NSF GRFP 2009-2010

[geodrake]

The funding rate is usually 10%, so it will probably go up to 20% this year max. I think more people probably applied this year, since they have been advertising the increased funding rate for over a year. Hence we could still have a 10% funding rate this year!

The website said that the B/C review panel dates were moved to early March (probably because of the snow). THis may mean that they will delay the notification dates again. It takes a certain amount of time for NSF to decide who gets funding and get everything approved (probably at least a few weeks). I am hoping for an early April release.

I wonder what they will mess up this year in regards to the release.

*grumble* stupid snow. I'm already getting obsssive enough to check the site every few days, knowing full well there's no chance of an update but unable to stop myself anyways =(

[geodrake]

With the increase of awards, does anyone know if they will be increasing both hard science and social science awards? I know there was talk earlier on by Congress about starting to phase out social science awards. Hope this doesn't end up being true! >.<

I certainly hope not, given that some disciplines (ie: anthropology, geography) are categorized as social sciences but sub-disciplines can fall more towards the "science" and less to the "social"

[kdilks]

With the increase of awards, does anyone know if they will be increasing both hard science and social science awards? I know there was talk earlier on by Congress about starting to phase out social science awards. Hope this doesn't end up being true! >.<

I think they started to show some signs of that last year. You can check the thread from last year to see if anybody kept more detailed accounts, but I know for sure that a significantly disproportionate amount of the additional fellowships from the ARRA last year went to mathematics, which lead many of us to believe that the funding had stipulations about which areas they went to.

[zilch]

forum postings aren't a representative sample of the population. I would imagine that any such changes would have to be documented somewhere.

NSF will probably need to revisit the list of eligible disciplines in the coming years, with so much focus on going interdisciplinary their current way of segmenting the applicant pool is going be outdated fairly soon.

[whalo22]

Okay I have to ask before getting excited. Has the rumor about 2000 awards this year been confirmed? Are we sure it's really happening?

[kdilks]

forum postings aren't a representative sample of the population. I would imagine that any such changes would have to be documented somewhere.

Not sure what you're trying to say. Last year they put up a list with the first round of winners, and when they got the additional funding from the stimulus packge figured out they just added the second round of winners to the list. In all documentation they are lumped together as "winners", and there is no distinction made between first round and second round. However, people on this forum would have kept track of how many winners there were in their discipline before and after they updated the list.

[zxcv]

Honestly, I don't understand why the NSF doesn't already follow the lead of every other federal agency in allocating fellowships based on its research priorities. Blindly supporting every discipline based strictly on the number of applicants seems like a poor way to encourage research falling under the NSF's mandate.

As near as I can tell, the appropriations bills don't specify exactly where money is going for the NSF. But it looks like the passed version of H.R.3288 included $872.76 million for education and human resources for the NSF, a full $15 million more than $857.76 in the 2010 budget request. That $15 million (over the $122 million requested) could pretty easily be covering 350 more fellowships.

[kdilks]

Found the thread from last year. No additional awards to EEB, civil engineering, SPSS, cognitive psychology, conservation biology. Somebody who lists their field as "bioanthro/ecology" (not sure which one they applied to) said their field only added one new award (went from 6 to 7). Apparently a decent amount of the additional awards went to geology/geoscience and linguistics. Math got 41 new awards, going from from 22 to 63 (and leaving only 14 HM), which represented about 1/7 of all new awards. Math usually only gets in the ballpark of 20 awards per year. Even if the legislation didn't specifically say which fields the money should go to, it's clear that for whatever reason certain fields were targeted.

[whalo22]

Just got off the phone with the nsf grfp operations center and thought I'd contribute some food for thought. The recent appropriations by congress does mean that they're increasing the amount of awards to around 2000. When asked whether the new awards are targeting specific disciplines, she replied that the increase is discipline-wide, which equates to about a 5% increase in each discipline. Does this make sense? Also, she said that with the delay in reviewing, they are now targeting early april for the award date.

[zilch]

the increases will probably also depend on the application breakdown. If there just weren't enough good applications in one field, then another discipline may end up awarding more than their share the pie.

I think it's unlikely for NSF to systemically increase awards in discipline over another without first making an announcement and changing the program solicitation. As it stands, all of the solicitation material implies that the disciplines are treated more or less evenly.

Edited February 25, 2010 by zilch

[dalzir]

Good work whalo22. In past years ~10% of the applicants in each discipline received a fellowship. Maybe she means that instead of 10% of applicants receiving an award, ~15% will, making this an increase of 5%. That's the only thing I can think of that makes sense. That would definitely be a nice increase

I know that Sessions B and C were postponed. Does anyone know how many sessions there are and/or what disciplines make up sessions B and C? I don't know how the panels are formed but I'm wondering if the results will come in installments because of the delays or all at once.

Just got off the phone with the nsf grfp operations center and thought I'd contribute some food for thought. The recent appropriations by congress does mean that they're increasing the amount of awards to around 2000. When asked whether the new awards are targeting specific disciplines, she replied that the increase is discipline-wide, which equates to about a 5% increase in each discipline. Does this make sense? Also, she said that with the delay in reviewing, they are now targeting early april for the award date.

[jrisingsun]

Is anyone else out there MORE nervous about finding out whether they got the NSF GRF than actually hearing back from schools? I feel like if I got the NSF, I could go wherever I want to go, especially in this current funding climate, most profs told me that they don't have money but if I can bring my own money, they'd take me.

