Timeline for 2016

Answers to various questions regarding the SMART Scholarship application process. Includes many tips and statistics.
UMN2019

Timeline for 2016

Post by UMN2019 »

I am wondering if anyone knows what the timeline will be like (or might be like) for the 2016 awards. I have heard in past years semifinalist were notified in early February. However, since the application deadline was 15 days earlier than those previous years will the timeline be moved up at all?

Finally, does anyone from last years accepted applicants remember the timeline for 2015. I'm assuming it would be very similar but then again I am not sure.

Guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by Guest »

I doubt it has been moved up. With everything being pushed to the sponsoring orgs, I'm sure it just takes longer.

Guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by Guest »

I got the email that I had made it through the first round and onto interviews on Feb. 19, 2015.
My first phone interview was around March 10, and the last one was March 23.
The award email came April 17.
Hope that helps give you an idea and best of luck.

Guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by Guest »

I got the email just about 30 minutes ago saying I made it past the first round, so it seems like things are a little bit ahead of last year's schedule.

jmkunisch

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by jmkunisch »

Yeah I just got notified that I made it to the next step. Does this mean that I made it past the basic eligibility requirements such as GPA and age, or that I was deemed qualified enough for review by the agencies?

Guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by Guest »

I also just got the email. Seems like it might be a while for the sponsoring orgs to contact us

Guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by Guest »

jmkunisch wrote:Yeah I just got notified that I made it to the next step. Does this mean that I made it past the basic eligibility requirements such as GPA and age, or that I was deemed qualified enough for review by the agencies?
Yes. First check was application eligibility, making sure you had everything and what not. Second check, which is what just happened, means the DOD panel made up of professors and DOD workers picked the top 50% and those are the ones that got the email to move on to sponsoring orgs.

Guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by Guest »

Have been accepted to the next step, could you please advise what exactly are the next steps in the process.

guest555

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by guest555 »

made it through the first round!

letter said:
"You may be contacted by a Sponsoring Facility anytime between now and the end of March. It is possible you will not be contacted."

what does it mean you may not be contacted? Does that mean if you made it to the next step, then a facility may not need you?

Also, someone mentioned here that DOD workers picked top 50%. How do you know those that got letters/emails making it to the next step are in the top 50?

UMN2019

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by UMN2019 »

Got the exact same email. Good luck to all of you! Let's all hope that we get tons of phone interviews!

guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by guest »

UMN2019 wrote:Got the exact same email. Good luck to all of you! Let's all hope that we get tons of phone interviews!
I really hope that we do!

2015Cohort

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by 2015Cohort »

Guys, speaking as someone who applied twice and got accepted the second time around... I highly recommend that YOU make the effort in contacting the facilities that you are interested in. Did you apply hoping to land at a specific facility? Well then you do everything in your power to find out who is over the SMART program there, and who is making selections. YOU make the initiative to contact folks and set up your own interviews.

The folks doing the selecting likely don't even know that you listed their facility as a desired sponsoring facility. Take the initiative if you want the award.

Guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by Guest »

2015Cohort wrote:Guys, speaking as someone who applied twice and got accepted the second time around... I highly recommend that YOU make the effort in contacting the facilities that you are interested in. Did you apply hoping to land at a specific facility? Well then you do everything in your power to find out who is over the SMART program there, and who is making selections. YOU make the initiative to contact folks and set up your own interviews.

The folks doing the selecting likely don't even know that you listed their facility as a desired sponsoring facility. Take the initiative if you want the award.
Is there a way to get back on our application and find out which ones we applied for? It has been a few months and I have been heavily focused in school.

teddy

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by teddy »

I have not gotten an email yet. What does that mean? Did I not get the scholarship?

Guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by Guest »

2015Cohort wrote:Guys, speaking as someone who applied twice and got accepted the second time around... I highly recommend that YOU make the effort in contacting the facilities that you are interested in. Did you apply hoping to land at a specific facility? Well then you do everything in your power to find out who is over the SMART program there, and who is making selections. YOU make the initiative to contact folks and set up your own interviews.

The folks doing the selecting likely don't even know that you listed their facility as a desired sponsoring facility. Take the initiative if you want the award.
How would you recommend we go about doing this? Should we email the point of contact given for the facility on the SMART website or should we email someone from the facility's website?

Guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by Guest »

2015Cohort wrote:Guys, speaking as someone who applied twice and got accepted the second time around... I highly recommend that YOU make the effort in contacting the facilities that you are interested in. Did you apply hoping to land at a specific facility? Well then you do everything in your power to find out who is over the SMART program there, and who is making selections. YOU make the initiative to contact folks and set up your own interviews.

The folks doing the selecting likely don't even know that you listed their facility as a desired sponsoring facility. Take the initiative if you want the award.
Be careful about this. One year I sent out emails tailored to each lab showing how my research may be related. From the responses I received it seemed that more often than not I was annoying people. Things seemed to go downhill quickly if they were not immediately aware of the SMART program. If they had to do any research on acting as a SF or do any paperwork for hosting, correspondence usually ended. Most responses were of the "All applicants are evaluated equally and will be contacted if an interview is desired" style. Other applicants may have had better luck but I was discouraged by the responses I received.

