NSF GRFP 2008

[robotgirl]

I think it's legit. I'm on there and so are 5 of my friends. I also logged into the fastlane website and there was an "Accept/Decline" thing on the main page.

I'm a first year and I didn't have any publications as an undergrad. This was my second time applying and I got mediocre reviews last year(lots of 3's out of 5). This year I looked at a bunch of winning essays and really milked the "intellectual merit" and "broader impacts" it sucks that you almost have to be cheesily specific about how you are making and impact and that you have intellectual merit, but it won't get their attention if you are subtle about it.

[ardalin]

I am on the list, and when I log into Fastlane, it asks me to accept/decline as well. I can also view my award letter, which is dated March 31. So this seems real.

I heard from many people that broader impacts is extremely important. I worked a lot on my essay this year. However, this is the third time I applied, and last year my essay received almost perfect marks (top scores on all but one criteria by one reviewer, who gave the next-to-top), but I only got honorable mention. The same happened to a friend.

For whomever this is useful for: I have 1 refereed publication, 6-8 conference posters, one conference paper, an NSF honorable mention, a conference travel grant, and 4-5 years of research experience. Also near-perfect GREs, but not so hot grades (3.5). But, as I said, I think broader impacts is pretty important.

[mtlve]

NSF now has everything posted online! I did not win anything. :cry:

[infinite]

Does anyone get official email from NSF with login ID to look at the rating sheets? By the way, I'm not getting the NSF this year (which is my second time applying, and I am a first year graduate student this year). Does anyone know if I still have a chance to apply again next year?

[flobs]

One of my advisors/letter writers has a lot of experience with the system, and says broader impacts is one of the most overlooked, yet important things. Basically everything is important, grades, research proposal, past research is good/papers.. but honestly, pretty much everyone has a decent track record for that if you're a PhD candidate in science/engineering. So the broader impacts is where you get to really set yourself apart, since many fail to realize it's importance. It helps to read winning essays for sure.. most labs should have access to some, so if you didn't get it, try next year and learn from those who did.

[campingisintense]

Does anyone get official email from NSF with login ID to look at the rating sheets? By the way, I'm not getting the NSF this year (which is my second time applying, and I am a first year graduate student this year). Does anyone know if I still have a chance to apply again next year?

Yeah, you should be able to apply at the very beginning of your 2nd year.

[snowcapk]

I'd sure like to see my rating sheets right about now. Why would they post the results online before e-mailing us?

[bababa]

If you applied last year, you can use last year's login to access this year's ratings

[kamay]

Has the old login and site worked for anyone else? When I link to the old site contained in my email from last year it won't even open the site.

[monkeywrench]

Even if you applied two years ago, you can still use that username (which is your applicant ID) and password to access your evaluations, if you still have it. Sweet (I can't believe that worked). http://www.nsfgradfellows.org - just use the username and password that they give you in the email.

I love that everyone knows how they did, and in some cases are already reading their evaluations, before they've even officially sent out the emails. Way to keep up with the pace of technology, NSF Just goes to show that nothing stands between geeks and information on the internet!

[kamay]

Thanks for the info. I had a different link for the reviews for last year. How many rating sheets did everyone have? I only had two this time! Anyone know why that would be?

[cogdiss]

I've heard before that everyone gets two reviews, and people in the top chunk (however "chunk" is defined) are sure to get either an HM or an award. They send those people on for a third review to decide which one it will be. So I think that anyone with an HM or award should have 3 reviews, but who knows.

On what they look for: I don't mean to be cynical at all here, but I really do think that a huge portion of it is luck. I have mediocre GRES (low 1300s), a good GPA (3.9), and a handful (5) of pubs, but none of them first-author. I did work my tail off this year to get a few more publications, and I was fortunate to have letter writers who are strong names in the field. But honestly, not that much changed from last year to this year. One thing I really focused on that I think helped was speaking directly to the broader impacts question in each essay. I went back and reworked them so that the research was really grounded in a real-world context, and I tried to always reference potential societal impact or what have you. Most of the successful examples I saw really stressed that, and I think it's helpful.

But in the end, not that much changed. I do think a lot of it is luck and circumstance--for example, last year, there were 4 or so awards in my field, and this year, there are closer to 10. That must have helped. People have speculated on here before about the breakdown of awards by field, and I don't know how all of that gets decided...I think all you can do is try to position yourself as well as possible, write your ass off, and cross your fingers. It's frustrating but worth a shot.

[thunderbelly]

Sage advice, cogdiss! and congrats on your successful application. It really does seem like NSF is a lottery and a lottery that could use a much more competent IT guy.

A friend of mine earlier described the NSF this way: "it's like academic groundhog day. it's a crapshoot and the outcome is arbitrary in some ways but it means the difference between an early spring or three more years of ramen noodle winter."

[ardalin]

I looked up my ratings sheets. I got worse ratings than last year (4 excellents, 1 very good, 1 good vs. 5 excellents & 1 very good), but I got the fellowship this year and only honorable mention last year. I give up understanding how it works. Best of luck to those who are applying next year.

[psychstudent]

Is it worth it to apply at the beginning of your second year if you got honorable mention this year? Also, I have applied twice before. Can I apply a third time?

Finally, I'd just like to say that the reviews mean absolutely nothing. I had two reviewers say one thing and the third said the complete opposite. NSF needs to be sure that their reviewers are on the right page. We spend months preparing this application and the least they can do is give us a fair review process. I realize that this is how reviews work and we'll all be dealing with them anytime we apply for grants, jobs, submit for publication, etc. Despite that, I still think they can do a better job.

