Tuesday, May 19, 2009

GRF awards are all out and rating sheets are up!

I was notified on April 10 that I received a Graduate Research
Fellowship from NSF. They announced 950 awards and sent out many
rejection letters at that time as well. However, the NSF budget was
uncertain and they were not sure how many additional awards could be
offered. More than 2000 people have been waiting in limbo since that
date, knowing that they would either receive an Honorable Mention, or
an award. I'm sorry for those of you out there who were in this
uncertain situation.

NSF said that rating sheets for all applicants would not be available
until all awards had been made, so I finally received an email this
morning stating that my rating sheets were up. I checked the award
lists for other people I know and to see how many additional awards
were made.

950 first-round awards
286 second-round awards
(1236 total awards)
1785 Honorable Mentions

I have no idea how many people applied. The competition sure is steep.
But, there's good news for those of you who can apply again next year.
According to the American Institute of Biological Sciences:

"The [proposed FY2010] NSF budget would increase funding for graduate
research fellowships from 1200 to 1600, with a goal of awarding 3000
fellowships per year by 2013."

That's a big difference. I suppose it's still just the proposed
budget, but those numbers are encouraging.

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