The next year I had contacted the SFs I was interested in before submitting the application to give a sort of "heads up here is where I want to be and what I want to be doing". I got a couple positives responses from that (guess they forgot about me from the previous year) and any negative responses let me remove those SFs from my application. I listed a few specific SFs in the application essays and discussed related research in detail there. This method yielded me the couple of interviews I needed.

bevco

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by bevco »

got accepted to first rounds. However, I accepted a job already. Wanted to wait till spring but they could not though job starts after graduation. So I will be working FT plus the company pays all my school . Its a great school but not my #1 choice nor the top school…not sure how to feel if I get into my #1 choice schools but then again maybe it does not matter …

if it doesn't work out then I plan to re-apply or can you get a second masters?

GuestMom

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by GuestMom »

I am a mom looking to find out more about this scholarship for my daughter who has applied. I've read a lot of the posts and they don't seem positive. Many of the early winners have not had great experiences with their SF, were not doing what they were trained for, or were planning to leave without fulfilling their agreement because of the above. They were wondering why there was no system to keep track of who was in and who left in the early years. Some posts said they were glad to have the financial support because they had no other options. We were thinking the military bases would be a great place to learn and serve our country. Many of those working there reported mediocrity and that those working there were just putting in time until they could get out. This is not very reassuring. If my daughter is offered the scholarship, she may not want it after all. She has received at least 3 offers from Universities to pay for her MS/PhD in Materials Science by having her work as an RA/TA. At the end of this she will not owe anything to anyone. If she so choose, she could still work for the military because they will still need civilian scientists. She can pick where she wants to live and can leave whenever she wants.
She does have a phone interview coning up next week from a Major at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. We'll see what she can learn from this. She could always try to get an internship to see what working for the Military would be like. If she's really excited about it, she could reapply when she's working on her phD or not.

Guest

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by Guest »

To the above poster:

Honestly, I would just wait and see what your daughter's sponsoring facility would be, if she gets the scholarship. Like you I have read through the last few years worth of posts and have been rather surprised at all the negative comments. However, there's been a helpful nugget here and there that might help ease some of your, and your daughter's, worries. While most people do not list their degree here, it is hard to say with certainty, but most of the complaints about being given non-technical work seem to be coming from people with just a BS (I could be totally wrong here, so feel free to correct me). If this is true, then your daughter should have a better shot at research/relevant-to-her-degree work since she is going for a graduate degree. Also, I read somewhere that any of the actual military research labs are good sponsoring facilities for the most part. With the Air Force Research Laboratory having a directorate at Wright-Patterson, then your daughter's interview might make a good connection.

Anyway, those are my two cents. And again, my first assertion could be completely wrong, but it makes sense if true.

ThatGuy

Re: Timeline for 2016

Post by ThatGuy »

GuestMom wrote:I am a mom looking to find out more about this scholarship for my daughter who has applied. I've read a lot of the posts and they don't seem positive. Many of the early winners have not had great experiences with their SF, were not doing what they were trained for, or were planning to leave without fulfilling their agreement because of the above. They were wondering why there was no system to keep track of who was in and who left in the early years. Some posts said they were glad to have the financial support because they had no other options. We were thinking the military bases would be a great place to learn and serve our country. Many of those working there reported mediocrity and that those working there were just putting in time until they could get out. This is not very reassuring. If my daughter is offered the scholarship, she may not want it after all. She has received at least 3 offers from Universities to pay for her MS/PhD in Materials Science by having her work as an RA/TA. At the end of this she will not owe anything to anyone. If she so choose, she could still work for the military because they will still need civilian scientists. She can pick where she wants to live and can leave whenever she wants.
She does have a phone interview coning up next week from a Major at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. We'll see what she can learn from this. She could always try to get an internship to see what working for the Military would be like. If she's really excited about it, she could reapply when she's working on her phD or not.
Alright, I'm gonna be the dick that asks the potentially stupid question because I've had to deal with people that I hope your daughter is not.

Why are you coming here to ask us questions instead of her? She's working on her Master's and/or PhD. She needs to be the one coming here to ask the questions if people are gonna take her seriously. I've had to work with people who could barely leave to get lunch without calling for their supervisor's permission. Much less make a snap decision when things got down to it. Now, you may have a perfectly decent explanation for this, in which case go ahead and ignore this because I'm just a bitter dude that hates having to carry someone that can't contribute, but can't be fired because they're in the government. The reason I worry about this is because you keep using "we" but talking about it like you're mapping out her options for her. This is not the kind of person that should be working to support the war fighters. Heaven help her if this was the case and I was sent down range with her to provide deployed support in a war zone.

Again, you might have a great answer for this and all I just said doesn't matter, but it needs to be said just in case.

To give you some feedback on what you wrote, I would say that she should definitely see who she gets selected by (if she gets selected) and then see if she can either get a tour or get in contact with current/former SMART personnel to determine if it's the right choice for her. Sounds like money isn't really the issue, it's more if she wants to get into working for DoD through this program. Just remember that it can be tough to get into DoD as an outsider, because that's just the way we play the games.

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