random survey and her acceptance.
pomegranate24 Posted March 26, 2015 Posted March 26, 2015 Getting tired of the waiting game--good thing I found this forum! I'm a scholarship applicant hoping to study advanced French in Senegal. Any other AFLI applicants out there? I received the budget update email two weeks ago and also had my oral proficiency interview. The website says "IIE will test highly-rated applicants prior to final selection to confirm eligibility" so I'm taking this as a positive sign, but of course, I'm not going to read too much into it.
zephyri Posted March 26, 2015 Posted March 26, 2015 Getting tired of the waiting game--good thing I found this forum! I'm a scholarship applicant hoping to study advanced French in Senegal. Any other AFLI applicants out there? I received the budget update email two weeks ago and also had my oral proficiency interview. The website says "IIE will test highly-rated applicants prior to final selection to confirm eligibility" so I'm taking this as a positive sign, but of course, I'm not going to read too much into it. Wow, that's really great! I remember my first OPI for Arabic last year- I was so nervous! I hope your French OPI went well I didn't know they did initial OPIs for scholarship applicants. Sounds like an extra layer of pressure, but also a good way to find out about where you stand in the process. Good luck!
Chiri12 Posted March 29, 2015 Posted March 29, 2015 Well, another week down and no word yet for us fellowship folk. I bet that they are meeting right now, hopefully saying wow this application is AMAZING lol. I still say this week we may get some word and if not, it will be April and we have made it. Someone had posted before that we will hear the third week in April- I hope that means the 17th!
zephyri Posted March 30, 2015 Posted March 30, 2015 Yes I hope we're 2-3 weeks out from hearing back. Feels easier, now that it's almost April. Boren's turnaround is really fast though- three months from application deadline to notification.
Frodo_Swaggins Posted March 30, 2015 Posted March 30, 2015 I am a lurker everyone, I am sorry it took so long for me to admit it. I am a scholarship applicant. I got the budget update email and the notification that there will not be any programs to my country due to security concerns. I was wondering, are the Budget emails for scholarship applicants still a strong indicator as to whether one will receive the scholarship or no? I was reading over previous year forums and it seems that the budget email may not hold the same importance that it used to. Good luck to everyone!
shoft_el_ayam Posted March 30, 2015 Posted March 30, 2015 I am a lurker everyone, I am sorry it took so long for me to admit it. I am a scholarship applicant. I got the budget update email and the notification that there will not be any programs to my country due to security concerns. I was wondering, are the Budget emails for scholarship applicants still a strong indicator as to whether one will receive the scholarship or no? I was reading over previous year forums and it seems that the budget email may not hold the same importance that it used to. Good luck to everyone! yeah it seems like it, almost everyone got the budget email on this forum, don't know what the correlation is anymore. seemed in previous years it was a strong indicator but at this point I have no idea what to expect since my country was restricted to the scholarship
zephyri Posted March 30, 2015 Posted March 30, 2015 Welcome, Frodo. I think the consensus is that the budget e-mails don't tell us a whole lot anymore. Though I agree, it seems like they did in earlier years. Another scholarship applicant was asked to do a pre-selection Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) language test. Seems like that would be a good indicator, though I wonder if Boren does this for all languages. I do not believe they have pre-program OPIs for fellowship applicants.
shoft_el_ayam Posted March 30, 2015 Posted March 30, 2015 just throwing it out there, I applied two years ago, my app was not really strong and I did not have a Boren Representative that helped me out, I did NOT receive any "budget email" and I did NOT receive the award. do not know if that helps but that is why I was so curious about that budget email that was sent out to some of us
shoft_el_ayam Posted March 30, 2015 Posted March 30, 2015 Welcome, Frodo. I think the consensus is that the budget e-mails don't tell us a whole lot anymore. Though I agree, it seems like they did in earlier years. Another scholarship applicant was asked to do a pre-selection Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) language test. Seems like that would be a good indicator, though I wonder if Boren does this for all languages. I do not believe they have pre-program OPIs for fellowship applicants. however, the OPI is for Language Flagship applicants only, not everyone that applied for the scholarship are required to take those. might be a good indicator for the flagship applicants though!
Frodo_Swaggins Posted March 30, 2015 Posted March 30, 2015 It seems that they are playing with our emotions. haha well I hope the budget email still bodes well for us who got it. At least April is right around the corner.
zephyri Posted March 30, 2015 Posted March 30, 2015 however, the OPI is for Language Flagship applicants only, not everyone that applied for the scholarship are required to take those. might be a good indicator for the flagship applicants though! Ah, I see. That makes sense. Thankfully the selection process is more straightforward for the fellowship, as far as I know it's not related to Flagship
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