NSF GRFP 2009-2010

[olive81]

This is excruciating. I have been trying to tell my self for months that it doesn't matter and that I probably won't get it (better to be surprised than disappointed). But now, I JUST WANT TO KNOW!!! It's funny, my friend got this last year and told me that I should NOT start reading this forum because I would just go crazy. She was right. I guess that is why she got a GRFP last year.

[thecircumstance]

I had my first NSF dream last night. Everyone was at a big theme park and they announced the awards over the PA system. I heard my name and went up to the top of this tower thing to get my letter, and they said I didn't get an award. Then I ran into strange people from my past. I'm no dream reader, but I think this means they will post on Tuesday night.

[sarajune]

Does anyone know how many awards are given out every year for electrical engineering students?

Boston I'm EE too and I counted (heh) between 35/40 awards given last year. What I couldn't figure out was how many EEs had applied..

[frenchpress]

Boston I'm EE too and I counted (heh) between 35/40 awards given last year. What I couldn't figure out was how many EEs had applied..

Roughly speaking, they make the same proportion of awards in a given field as the proportion that field makes up of overall applicants. So, if EE applicants made up 10% of the overall application pool, roughly 10% of EE applicants will be given the award.

Which sucks for me since my field only makes up 3% of all applicants, lol.

[olive81]

It makes sense though. I am in Biological Sciences and I am sure we make up a huge proportion of applicants, but, it really doesn't make my chances any better. It might even make them worse. Who knows.

[BioTurboNick]

It makes sense though. I am in Biological Sciences and I am sure we make up a huge proportion of applicants, but, it really doesn't make my chances any better. It might even make them worse. Who knows.

The way the proportion works is that every field has an equal chance of getting awards, I think.

[boston_creme]

Boston I'm EE too and I counted (heh) between 35/40 awards given last year. What I couldn't figure out was how many EEs had applied..

Counted? lol.. k that's a good estimate then.. yeah I hear the average award success rate is 10% across all disciplines (http://www.training.nih.gov/trainees/documents/nsfgrfp.pdf page 9), so there you go..

waiting is painful...

[cyclopeaneye]

Last year, the NSF folks sent out their decisions late at night on Friday April 9th - the email I got was sent at about 1:30am. The date doesn't mean anything, but perhaps the time of the email does. Those who have been paying attention may have noticed that the NSF site tends to go down for 15-20 minutes every night at around 1 or 2am. My guess is that they load up all the responses throughout the day, and then the announcements are all sent out at the same time when the server resets in the middle of the night.

That is to say, you can sit there and keep refreshing your inbox all you like, but if last year is any indication I'm guessing that we will all receive our notifications from the NSF the first thing in the morning sometime this week.

[swingline]

What website should I be compulsively refreshing to see when they post the results?

Thanks.

I am obsessively checking my email, this forum, and the nsf rating sheet website. The rating sheet link can be found at the url http://www.nsfgrfp.org/applicant_resources

I have found this to be a good place to find the latest news since most of us are breathing down NSF's neck by calling them and emailing them "are we there yet" over and over.

[julip]

Does anyone have any idea how many awards are supposed to be given out this year? Only 1 or 2 people have gotten it in my subfield of Life Sciences in previous years...

[someoneoutthere]

Do you guys know what percentage of applicants get honorable mentions? In my field, I counted 8 successful applicants and 23 honorable mentions. Also, is getting an honorable mention still a really big deal? Could it even change a waitlist into an acceptance at a program (i'm waitlisted somewhere i REALLY want to go)?

[eyne]

FYI: There are currently 68 users reading (i.e., obsessively checking) this topic.

Edited April 5, 2010 by eyne

[Rails111]

I was thinking....it would be nice if people who get an award or HM this year posted their relevant stats on this forum. I feel like this would be incredibly helpful for those applying next year and for those of us who do not get awards.

For example, people could list the award type (NSF GRFP, HM), demographics (level applying [i.e., senior, 1st year grad, 2nd year], gender, ethnicity, geographic region, field), intellectual merit (GPA, undergrad institution, grad institution, GRE score, # of publications, # of presentations), broader impacts (number of service related projects, type of service related projects), number of references, and number of citations in the research proposal.