[even_it_up]

I am in your shoes psychstudent. I applied last year as a senior and got nothing, and then again this year as a first year doctoral student. I received HM this time, and will most definitely try again next year. It's a linear trend hopefully! The feedback was very positive with specific things I can work on to tweak for next year. If only it wasn't such a long wait

[miketakena]

Would anyone care to share their essays with me? I am an international (thus not eligible for NSF) and would like to learn how to write a good proposal... I am in engineering

mkoi_takena@hotmail.com

[bioangele]

My reviewing comments said that I simply didn't articulate the broader impacts, etc., enough. Any input from winners on how you guys really drove these home?

[planr]

Hi Guys... first timer here.

This year was my first stab (albeit unsuccessful) at the NSF, moving from undergrad to grad (MIT, masters) in the fall. I have a couple of questions I hope you folks can help with:

1) On my rating sheet page, there are four PDF's available. There are two sheets from each reviewer, however they are duplicates, both assessing Intellectual Merit and Broader Impact. Is this normal? I thought there were more criteria than this?

2a) Is it normal for the feedback to be completely useless? One reviewer (again I only have Broader Impact and Intellectual Merit) gave me two "very good" ratings with comments like "a nice, well-developed proposal" and "the applicant's background and experience make him well-suited for success." I enjoy praise, don't get me wrong, but if you're not going to give me a top rating, tell me why!!! Am I wrong here?

2b) The second reviewer who gave me two "good" ratings SUMMARIZED my application as it related to each of the criteria. Did not give any positive or negative feedback, let alone constructive criticism.

Did I get the short end of the stick? Or is this just a part of the NSF-crapshoot-game?

[mudkip1]

I had 3 PDFs, each from a different reviewer.

Sometimes comments are helpful, sometimes they're not.

[Falmouth]

How many reviewers are there for each field of study ? It seems the ratings are very subjective to the rater. If all are reviewed by the same reviewers then not quite so random. If many different then chance plays a big part. Are any statistics by program ever made available ?

[sigh]

I thought the comments would depress me, but they are so hilariously arbitrary that all I can do is laugh at them. I got one VG/G, one E/E, and one VG/VG. Looks like I'll just have to try again next year...

Also, I get the impression that the way they evaluate these applications is not entirely dissimilar to the way they evaluate grant proposals. The evaluation process is obviously flawed, but as an academic you need to learn to work within it...

[cherrifaery]

So I have an etiquette question.

When I found out I didn't make honorable mention, I was pretty surprised. I went into it with great GRE scores (96th percentile verbal, decent math and essay scores, plus 98th percentile in my subject), reasonably good grades, several publications, great topic, alot of background in kind of an obscure interdisciplinary field... and (I thought) solid recommendations.

So today I look at my review sheets, and I had three excellents and a good (from my 2 reviewers). Excellent merit, ideal broader impacts (outreach/women in math). And then I see the line "A reference indicated that this individual does not work well in teams. This is of major concern." And that was the source of my good (also the only negative on my review sheet). I know that one of my references (undergrad adviser) didn't write it, because he's written me letters before and really liked me (and I always worked in teams under him), which leaves either my graduate adviser or another professor. I really want to ask them if they wrote that, because why agree to write a rec. and then sabotage me?

If it was the other professor fine, I'll keep it in mind and not ask them to write anything for me in the future, but if it was my ADVISER, what the hell do I do then? We already don't really get along--I haven't seen them since November, except briefly when I was signed up to give a departmental seminar (by my adviser), which they attended (but was to busy/didn't want to look at it before hand). My adviser really has no idea what exactly I do research on, hasn't asked me to work on any of their projects, and when I explain my project proposals or whatever, their eyes just glaze over and they go "I don't understand but fine, that sounds fine". I'm pretty sure I could say I was burning ants with a magnifying glass and they'd be like "Oh...ok." So, sabotaging me would pretty much be the straw that broke the camels back.

So... is it ok to ask if they wrote that? And why?

I'm really upset right now, but I don't want to make a mistake or cause some huge scene (especially since who ever wrote it apparently already thinks I don't play well with others).

[snowcapk]

Cherrifaery, that sounds horrible! We've all had a bad experience with rec letters and professors, but that truly is first-rate douche-baggery on their part. I don't know what to tell you, obvious a car-keying or ass-whooping is merited, but try to be the bigger man (or woman).

It sounds like you're describing an academic adviser, because you haven't seen him/her in months and they aren't familiar with your research. They haven't asked you to work on any of their projects, so you can't have joined their lab or done research with them. So why, then, is it a huge problem to not use recommendations from this person in the future? Next year you will have had at least two, and possibly three, research advisers. Maybe you can get a third recommendation from someone you TA'd for, or a future thesis committee member, or something.

If this is your research adviser, then that is very bad news. If it is your undergrad research adviser, you should try to patch it up, despite the rising urge to kill. You may need recommendations or rely on word-of-mouth from that person in the future, so get back on speaking terms and demonstrate through your actions that you are a good team player/researcher. If you apply for NSF next year, be specific about what you want them to emphasize in your recommendation: tell them that effective ability to work in a team is a criterion and describe an instance you would like him/her to mention. Faced with that evidence, they will be forced to reevaluate their statement or else explain themselves to you.

If this is your grad research adviser, get out now! There is no point spending six years earning a degree that will be useless because you cannot find work. This sort of comment will sabotage your job search later, and the adviser is unlikely to become more reasonable as time goes on.

[cherrifaery]

No--I'm a first year phd student, and I was talking about my research adviser (at my university, we come in to work with a specific person, so from day one they are your research and academic adviser). So, the situation is really pretty bad. Is transferring even an option in grad school?