The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

In other words, I knew I was coming on as a GS-7, but I had written confirmation from HR that I would come up for my GS-9 promotion in a couple months.

When I got there, they said Nope, we're starting your clock over.

I'll go ahead and log back on after the weekend and tell the whole story.

PCS orders don't say anything about when you're due for promotion.

I can agree that others may have had a better experience than I did (I certainly doubt anyone had a worse one). I'm sure my case is on one extreme end of the spectrum. I just want people to know that they have to be careful. Nothing ever seems to go to plan. You also put yourself at a disadvantage, ...

Actually, the correspondence between me and my new SF was very clear. They just decided they weren't going to honor it after I had packed up my life and moved several hundred miles to work for them. Is it really that hard for you to believe? They do this stuff all the time. If you would like to see ...

Yeah, Larry makes it sound like if you don't like where you are, you can just go somewhere else. It's really not that easy. I did change SFs, and it took a solid year (I have a 2.5 year commitment). So yes, it's possible. In my case, the entire process was horrible. It's a lot of legwork, and there ...

To be fair, the $1200/week payments was a little ridiculous. Well as long as we're being "fair" a lot of people would say that the stipend that we receive under normal conditions is a little ridiculous, when compared to the average scholarship. However, the SMART program is not supposed to be an av...

I haven't received an email regarding the flight reservation. Anyone have any idea why that would be?

I got it!!! Good luck to everyone!!!

(last name starts with Y)

That makes several hundred of us...

I wonder why the SPO isn't answering the phone...

Thanks for that. I just threw up a little.

Haha yeah here we go into day number three. Regardless of the unlikelihood of hearing anything back from the SMART office today, I want to wish everyone good luck. Hopefully we receive news regarding our status before too long, for all of our sakes.

Agreed.

Yeah, I guess I would have expected them to start sending notifications by now, but who knows.