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Jul. 29th, 2013 05:33 pmhttp://udod.livejournal.com/258511.html?thread=2492879#t2492879
Вот еще нашел красоту
In 1994, already a first year grad student at Harvard, I applied for NSF Graduate Fellowhip, which was highly selective but much less generous back then. I mailed my proposed plan of research, letters of recommendation, transcripts, and the required GRE, both General and Subject. I was rejected. Since I received a more selective Hertz Foundation Fellowship (see my discussion of it here), I wasn’t too upset, but I was curious what did I do wrong. So I filed a FOIA request, and got a reply a few weeks later.
What I learned was remarkable and made me really upset. I discovered that the NSF reviewers rated A all my materials, both the transcript, all the letters, and plan of research. I had a maximal GRE Subject score. But you see, me being Russian and all, I had a mediocre to poor GRE General score on the Verbal Section. The paperwork indicated that the committee then took weighted average of all these grades, made a list of top scorers and I didn’t make the cut. Since I could not fathom why would I need a top GRE Verbal score for Math Ph.D., this seemed clearly discriminatory, on the basis of my native language.
So I found a lawyer (tiny Cambridge, MA is full of them). He patiently explained to me that my Russian native language is not defining me as a member of protected class, and I have no case against NSF. He said that even politically, there is no such thing as “Russian language lobby” (despite our large numbers), and given that there was no harm done (my Hertz), I should go home and learn to be happy. Naturally, I did.
Вот еще нашел красоту
In 1994, already a first year grad student at Harvard, I applied for NSF Graduate Fellowhip, which was highly selective but much less generous back then. I mailed my proposed plan of research, letters of recommendation, transcripts, and the required GRE, both General and Subject. I was rejected. Since I received a more selective Hertz Foundation Fellowship (see my discussion of it here), I wasn’t too upset, but I was curious what did I do wrong. So I filed a FOIA request, and got a reply a few weeks later.
What I learned was remarkable and made me really upset. I discovered that the NSF reviewers rated A all my materials, both the transcript, all the letters, and plan of research. I had a maximal GRE Subject score. But you see, me being Russian and all, I had a mediocre to poor GRE General score on the Verbal Section. The paperwork indicated that the committee then took weighted average of all these grades, made a list of top scorers and I didn’t make the cut. Since I could not fathom why would I need a top GRE Verbal score for Math Ph.D., this seemed clearly discriminatory, on the basis of my native language.
So I found a lawyer (tiny Cambridge, MA is full of them). He patiently explained to me that my Russian native language is not defining me as a member of protected class, and I have no case against NSF. He said that even politically, there is no such thing as “Russian language lobby” (despite our large numbers), and given that there was no harm done (my Hertz), I should go home and learn to be happy. Naturally, I did.