April cannot come soon enough!!

[Krypton]

Is anyone else out there MORE nervous about finding out whether they got the NSF GRF than actually hearing back from schools?

Umm.. absolutely!

[angelstern]

Does anyone else have the feeling that some schools are waiting to accept/reject them until they find out if they have been awarded the GRF? I just wonder because of the schools I applied to I have heard back from those that didn't know I was applying for it and haven't heard a peep out of those that did. This is truly a bad sign that my obsession has grown to mammoth proportions - I spend way too much time trying to get inside the heads of these people. Sigh.

[mtlve]

Does anyone else have the feeling that some schools are waiting to accept/reject them until they find out if they have been awarded the GRF? I just wonder because of the schools I applied to I have heard back from those that didn't know I was applying for it and haven't heard a peep out of those that did. This is truly a bad sign that my obsession has grown to mammoth proportions - I spend way too much time trying to get inside the heads of these people. Sigh.

It is not to going to get any better. One lab waited until I told them that I did not get a GRFP to tell me they were not going to take me (literally replied to my email saying NSF said no to tell me they say no). It does not get any better when you get to grad school.

I hope we hear soon and that I do not have to wait to 2AM again.

[jrisingsun]

I applied for the NSF GRF at the suggestion of a potential advisor - and wrote my research proposal based on his work and what I could see myself doing in his lab. He didn't help me too much with it, but provided comments towards the end. But he did write me a letter of recommendation for NSF.

And then, a couple months later, I get rejected from that school. :(

BUT -- If I do end up getting the NSF, I'm going to have to email him to thank him for writing the letter of rec. Haha. I'll be genuinely thankful, but it'll be oh so ironic.

[chickenandwaffles]

I applied for the NSF GRF at the suggestion of a potential advisor - and wrote my research proposal based on his work and what I could see myself doing in his lab. He didn't help me too much with it, but provided comments towards the end. But he did write me a letter of recommendation for NSF.

And then, a couple months later, I get rejected from that school. :(

BUT -- If I do end up getting the NSF, I'm going to have to email him to thank him for writing the letter of rec. Haha. I'll be genuinely thankful, but it'll be oh so ironic.

wow, that is a unique situation. i wonder if they'll accept you afterwards?

[jrisingsun]

wow, that is a unique situation. i wonder if they'll accept you afterwards?

I don't know... is it likely? I haven't heard of such a situation so I don't know how it might work.

I know that the advisor said at the beginning that he was interested in my application but didn't have funding, so to go ahead and apply for the NSF. so maybe he didn't accept me because he didn't have funding?

But it could also be because they just had more qualified applicants. It's a pretty competitive school in my field.

[afritz87]

I don't know... is it likely? I haven't heard of such a situation so I don't know how it might work.

I know that the advisor said at the beginning that he was interested in my application but didn't have funding, so to go ahead and apply for the NSF. so maybe he didn't accept me because he didn't have funding?

But it could also be because they just had more qualified applicants. It's a pretty competitive school in my field.

I would guess that if you get the GRF, you'll have a golden ticket into that school. Good luck!

And I absolutely agree with those who think the wait for this is rougher than waiting to get in to schools. It's a close call though, both are pretty awful.

[mmm35]

Does anyone know much about the women in engineering and computer science awards? How many additional awards go to this, or is it not something that is specifically called out? Do they all just get told they received NSF GRF's and not get told that it was under the special women's category?

I wasn't anticipating the NSF decisions too much, but now that I have heard from all the grad schools I care about I am getting anxious! I think my brain is so used to worrying that it can't just take a break, so instead I am trying to figure out what my chances are. (not that my assesment for my grad school acceptance chances was in any way on target, but its a way to pass the time )

[zilch]

Does anyone know much about the women in engineering and computer science awards? How many additional awards go to this, or is it not something that is specifically called out? Do they all just get told they received NSF GRF's and not get told that it was under the special women's category?

I wasn't anticipating the NSF decisions too much, but now that I have heard from all the grad schools I care about I am getting anxious! I think my brain is so used to worrying that it can't just take a break, so instead I am trying to figure out what my chances are. (not that my assesment for my grad school acceptance chances was in any way on target, but its a way to pass the time )

there's no special denotation with the award (at least not to the best of my knowledge). If you are female and fall into the STEM disciplines then you just have a slightly higher chance of getting one.

[BioTurboNick]

Update from the GRFP Facebook Page:

"We'll *hopefully* be awarding this year's fellows in early April, so if you've applied this year, be patient-- you'll find out soon!"

Another month to go... dang.

[mtlve]

Update from the GRFP Facebook Page:

"We'll *hopefully* be awarding this year's fellows in early April, so if you've applied this year, be patient-- you'll find out soon!"

Another month to go... dang.

Expected.

They probably have scored the apps though-just waiting on funding decisions.

We should probably start signing in and checking our review sheets (if prior app) now, since they may have glitches with that stuff like prior years.

[mtlve]

Just logged in to check my rating sheets (1st time since 2-5weeks ago). The old sheets are not there anymore and they had a message saying it is closed to prepare for this year. Ahh!!!!!! Wish they would just let us read those!

[Rails111]

How exactly do we check the rating sheets? We log in...then what? All I see are three links under "Application Package Optional Task List"