The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

For anyone else who will stumble onto this thread, I highly recommend being extremely proactive with your SF. I kept bugging my SF + supervisor months before I graduated so that I would avoid having to wait. You can start working before you get your Phase 2 letter, just send them the SF-50 once you start working. SMART does not impact your start date at all, so you are just waiting on your SF. If you are on top of it, your supervisor can start obtaining funding and hiring allocations ahead of time. Source: I graduated on January 15, 2021 and onboarded on January 19th, 2021.

MainRotorGearbox wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:13 pm

Were you getting a stipend this whole time?

Yes! I’ve still been receiving the stipend.

Were you getting a stipend this whole time?

Update, received a job offer and a start date for March

Have you received your clearance? Sometimes your clearance takes an astronomically long time, it took me 3 years. I was graduated several months before I was notified it went through.

I graduated in December, was called about it being done in June, emails and offer letters in July, and had orientation and started working in August. So 8 months is not impossible if you have done everything right. That said, COVID makes everything worse and many SF's are running 80% telecommute, which slows a lot of things down.

Hang in there. They will tell you if something is wrong.

I email my SF at about the same frequency with no luck. Thanks though! It doesn’t help that they have no idea what department I’ll be in (the one I interned with apparently doesn’t have a spot now?). And there’s been at least three different people in the person of contact position at my SF since August.

At this point I could have been 1/4 done with my stupid commitment.

Brooooooooooo wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 05, 2020 5:54 pm

Are there any other May 2020 grad without job placement within their SF, or even an estimated start date? This is insane right?

I probably still would be if I hadn't annoyed the life out of my SF. As soon as COVID became serious (April), I began emailing my boss every two weeks for an update. At the end of June, they finally I think onboarded me just to get it over with. I don't know if that will work for everyone, but it is what worked for me.

Are there any other May 2020 grad without job placement within their SF, or even an estimated start date? This is insane right?