...along with anything I forgot / any combination of the above.

What do you all think?

[julip]

I was thinking....it would be nice if people who get an award or HM this year posted their relevant stats on this forum. I feel like this would be incredibly helpful for those applying next year and for those of us who do not get awards.

For example, people could list the award type (NSF GRFP, HM), demographics (level applying [i.e., senior, 1st year grad, 2nd year], gender, ethnicity, geographic region, field), intellectual merit (GPA, undergrad institution, grad institution, GRE score, # of publications, # of presentations), broader impacts (number of service related projects, type of service related projects), number of references, and number of citations in the research proposal.

...along with anything I forgot / any combination of the above.

What do you all think?

If I get an award, I'm sure I'll be happy to post anything you want up here.

[olive81]

I was thinking....it would be nice if people who get an award or HM this year posted their relevant stats on this forum. I feel like this would be incredibly helpful for those applying next year and for those of us who do not get awards.

For example, people could list the award type (NSF GRFP, HM), demographics (level applying [i.e., senior, 1st year grad, 2nd year], gender, ethnicity, geographic region, field), intellectual merit (GPA, undergrad institution, grad institution, GRE score, # of publications, # of presentations), broader impacts (number of service related projects, type of service related projects), number of references, and number of citations in the research proposal.

...along with anything I forgot / any combination of the above.

What do you all think?

So basically post our applications to this forum?

[swingline]

I was thinking....it would be nice if people who get an award or HM this year posted their relevant stats on this forum. I feel like this would be incredibly helpful for those applying next year and for those of us who do not get awards.

For example, people could list the award type (NSF GRFP, HM), demographics (level applying [i.e., senior, 1st year grad, 2nd year], gender, ethnicity, geographic region, field), intellectual merit (GPA, undergrad institution, grad institution, GRE score, # of publications, # of presentations), broader impacts (number of service related projects, type of service related projects), number of references, and number of citations in the research proposal.

...along with anything I forgot / any combination of the above.

What do you all think?

I am waaaay to lazy for all that.

Edited April 5, 2010 by swingline

[Rails111]

So basically post our applications to this forum?

haha...in a way. I mean, I guess the point is to address many of the questions we have been trying to figure out in this forum. It's nice to take away at least some of the guesswork. I'm sure that people who do not get an award will be wondering WHY, and this may help. If only 10 of every 100 get an NSF, then that's a lot of rejections, of course. And, people next year will be looking at this forum (as we all did with the 2009 thread) and they'll be wondering if it's worth their time to apply / how high the bar is set. Some quantitative information (rather than qualitative/spectulative) would be nice...and i'm sure we would be able to spot commonalities across award winners.

[dabeth]

I just read over my application and it seems that I misread part of it: I had read the "Is your graduate prorgam interdisciplinary?" as "Is your proposal interdisciplinary?" and as such put 85% Economics 15% Other. I'm applying to straight Econ PhD's... does anyone think this will be a big deal?

[Rails111]

I am waaaay to lazy for all that.

Oh c'mon, lol, it would take you no longer than three minutes.

[Krypton]

Roughly speaking, they make the same proportion of awards in a given field as the proportion that field makes up of overall applicants. So, if EE applicants made up 10% of the overall application pool, roughly 10% of EE applicants will be given the award.

Which sucks for me since my field only makes up 3% of all applicants, lol.

That is not correct; instead, the proportion of awards made TO a given field is the same as the proportion that field makes up of overall applicants. Therefore, your second statement should be revised to "So, if EE applicants made up 10% of the overall application pool, roughly 10% of awardees will be EE applicants."

