Rangel Fellowship 2018

[mrs12]

@Amanda Libby One is done, the one I thought would take the longest. Somehow the other one I'm still waiting on. But I'm not super stressed, I've asked the person before for LOR's and I know it'll get there. The issue was that they had a lot of trouble getting the email so that wasted some time.

I'm having trouble still getting a financial aid statement from my school about my last year of financial aid. I asked the Rangel folks and they'd prefer a formal letter, not something off my school's portal, and since I'm no longer on campus my financial aid office isn't too inclined to respond to my requests. I'm not sure what I'll do if they don't get back to me soon.

[ayasofaya]

8 hours ago, Amanda Libby said:

are your recommendations complete? 

 

 

My Personal Statement is now at 598 meaning my reccommendations (Both of them!) are the only thing left to complete. I'm dying here. Luckily one of them works in my office and we're close so I can complain to her face but the professor will take some emailing. He's notorious for being last minute which made me nervous to ask him in the first place but he really is the perfect guy for the job assuming he pulls it together.

[Amanda Libby]

Seems like we are all almost complete with the application process. 

[mrs12]

Good thing too, there's not much time left. Good luck with these last few days!

[ayasofaya]

Hey guys,

After your reccommender submits their recommendation, should it say "Pending" under the status? I don't remember what it said before my professor let me know he completed it, so I don't know if it changed. Should I have gotten an email notification? I'm this close to calling to ask.

Edited September 19, 2017 by ayasofaya

[Amanda Libby]

@ayasofaya Hey! When they complete it the next day the status should change to complete. You will not be notified, it will only change on the actual Rangel website. 

[ayasofaya]

OKAY

After a series of horrifying tech issues and a few phone calls to the program for status updates, I am now all greens, and my recommendations are complete. (I actually was notified. They CCed me on every automatic email.)


And now comes this part:

 

[Amanda Libby]

Yay!

Lol @ the image 

[mrs12]

I just really want my new OPI score from CLS to come tomorrow so I can have a more current language proficiency rating. Ahhh. 

But other than that, I finally finally finally got the whole thing triple-checked and made sure everything was uploaded/in the right place. I'm done!

[Amanda Libby]

@mrs12 Likewise!  We are ready for the waiting game lol

[ayasofaya]

This seems anticlimactic. Should I have gotten a confirmation email at least?

EDIT: I went on the site to see if they would have a "Your application was submitted" message on the bottom or something and all traces of the application portal/login are gone! Welp!

Edited September 22, 2017 by ayasofaya

[mrs12]

Last year they didn't send out any alerts, it's a bit weird, but that's how it works. If you have a concern you can email them and check. The portal just closes and that's how you know it all went through. :3

[mrs12]

Man, my calm didn't last long. I've already entered the stage where I'm second-guessing everything I wrote. Whatever you do, try your best not to re-read your application. That's my number one advice for right now. Seriously. I never do, but I know people who have and it only ends in needless anguish because we can't change anything now -- even if in hind-sight we wish we could. 

Okay, okay, so to bring us back together. Are you all from communities/families where people know what you're talking about when you mention the Foreign Service? My family only sort of knows because I've made them listen to me rant, but if I try to tell people in my community they're not even really sure what an embassy is or what they are supposed to do. It ends up being a very confusing conversation and then they think the FS is all high-politicking functions and the like. 

[Karakoy]

Hi, everyone, I too am applying to Rangel this round. Can't believe the application period came and went so fast. In about 4 weeks from now, we'll know the verdict. 

[Amanda Libby]

@Karakoy Welcome to this forum! Thank you for joining. 

@mrs12 I agree with you, in regards to not reading your submission over, at this point all is done. I did however, made the huge mistake of reading over the profiles of previous Rangels (at the rangel website), and their experiences are so significant. @mrs12 No one knows about the Foreign Service from my circle of friends, so I gave up explaining it to them, and now just say government job, so I keep it super simple.

[mrs12]

Hey Karakoy, welcome! Glad you could join us. :3

Amanda, don't freak too much -- the profiles of the previous Rangel's aren't comprehensive. It's a few from each year, if I remember correctly, so it's not representative of the whole batch. It's held true for as long as I've been following the process that the finalists are always from a huge range of backgrounds so I wouldn't get incredibly hung up on those classic "amazing" profiles they want to show us. <3

[ayasofaya]

WELP They're looking at them!

I got an email asking to clarify a date. She said my application is processing. I'm making this wait so much worse by micro-updating.

[ayasofaya]

So anyways, back to

[mrs12]

@ayasofaya Ooooh, what kind of date? <3 That's good news! That means they're really looking and that they care enough to ask stuff like that. 

[ayasofaya]

@mrs12 It was petty. I put "2020" for projected graduation date and they wanted me to verify the month and the year. I'm over here drawing diagrams and counting on my fingers trying to figure out how I could have calculated that wrong. I didn't. I just didn't put a month. I'm still doing the math over and over in my head to make sure, even though she confirmed my reply lol. We would graduate in 2020 right?

Right?

[mrs12]

I did the same thing, haha. They contacted me today. Only in my case I think the application saved some information from when I applied last year and I must not have updated the graduation year because it was 2019. I feel a little embarrassed now. Oh well, at least it means they're looking!

[Amanda Libby]

@ayasofaya @mrs12 Same thing here.  Got the email, and I also felt a bit embarrassed, but like you guys said they are looking at our applications. 

 

[mrs12]

If it was most of us it was probably also most of everyone who applied, so that does reduce the embarrassment factor. Honestly it's impressive that they're paying that much attention to detail and not, say, just throwing out applications whenever they get the chance. I know they have a lot of applications to go through, so that makes me feel better somehow. They're not going to miss the little aspects of our applications, I wouldn't imagine, after this.

[mrs12]

Did you all see that the Pickering is no longer running their undergraduate fellowship this year? So they'll be accepting 30 graduate fellows as well instead of the previous 20.

[Amanda Libby]

@mrs12 Hey there! I noticed it also, and noticed that they kept the GRE scores component. I thought they were going to change that since no need for GRE with Rangel anymore. I have not yet taken the GRE to apply for Pickering :(. 

Have you all received a Rangel Email confirming the receipt of the application, and the dates of when they are expected to send responses?