NSF GRFP 2016

[Humulus_lupulus]

4 minutes ago, Neist said:

Just echoing that I can log in fine as well. 

Wow. I just realized results might be up this week. Thank goodness last week was spring break. It sped things up.

I think this week would be a bit ambitious. Plan for next week.

[Neist]

Just now, Humulus_lupulus said:

I think this week would be a bit ambitious. Plan for next week.

I'm okay being ambitious.  I'm a chronic optimist.

[Humulus_lupulus]

2 minutes ago, Neist said:

I'm okay being ambitious.  I'm a chronic optimist.

I'm just trying to be as sad as possible this week and next. I figure if I set the bar low enough, a rejection can't make things any worse!

[Neist]

1 minute ago, Humulus_lupulus said:

I'm just trying to be as sad as possible this week and next. I figure if I set the bar low enough, a rejection can't make things any worse!

That is not an unwise strategy! I'm almost certain I won't get it. I've been told by history of science graduate students that the award percent is closer to 4% in our discipline, although I have no idea where they pulled that number from. To my knowledge no one really knows the exact numbers of applicants per field or discipline, just the number of awardees.

It would be nice to hear, either way, for the sake of resolution.

[Humulus_lupulus]

2 minutes ago, Neist said:

That is not an unwise strategy! I'm almost certain I won't get it. I've been told by history of science graduate students that the award percent is closer to 4% in our discipline, although I have no idea where they pulled that number from. To my knowledge no one really knows the exact numbers of applicants per field or discipline, just the number of awardees.

It would be nice to hear, either way, for the sake of resolution.

Agreed, knowing is a sigh of relief either way. That's a crazy low success rate. I'm in engineering, but it's biological engineering so it's kind of the red-headed stepchild of both engineering and life science fields. I got honorable mention my first year (surprisingly, considering I threw it together in a week) and then nothing last year and the biggest criticism was publications. This year, I had 3 submitted at the time of submission, and I went pretty theoretical, packed it with NSF buzzwords, and told them my work is "changing the world."

My guess is that the top 1,000 applications get funded no matter who looks at them...they are just plain good candidates! The next 1,000 are probably a toss up depending on the day and on the reviewers.

I also realized at a later date that I made a small mistake in my application, but I'm sure if my advisors didn't see it, maybe someone who is not an expert in my field wouldn't notice.

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

Whoever is the first one to notice the expected FastLane "down for maintenance until 3AM message" had better post in this forum STAT!

[chaparral]

I now check this page more often than I check my email...

[sierra918]

2 hours ago, chaparral said:

I now check this page more often than I check my email...

Haha! Agreed

[ghostar]

6 hours ago, chaparral said:

Nope, I just logged in fine. But this could be a good sign!!! I saw in previous years that people had trouble logging in/using fastlane before results went up :-)

Interesting. Not only am I unable to log in, but when I try to retrieve my username & password, I get the error message "The system is unable to validate your secret questions. Please contact FastLane User Support for further assistance."

Curious to know if anyone else is having this problem. My guess/hope is that this is a bug resulting from one of these site maintenances leading up to the grand announcement. Based on previous years, I'm thinking it will happen on either the Tuesday or Friday of next week!

 

[chaparral]

2 minutes ago, ghostar said:

Interesting. Not only am I unable to log in, but when I try to retrieve my username & password, I get the error message "The system is unable to validate your secret questions. Please contact FastLane User Support for further assistance."

Curious to know if anyone else is having this problem. My guess/hope is that this is a bug resulting from one of these site maintenances leading up to the grand announcement. Based on previous years, I'm thinking it will happen on either the Tuesday or Friday of next week!

 

Just logged in again... weird. but yes, I think it's either Tuesday the 29th or Friday the 1st. Last year it looks like they got the maintenance notification 5 days prior, so perhaps we will see something on fastlane this weekend. :-)

[sierra918]

49 minutes ago, chaparral said:

Just logged in again... weird. but yes, I think it's either Tuesday the 29th or Friday the 1st. Last year it looks like they got the maintenance notification 5 days prior, so perhaps we will see something on fastlane this weekend. :-)

I'm hoping for the 29th!!! That means we only have a week left! Longest...week....ever

[pterosaur]

There's a 12-14% success rate for the GRFP in general. I only know stats for one PhD Pegram I got into, but it has a 10% acceptance right. So clearly, if I abuse probability, if I got into the one with a lower success rate, I'm guaranteed the one with the higher rate, right? That's totally how it works. Or alternatively, the probability of getting both is 1.4%... 