As others have mentioned, acceptance rate is largely uniform across all fields, perhaps except those that do not fall 100% under supported disciplines. That your field makes up only 3% of all applicants does not mean you have a 3% rate of success. Likewise, applicants in the biological sciences do not have a 20% (or whatever relatively high proportion they have in applicant pool composition) rate of success.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Krypton

[egosumliber]

haha...in a way. I mean, I guess the point is to address many of the questions we have been trying to figure out in this forum. It's nice to take away at least some of the guesswork. I'm sure that people who do not get an award will be wondering WHY, and this may help. If only 10 of every 100 get an NSF, then that's a lot of rejections, of course. And, people next year will be looking at this forum (as we all did with the 2009 thread) and they'll be wondering if it's worth their time to apply / how high the bar is set. Some quantitative information (rather than qualitative/spectulative) would be nice...and i'm sure we would be able to spot commonalities across award winners.

This could be helpful (though it wouldn't really help people make their applications better for next year, other than somehow changing your stats), but the problem is that more than any stat getting the award or HM comes down to your three essays.

If you have really awesome grades and publications etc. but can't sell yourself or your broader impacts, then you won't get anything, and conversely if your grades aren't all that great and you haven't done that much yet, but can really sell yourself, then you have a really great chance.

[iLikeTrees]

haha...in a way. I mean, I guess the point is to address many of the questions we have been trying to figure out in this forum. It's nice to take away at least some of the guesswork. I'm sure that people who do not get an award will be wondering WHY, and this may help. If only 10 of every 100 get an NSF, then that's a lot of rejections, of course. And, people next year will be looking at this forum (as we all did with the 2009 thread) and they'll be wondering if it's worth their time to apply / how high the bar is set. Some quantitative information (rather than qualitative/spectulative) would be nice...and i'm sure we would be able to spot commonalities across award winners.

I understand why people want to know the stats of winners, but part of me doesn't want to support your idea. It may seem a cop-out, but I think it's worth it to apply even if you don't meet the statistics of winners who post here.

First, there IS value in applying even if it's a long shot. Gaining experience in proposal writing, being forced to think about your goals, and being able to put it in perspective of what it means for other people is all very valuable career and personal development experience. So is not getting an award and putting your ego in perspective (*cough cough* myself! *cough cough*)

Second, I guess I don't really like buying into the numbers-based criteria for this or anything else and wouldn't want to discourage people from trying because they aren't the typical profile. Sure it makes things seem more cut and dry, but I really can't bring myself to believe that reviewers really care about the number of citations you have, the NUMBER of service projects you've done, etc. I would hope that they would care that you've gotten personal value and meaning out of what you've done and read more than the mere fact you can put it on your resume.

Maybe I'm just too idealistic, not in touch with reality, or just preparing myself for a major letdown, but I think the process of applying, doing research, etc is more important and valuable than the end results. We'll all end up with the same titles (M.S./PhD, etc) and what makes us different is the process of what we've done and how we've gotten that degree, so why would this application be any different? Why bother writing 3 essays if all they care about are numbers? Good applicants can be anyone, come from any institution, or have any background as long as they show personal motivation and capacity to do good research.

Anyways, that's my not-well thought out mini-rant at people who are obsessed with the numbers and outcomes. I understand, sympathize, and sometimes join you, but remember there's more than "winning" and "losing"! I'm sure I've probably ruffled a few feathers with this, so fire away.

[Palgrave]

To calm email-checking neuroticism, people have reminded us that the emails were sent out in the dead of night last year. Indeed this is true. However, in 2008, the emails went out at 1:00pm on Wednesday, April 2nd. (This is true; I keep good records.) So really they can potentially come at ANY TIME. Better check away AHHH!!!!

[Rails111]

egosumliber and iLikeTrees: I absolutely agree with both of you.

egosumliber: I wish people would readily share their essays, but the truth is that many do not want to. I had contacted many (playing the probability game) and a bunch did email me back, but the majority said they felt uncomfortable giving their essays to someone they did not know. So the goal of this was to have some information rather than none (and to assume that selling yourself in the essays is incredibly important and will not be something that can necessarily be taught by this forum).

iLikeTrees: yes, citations and number of service projects seem as though they do not play a major role, but both of these topics have been asked (extensively) in this thread (meaning that at least a handful of applicants were curious and that THEY thought it played some major role). I completely agree that the NSF is worth applying for no matter what - i learned a tremendous amount..so perhaps the reason I stated wasn't the best. I doubt anyone, however, can deny that winners and HM's will share commonalities and that these commonalities can be observed to SOME extent numerically. If i'm wrong, then i'm fine with that, but you never know unless you try.

Yes, the value and the process IS more meaningful (but somewhat abstract / difficult to explain to future applicants without sharing the essay), so having *something* (anything) a little more concrete is better than a guessing game. And as I said before, SOME of those categories are used to address questions that applicants tend to have (i.e., dwell on), and not necessarily what the panelists look for. Again, you're right that panelists will not be counting service projects, but they will be noting the types of service projects... and so that people do not have the list explicitly what they have done in the past (which is what I assumed everyone would not want to do), they can symbolize it (to some extent) with a number and a brief description of the nature. Any more detail would probably be idealistic.

Lastly, i completely agree that, "Good applicants can be anyone, come from any institution, or have any background as long as they show personal motivation and capacity to do good research." BUT my point is that some applicants do not realize this! Look at earlier posts and you'll see that some people say that they do not come from a tier 1 school and are therefore worried about that. OR they say that they think their GRE scores are not high enough, all the while not realizing that there are people with a 1000 still getting an award. The reason why it is not known is, in part, because winners are not making it explicit. So you may think that the people who will post will have these outrageous scores that will intimidate everyone, but rather, i think it will show a more complete picture and be able to illustrate your exact point that "good applicants can be anyone and come from anywhere."

[julip]

I understand why people want to know the stats of winners, but part of me doesn't want to support your idea. It may seem a cop-out, but I think it's worth it to apply even if you don't meet the statistics of winners who post here.

First, there IS value in applying even if it's a long shot. Gaining experience in proposal writing, being forced to think about your goals, and being able to put it in perspective of what it means for other people is all very valuable career and personal development experience. So is not getting an award and putting your ego in perspective (*cough cough* myself! *cough cough*)

Second, I guess I don't really like buying into the numbers-based criteria for this or anything else and wouldn't want to discourage people from trying because they aren't the typical profile. Sure it makes things seem more cut and dry, but I really can't bring myself to believe that reviewers really care about the number of citations you have, the NUMBER of service projects you've done, etc. I would hope that they would care that you've gotten personal value and meaning out of what you've done and read more than the mere fact you can put it on your resume.

Maybe I'm just too idealistic, not in touch with reality, or just preparing myself for a major letdown, but I think the process of applying, doing research, etc is more important and valuable than the end results. We'll all end up with the same titles (M.S./PhD, etc) and what makes us different is the process of what we've done and how we've gotten that degree, so why would this application be any different? Why bother writing 3 essays if all they care about are numbers? Good applicants can be anyone, come from any institution, or have any background as long as they show personal motivation and capacity to do good research.

Anyways, that's my not-well thought out mini-rant at people who are obsessed with the numbers and outcomes. I understand, sympathize, and sometimes join you, but remember there's more than "winning" and "losing"! I'm sure I've probably ruffled a few feathers with this, so fire away.

Though I agree that seeing some type of statistical pattern in successful applicants would indeed have some impact (hence I am not opposed to posting mine)-- I fully see that the impact would be either comforting (if we see ourselves fitting into the pattern) or devastating (if not). And in agreement with the above posters, neither comfort or lack thereof should discourage students from applying-- especially if they need the money to complete their desired education.

Also, I think it's been proven that this process is not number-based in any shape or form. Students who win the award have GPAs that range from 3.0 to 4.0, 0 to 10 publications, and so on. Even the rating sheets given by the GRFP panel itself seems to have little predictability. A friend of mine with no "excellent" ratings was able to win an award, while another with several E/E or E/VGs got HM. This is my first and only time applying, and I made new contacts and re-forged many old relationships through just preparing the proposal. I'm gonna really try to continue psyching myself into believing that this is all just a learning experience, and that anything beyond what I have right now is bonus. :strains: