The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

The only issue with that is if the first choice falls through for some reason, then you may not get anyone else that pushes you through to the next round.

I had the same question. I am currently in the process and interviewed with my first choice already with the Navy. I have 2 other interviews lined up, which were not on my list and I am really not interested in: One Air Force and one Army (nothing against those branches; just not facilities I want to go to). I emailed SMART to ask about this and here is their reply:

"Congratulations on becoming a semi-finalist. All facilities that are sponsoring students in the discipline you applied under will have access to your information, sometimes your placement preference is taken into consideration, but it also depends on the need of the facilities. You can be interviewed by several facilities and indicate which facility you are most interested in working with, if you are shortlisted by several facilities you may be given an opportunity to choose which facility you would like to work for."

Note that "sometimes" your preferences are taken into account. I think this means I should not interview with any other facilities than what I am very interested in. Otherwise, the "need of the facility" may not fit my needs.

Any other thoughts?

[quote="guest"]I have had phone interviews with two SFs, which happened to be my top two choices (at least when I was forced to choose them earlier). I have read somewhat conflicting information on this site about how things might proceed from here. I really hit it off with a PI at one facility and am leaning that way right now, but initially it was listed as my second choice. So specifically, I have the following questions.

If accepted, will SMART send me just 1 offer associated with 1 SF? Or is it possible to receive two offers from which I can choose?
Does receiving 1 offer mean only 1 SF was interested? Or could 2 have offered to support me, and the DoD chose for me? Do I have the right to ask this? If 2 offered and the DoD chose for me, do I have the option to ask to accept the other offer?

Maybe I get only 1 or 0 offers and it doesn't matter anyway, but I'm curious about how much control of the process I have beyond this point.

Thanks in advance for any help![/quote]

I had interviews with 5 SFs, and ultimately I was contacted by the Navy liaison (3 of the interviews were Navy facilities) and asked to rank my choices based on the interviews I had. I ultimately ended up with my second choice. (Which was OK, because I had rated them equally before arbitrarily picking one as first choice)

I have had phone interviews with two SFs, which happened to be my top two choices (at least when I was forced to choose them earlier). I have read somewhat conflicting information on this site about how things might proceed from here. I really hit it off with a PI at one facility and am leaning that way right now, but initially it was listed as my second choice. So specifically, I have the following questions.

If accepted, will SMART send me just 1 offer associated with 1 SF? Or is it possible to receive two offers from which I can choose?
Does receiving 1 offer mean only 1 SF was interested? Or could 2 have offered to support me, and the DoD chose for me? Do I have the right to ask this? If 2 offered and the DoD chose for me, do I have the option to ask to accept the other offer?

Maybe I get only 1 or 0 offers and it doesn't matter anyway, but I'm curious about how much control of the process I have beyond this point.

Thanks in advance for any help!