Taken from: https://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7322-467a
A couple of months ago, I received a letter informing me that my fellowship application had failed. On the same day, Brazil's World Cup squad announced that football phenomenon Ronaldinho had not been selected. “Cool,” I thought. “I am like Ronaldinho.” But that thought offered only little consolation. No scientist enjoys such failures, but too often we hide them.
In a way, a fellowship rejection is to be expected. Most of these fellowships have success rates of about 15%, meaning that an applicant might be successful in only one out of every seven tries. For every hour I've spent working on a successful proposal, I've spent six hours working on ones that will be rejected. I don't mind the extra work — after all, if I abhorred tedious tasks with low chances of success, I would not be in research.
Even so, this means that for every endorsement, there are about six challenges to my ability, my determination and my visi