I do terrible when it comes to application for fellowships. I applied to seven different Ph.D. programs, but got officially accepted only by one for which I had to appeal to their initial rejection. I tried applying to HHMI's International Student Research Fellowship, but my institution did not nominate me for application. I then applied to an internal fellowship at my other institution thinking that my chances would be higher given relatively smaller applicant pool. I got rejected, but was strongly encouraged to apply for next year's fellowship. After lots of thinking, I applied next year with high hopes and got rejected again. I also took my chances at a research paper prize with my recently published work, but alas.
So when I first heard about this year's Lasker Essay Contest, I tried not to get so excited, but I made my mind and gave it a try. Today I got the news that the essay I submitted was not selected and as I promised, I decided to make a blog post out of it. The silver lining is that I now have yet another public file on FigShare and the visibility of this essay will hopefully be much higher with this post.
For those of you that are curious, (drum rolls please) here is my essay on innovative ways to build support and ensure funding for medical research -- ah, the irony...: