Contacted for tour of facilities

[Guest]

Hey,

I was interviewed by an SF about 3 weeks ago, and they just asked me to schedule a tour of the facilities over the next couple of months. Does anyone know if this is an indicator that I made it to the next round of the application process, or do they invite everyone they interviewed to tour?

Thanks!

[Guest]

Hey,

I was interviewed by an SF about 3 weeks ago, and they just asked me to schedule a tour of the facilities over the next couple of months. Does anyone know if this is an indicator that I made it to the next round of the application process, or do they invite everyone they interviewed to tour?

Thanks!

The SF can't guarantee anything, honestly. My understanding is that you won't be guaranteed an award until the SPO looks at their funding and at all of the applicants recommended by SFs. They will then choose who to give awards to and let us know, apparently at the beginning of April. The SFs can ignore the applicant list, look at it, interview people, invite people to tour their facility, anything they want to do in order to figure out if they want to recommend you. But the actual decision after they recommend you is out of their hands and is done by the SPO. I don't think SFs have to tell us if they've recommended us or not, so it looks like we just have to wait until April to hear the final news.

I might be wrong though. That's just my understanding of how the process goes.

[NotQuite]

Hey,

I was interviewed by an SF about 3 weeks ago, and they just asked me to schedule a tour of the facilities over the next couple of months. Does anyone know if this is an indicator that I made it to the next round of the application process, or do they invite everyone they interviewed to tour?

Thanks!

The SF can't guarantee anything, honestly. My understanding is that you won't be guaranteed an award until the SPO looks at their funding and at all of the applicants recommended by SFs. They will then choose who to give awards to and let us know, apparently at the beginning of April. The SFs can ignore the applicant list, look at it, interview people, invite people to tour their facility, anything they want to do in order to figure out if they want to recommend you. But the actual decision after they recommend you is out of their hands and is done by the SPO. I don't think SFs have to tell us if they've recommended us or not, so it looks like we just have to wait until April to hear the final news.

I might be wrong though. That's just my understanding of how the process goes.

This isn't exactly right. The SPO and the services work together to figure out how much money they have available for disbursement, then the SFs can use the money given to them to pick who they want. For example, my SF wanted five, but they only got funding for three, so they had to narrow it down. That was their decision on who to pick, not the SPO's though.

[Guest]

Thanks for the responses so far.

I understand that the SF can't really guarantee an award, I was just wondering if this invitation meant that they were considering me past the interview (as in, after the interviews, maybe they discard some applicants, and then invite others to visit).

[RF_EE]

Thanks for the responses so far.

I understand that the SF can't really guarantee an award, I was just wondering if this invitation meant that they were considering me past the interview (as in, after the interviews, maybe they discard some applicants, and then invite others to visit).

This might be possible, but the tour might also be part of your interview. They might want to see how you interact with people in a "non-interview" setting.

[Guest]

Thanks for the responses so far.

I understand that the SF can't really guarantee an award, I was just wondering if this invitation meant that they were considering me past the interview (as in, after the interviews, maybe they discard some applicants, and then invite others to visit).

This might be possible, but the tour might also be part of your interview. They might want to see how you interact with people in a "non-interview" setting.

The tour needed to be scheduled for after the 8th, which is when the awards are officially handed out, so I'm not sure if that would be it.

[RF_EE]

Thanks for the responses so far.

I understand that the SF can't really guarantee an award, I was just wondering if this invitation meant that they were considering me past the interview (as in, after the interviews, maybe they discard some applicants, and then invite others to visit).

This might be possible, but the tour might also be part of your interview. They might want to see how you interact with people in a "non-interview" setting.

The tour needed to be scheduled for after the 8th, which is when the awards are officially handed out, so I'm not sure if that would be it.

Where are you getting the date from? I haven't been paying close attention, but if that's the date SMART gave, you've got a 50/50 shot on that being what actually happens.

[almostThere]

Hey,

I was interviewed by an SF about 3 weeks ago, and they just asked me to schedule a tour of the facilities over the next couple of months. Does anyone know if this is an indicator that I made it to the next round of the application process, or do they invite everyone they interviewed to tour?

Thanks!

The SF can't guarantee anything, honestly. My understanding is that you won't be guaranteed an award until the SPO looks at their funding and at all of the applicants recommended by SFs. They will then choose who to give awards to and let us know, apparently at the beginning of April. The SFs can ignore the applicant list, look at it, interview people, invite people to tour their facility, anything they want to do in order to figure out if they want to recommend you. But the actual decision after they recommend you is out of their hands and is done by the SPO. I don't think SFs have to tell us if they've recommended us or not, so it looks like we just have to wait until April to hear the final news.

I might be wrong though. That's just my understanding of how the process goes.

This isn't exactly right. The SPO and the services work together to figure out how much money they have available for disbursement, then the SFs can use the money given to them to pick who they want. For example, my SF wanted five, but they only got funding for three, so they had to narrow it down. That was their decision on who to pick, not the SPO's though.

While you are correct, they determine (between the SPO and SF's) what funding they have available for disbursement, you are not correct that the SF's can pick anyone they want. Some SF's put in "bids" for more candidates than the SPO will give them (this is after interviews, etc.) and at this point, the SPO just picks and chooses who to match to the facility. Along with this, if a student received multiple "bids" (from different facilities), it is the SPO that chooses who that candidate gets paired with, even if it isn't a match that maximizes benefit to both the facility and student.

As an example, this has happened: two facilities are interested in a candidate and wish to extend an offer/sponsor the student. One of the facilities has also expressed interest in sponsoring additional students (say they offer 5 students but the SPO only allows them 3 or 4). The other facility has only extended one offer in total, and it was to this student. The SPO will, by default, match the student to the facility that only extended one offer and it was to that student, over the other facility, even if it would have been a more beneficial match to two of the three parties.

NOTE: by "bid," I mean the facility has expressed interest to the SPO in picking up the student as a SMART scholar