Been Contacted?

[dafix]

What's the process after being nominated? I know there are primary and alternates according to some of the posts I've read here. What makes you either one?

[guest]

Well, I have officially given up on getting an interview with a sponsoring facility.

[Guest]

You still could be chosen though. We'll all find out at the end of the month. From what I've heard, some people don't even get interviewed.

[rbritt]

Had interview with Robins AFB. It went ok. They did say that SMART would not be notifying until the end of March/ beginning of April. So, now we wait...

[xkcd13]

Right now, sponsoring facilities are just interviewing to decided if they want to nominate you. Then March 21-25th, the SMART office is interviewing people to decided where to assign them. So everyone who has made it to semifinalists is still in the running.

[flordearcoiris]

So the SMART office will give interviews from March 21st -25th for those who have been chosen at more than one facility?

thanks, and thanks for the words of encouragement. I am starting to get really anxious.

[Jim M]

Interviews for everyone they push through and award. They will probably call people who have not recieved phonecalls.

[Shawny5987]

Glad to hear im not the only bio person not been contacted

I am a PhD Chemical engineering student with a focus on metabolic engineering

I applied for DTRA and Edgewood ECBC, cant remember the third. Anyone hear from either of those?

[Guest J]

I am an Optics Phd student, applied to Wright-Patterson, Crane, and Champaign. Has anyone heard from these places?

[dafix]

I applied for Wright Patterson (propulsion), Arnold, and Redstone. Never heard from any of them.
Robins and Tinker contacted me out of the blue, and I interviewed with both...

[Guest]

I will be getting my MSci in Epidemiology and applied in the bioscience category. Has anyone in the biosciences heard from the Center for health Promotion and Prevention (CHPPM) , Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC), or US ARMY Medical Research Institute (USAMRIID)?

[microgirl]

I just had an interview with the US Army Public Health Command. I think it went well? They said that they only have 1 spot to recommend to the SPO and they were interviewing a few people today (have to submit it by Wednesday). We'll see how it goes. :/

[Jim M]

16 days!

[guest]

I just had an interview with the US Army Public Health Command. I think it went well? They said that they only have 1 spot to recommend to the SPO and they were interviewing a few people today (have to submit it by Wednesday). We'll see how it goes. :/

Whats your major and level of your degree program?

[microgirl]

Whats your major and level of your degree program?

3rd year predoctoral student in microbiology

[Guest]

Last year there was a phone session with SMART after the facility interviews. They contacted every semi-finalist, whether they were interviewed by a facility or not, to verify information and make sure you were aware of the requirements of the program. I didn't have anything to do with if you had been chosen or not.

[mmm72392]

I spoke today with a recruiter from Virginia Tech at a career fair. (I am a freshman EE semi-finalist and have not been contacted.) Some of what he said was his opinion, and his main point was that they don't know much more than we do (so please do not take any of this as fact, but recognize that some of it may have been speculation.)

He talked a lot about when Congress figures out their budget. About seven semi-finalists had spoken to him at the career fair, and only one of them had been contacted. He was surprised by that number (VA Tech usually has several award recipients), and said that the labs/agencies might be a little cautious to make phone calls before they know how much money they have. Depending on what is passed in Congress and when it is passed, anything might happen.

For all anyone knows, SMART might not be able to issue any awards (which he stated he does NOT think will happen), or they might have extra money they have to spend before the end of the fiscal year and offer twice as many awards as last year (which he also does NOT think will happen.) He suspects that it will be cut slightly, and they will issue 200 something awards instead of 300 like last year. He expects the next couple weeks to be very busy for everyone (AKA phone interviews, hopefully!) as the agencies get their act together.

Interesting fact: SMART (or ASEE?) received a complaint from someone on the west coast who received a call at 6:00 a.m. from a lab on the east coast. I'm guessing that won't happen again - but be prepared.

[guest]

I don’t know anything about the Congressional Budget timeline, but the funding for this coming year has to be already in place. Congress is not going to pass any budgetary bills in the next week.

1 out of 7 seems consistent with the probabilities. If 10% to 12% of the overall applicants get awards, then 1 out of 7 is actually an above average percentage.

[kcdrews]

I spoke today with a recruiter from Virginia Tech at a career fair. (I am a freshman EE semi-finalist and have not been contacted.) Some of what he said was his opinion, and his main point was that they don't know much more than we do (so please do not take any of this as fact, but recognize that some of it may have been speculation.)

