First, many of those 747 (or, 799, at last count) views are going to be people who are following this thread. I myself probably account for ~ 10 of those views. So, it�s not that 747 people looked at the thread and only 49 went to your blog� It might be something closer to 40 out of 100, which, if you have any experience with �click through� rates, you should know is pretty phenomenal. Also, you must consider that some people � like me � have been waiting for your feedback regarding exactly what you were hoping we would do before we posted.

Second, you must realize that � as important as your proposal may be -- you are asking for a lot. You can probably safely assume that most of us either work or are stay at home parents, or both. Right now, I am PAYING someone to look after my child while I look through your proposal and write this post. Every moment, I am doubting my sanity, as I have a half-dozen other things that I should be doing. So, please do not take it personally that people are not responding at the rate you would like. I am quite concerned about the human trafficking that is occurring in my area, the general disappearance of bees, the sex-changing amount of female hormones in our water, sweat shops, rampant consumerism, etc., etc., etc. and I don�t pay as much attention to any of those as I would like.

Finally, regarding your multiple requests that people read the whole thing before responding: this is a great example of that maddening political process you want your young scholars to experience. I assure you that when you submit your unrequested proposal to the power that be, if you are lucky, it will FIRST get a cursory glance. If the reader seems something worth-while in that glance, the reader will THEN start skimming from the beginning. During that skim, one of two things will happen: either the reader likes what s/he is seeing, and will start reading in earnest, or s/he doesn�t, in which case the reading will stop and you MIGHT get a courteous standard-issue �thanks, but no thanks.� So, adjusting for the time issue that your current readers on this board are faced with, if I were you, I would be asking what I could do to make the proposal more readable, not what I could say to make people actually read it �because that�s just not how it works. Further, you CANNOT expect people to withhold judgment until they read the whole thing. Not going to happen with us, and not going to happen with funders. At best you can hope that judgment will be adapted as the reading continues.

Now, for specifics:

��proposal attempts to help prepare future generations of scientists�� � You have a couple of hedges here � �attempts� and �help�. Be less modest, if not less accurate. ��proposal creates an avenue to prepare future generations��, for instance.

The lack of biology was a major stumbling block for me. I agree that chemistry and physics are the basis for biology, but I also recognize that for many people, biology is the gateway to those other sciences. You allow people to study bio, and soon enough, they�ll be asking questions that require biochemistry or biomechanics, etc., etc., and then they are hooked. Biology is the first love of many of the smartest and hardest working people I know. Further, I think that an interdisciplinary biology approach is needed to answer some of the most pressing questions we face now, and will have to face in the future � issues about crop responses to changes in atmospheric gases, temperature, etc; epidemiology and bioterrorism; genetic engineering; biofuels, etc; etc. etc. I *think* that including biology would make this proposal more palatable to more people. Or at the very least, eliminating the phrase �Though NAPS does not provide any instruction in biology�

There is something tidy and logical about your distribution of academies, yet it doesn�t really work for me. I can�t quite bring myself to believe that 150 students should be chosen from both Texas and Vermont. Wouldn�t something proportional be more adequate? For some sparsely populated states, having only one or two academies would make them more successful than having three. Probably legally states need to be given some leeway in how the program is set up (at any rate, the states can always turn down federal funding) � you should consider adding some flexibility to this portion of the proposal.

Regarding the first model, it occurs to me that you should probably write this proposal as a pilot study. START off with Oregon, and explain how the idea is to ultimately scale up. (I know you are doing this, but not in the right order: you are saying, here is the entire idea, and we�ll do a test run, whereas in the granting world, it is typical to propose a feasibility study first; then once there is data, propose the scaling up). It is also easier for people to take you seriously and be able to accommodate your request when you are asking for less than a million/year off the bat.

Also, it occurs to me that UO might not be the best place to do a pilot/feasibility study, because it has the relatively rare trimester system. It might be easier to justify scaling up from a study carried out using the more common semester schedule.

�Legally maintaining the status of �high school student� until graduation is important because that status is what qualifies students for significant scholarships to colleges and universities.� Now this part, I really don�t get -- nor did I get why your daughter graduated high school with 100 credits (impressive though it may be). I never graduated high school; got through 10th grade, then enrolled full-time in college. And, yes, with "significant scholarships". A good proposal does its homework � I want to know what other options these highly talented students have, why those options aren�t sufficient, and why this option is better � or at least, why this option should be added to the mix. I strongly urge you to add a section somewhere that addresses these issues. (Yes, you discuss how NAPS compares to DuckLink, but that is only relevant to one state).

�The lesser academic schedule during the senior year affords time and energy for three things: 1) to fully consider college/university opportunities and make scholarship applications, 2) to work on a UO science research team, and/or 3) to enter national mathematics and science competitions.� To me, this is key. You should consider providing opportunities to do this sooner, and/or think about how summer experiences could be weaved into the NAPS curriculum or at least supported by it.

�Without exception, the only UO courses to be taken by NASA Scholars will be those mentioned above. All other coursework will be �high school� classes within the exclusive confines of NAPS to fulfill state high school graduation requirements.� � Again, why?

You give a VERY detailed schedule of how things would work in UO. Could you explicitly state in the proposal how you see this relating to other schools in other states. Would every school follow basically the same path, or would they be allowed to do what they think makes sense for them. (Again, since states have the ability to not participate, I would choose the latter).

I am sure there are more things to comment on, but there is only so much digesting of proposals I can do in one day.

Hope this helps