The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

http://osp.fad.harvard.edu/blog/departm ... er-ed-hard

This link has some not so good news about the scholarship due to sequestration. Particularly this sentence.....

"For instance, DoD will cut university grants this year by $200 million and may entirely eliminate scholarships for science and mathematics students under the SMART program."

Oh no, this is not the news I was hoping to hear after waiting for so long. Unfortunately, I guess all we can do is continue waiting and praying.

I read something very similar:

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=119791

I've been worried about the sequestration, but this news doesn't make it any worse for me. The Harvard article is quoting the DOD article from the day before, and the DOD article was written when there was still little more than speculation about how the sequestration was going to shake out.

I'm still going to try to keep a positive outlook.

EEmajor wrote:http://osp.fad.harvard.edu/blog/departm ... er-ed-hard

This link has some not so good news about the scholarship due to sequestration. Particularly this sentence.....

"For instance, DoD will cut university grants this year by $200 million and may entirely eliminate scholarships for science and mathematics students under the SMART program."

This is all hype. I really doubt the sequester will affect SMART too much. Maybe a reduction in awards, but the program is going to stay for a while....when the government wants something, they spend the money to get it. The DoD wants these scientists....

aero91 wrote:The DoD wants these scientists....

They do indeed, but there's a hiring freeze. I'm a current awardee schedule to be hired next year and the uncertainty looms pretty large. My SF is optimistic and they've been able to work magic for awardees in previous years, but there's no guarantees.

No updates yet? So sick of waiting. Wish we knew something. Anything would be way great.

I could see the DoD funding those who are currently DoD employees and those who have requested follow-on funding.

So has anyone contacted ASEE/SMART office and asked? This is getting a little rough not knowing. I wish they would even just announce how many, if any they plan on accepting this year.

From SMART on their facebook page as of May 15th

As of now, we do not have any updates from DoD on when awards might be going out. We apologize for the delay, but appreciate your patience!

https://www.facebook.com/SMARTScholarshipProgram