He talked a lot about when Congress figures out their budget. About seven semi-finalists had spoken to him at the career fair, and only one of them had been contacted. He was surprised by that number (VA Tech usually has several award recipients), and said that the labs/agencies might be a little cautious to make phone calls before they know how much money they have. Depending on what is passed in Congress and when it is passed, anything might happen.

For all anyone knows, SMART might not be able to issue any awards (which he stated he does NOT think will happen), or they might have extra money they have to spend before the end of the fiscal year and offer twice as many awards as last year (which he also does NOT think will happen.) He suspects that it will be cut slightly, and they will issue 200 something awards instead of 300 like last year. He expects the next couple weeks to be very busy for everyone (AKA phone interviews, hopefully!) as the agencies get their act together.

Interesting fact: SMART (or ASEE?) received a complaint from someone on the west coast who received a call at 6:00 a.m. from a lab on the east coast. I'm guessing that won't happen again - but be prepared.

I went too (freshmen Bio major) and by that point (near the end of the day) he said that there had been 2 out of 12 contacted.

I don’t know anything about the Congressional Budget timeline, but the funding for this coming year has to be already in place. Congress is not going to pass any budgetary bills in the next week.

1 out of 7 seems consistent with the probabilities. If 10% to 12% of the overall applicants get awards, then 1 out of 7 is actually an above average percentage.

That would be true yes, but while 10-12% get awards, he said that normally far more people are interviewed. Think about it: if every lab has to choose 5 people, then odds are they'll have a list of maybe 10, and they'll no doubt want to be contacting every single one of those people.

[kcdrews]

I forgot to mention this, but he said that it is entirely possible that the entire selection process might be moved back a little. However, no matter what happens they would send out an email on March 31, if only to insure people they're still working on choosing finalists.

[jim m]

It seems odd that they would all make so many phone calls when people posted last year there were awards given to people who were not even called. I had the pleasure of dealing with a recruiter once and can tell you they talk a lot more than they listen.

[akahuli]

Hey,
This is a add-on from the administrator on a previous post (Thanks for the great info!)

This was in the Department of Defense Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 Budget Estimates:
http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudge ... e%203A.pdf
http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudge ... _E/OSD.pdf

The total (estimate) for SMART: 56.201-- I assume that is in millions

Also, found this interesting:
FY 2010 Accomplishments:
• Awarded 300 additional new scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students, which increased the number of scholarships
awarded in 2009 by 15%.
• Sustained the trend of selecting high quality students. The average GPA for 2010 awardees: 3.73.
• Increased the number of applications reviewed by 70% (2600).
• The demand for SMART scholars by DoD facilities increased by 18%.
• Transitioning 140 SMART graduates (71 BS, 38 MS, and 31 PhD) into DoD workforce.
• Increased the number of DoD sponsoring facilities by 11%.
• Increased the percentage of reviewers from HBCUs/MSIs from 1% to 3%.
• Developed a management information system for historical and current participants (approximately 900).

FY 2011 Plans:
• Emphasize outreach to eligible applicants from underrepresented groups such as women and minorities, veterans, and individuals separating from the Services.
• Increase the number of eligible applicants as well as reviewers from Historically-Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-
Serving Institutions (HBCU/MSIs).
• Develop and institute best practices for mentoring and workforce development initiatives for current participants.
• Transition approximately 250 SMART participants into the DoD workforce.
• Select new participants based on available funding.

[Jim M]

13 days!

[Guest]

I was contacted today by my first choice, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA). They called me randomly, and she even apologized for not giving us a heads up before calling. She was very friendly and asked me a few questions about why I want to work for the NGA. In talking to her, it sounded like at least from the NGA's perspective, they haven't picked many people in years past so this was a good year to apply with them. She said in her department they were looking at about 35 applications and were calling a "handful of the strongest applicants."

So just wanted to let people know that there's still hope even though I think the sponsoring nominations are due either tomorrow or Saturday!

[Guest]

Hey Guys,

First time posting, I had a question
Everyone keeps mentioning that they are semifinalists.
Were you notified of this? And if so, when and how?
I didn't get an email saying I am or am not a semifinalist

FYI, I'm an EE undergrad doing a BE/ME double degree program with research experience and a 3.77 GPA
And I'm in my third year, so I'm only applying for one year of funding.
So it doesn't seem to make sense that I didn't even make it to Semifinalist status...

Thanks