I feel a lot better about determining merit based on “actual accomplishments” versus based on “potential” and “stature of the sponsoring PI and the institution” and “letters of recommendation”. Opportunities are a red herring here, because the same issues still apply to 2nd year students.

Stated alternatively: Tufts and UD undergrads will compete very well on *accomplished research* with undergrads at most higher-ranked institutions. Tufts and UD grad students will fare less well when compared to equivalent grad students, because reputation/LoR will factor in more heavily.

I just don’t think that by early in their second year of grad school they will have distinguished themselves (in grad work) sufficiently for reviewers - it will come down to letters of rec (and careful editing of their proposals, which is also down to advisers). Judge on what they ACCOMPLISHED.

I honestly think that, long-term, it is a good policy. As-is, it rewards 2nd-year students in big labs. Rewarding the students who were most productive as undergrads (focusing on research first, GPA second) is probably a better indication of “most promising”.

Preprint of his second paper. We literally talked about this paper fundamentally locking in a GRFP (two first author papers as an undergrad!). He derserves better from NSF. chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...