[Neist]

5 hours ago, pterosaur said:

There's a 12-14% success rate for the GRFP in general. I only know stats for one PhD Pegram I got into, but it has a 10% acceptance right. So clearly, if I abuse probability, if I got into the one with a lower success rate, I'm guaranteed the one with the higher rate, right? That's totally how it works. Or alternatively, the probability of getting both is 1.4%... 

So I looked at history of science awardees in 2015. There were two. *cries* There were three honorable mentions (1 STS, 2 HistSci).

I guess I can hope there were only ~20-25 applicants? Seems unlikely, but I'll hope.  

[avidman]

Here is a worry of mine.

What if someone in my lab got the award last year? Does that mean that my chances of winning are less so because of inherent biases? Or is it the case that reviewers are objective people who will look past that?

[chaparral]

1 minute ago, avidman said:

Here is a worry of mine.

What if someone in my lab got the award last year? Does that mean that my chances of winning are less so because of inherent biases? Or is it the case that reviewers are objective people who will look past that?

Quite frankly, I don't think they will know. I believe different people are on the review panels each year. Even if they know, I don't think they would hold that against you. The money is to fund you as a scientist with great potential, not your research. For all they know, you could take the money and transfer to another school.

[kjc]

2 minutes ago, avidman said:

Here is a worry of mine.

What if someone in my lab got the award last year? Does that mean that my chances of winning are less so because of inherent biases? Or is it the case that reviewers are objective people who will look past that?

I don't KNOW this, but I would imagine it to be fairly unlikely that your application would go to the same reviewers as your lab mate's application. With so many applications there are likely quite a few reviewers even for sub-categories (unless you have a really unique area of study). Even then, the reviewers would have to remember your PI specifically, which could maybe happen but for all of those things to line up seems very unlikely to me. So I think while it is certainly possible (though also not super likely) for a person to be biased against (or toward) a certain lab, I don't think there is a very high chance of everything happening the way it would have to for that to happen. If anything you have a better chance because clearly your PI knows how to groom people the way NSF likes them.  

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

Yeah, if anything I'd say that's a plus, that your PI has credibility with the NSF. I don't see how it would hurt you in any way.

[avidman]

Thanks for the positive comments everyone. Although my university is pretty good, not many people apply/get awarded the NSF GRF in my field, so I was worried that if someone got the award recently in our department/lab, the reviewers might be like "Oh, well we gave a student from this university last year, so skip it."

Looking at the statistics on awarded students, the top schools seem to get the most awards (maybe the students are better? idk). Based on the low frequency at my school, I can't help but be worried.

Nonetheless, phew.

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

Same here @avidman. In fact, no one from my school has gotten the award... that's gotta hurt me

[chaparral]

I'm pretty sure I'm the first person from my undergrad institution to apply for the award...

[elanorci]

avidman, I know of several labs where there are two or more people who won the GRFP. I wouldn't worry. And, as everyone's said, probably the people deciding aren't even aware!

[Neuro PolarBear]

Also, in case people aren't aware, they're changing the eligibility requirements for future years so that you can only apply once during graduate school: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2016/nsf16051/nsf16051.jsp?WT.mc_id=USNSF_179

This doesn't apply to first year graduate students that applied this year, but it does apply to undergraduate seniors that applied.

[Neist]

3 hours ago, Pink Fuzzy Bunny said:

Same here @avidman. In fact, no one from my school has gotten the award... that's gotta hurt me

U. of Oklahoma only had 3 winners in 2015. Considering we have a student body of over 30,000 students, I'd say that's pretty terrible odds as well. 

Maybe they just don't push it all that hard here. No clue.

[homo_ignotus]

Here's an interesting opinion piece on the way in which GRF awards are skewed: http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/metascience/grants/nsf-graduate-fellowships-underrepresented-2015.html

 

[pterosaur]

8 hours ago, Neist said:

So I looked at history of science awardees in 2015. There were two. *cries* There were three honorable mentions (1 STS, 2 HistSci).

I guess I can hope there were only ~20-25 applicants? Seems unlikely, but I'll hope.  

I didn't know they had stats that precise available. Where did you find that? Or is it just looking at the list of winners and not actually knowing anything about the applicants?

Edited March 22, 2016 by pterosaur