If I'm not mistaken, there are two kind of scholarships. The departmental funding is that which appears on your fin-aid report (along with the bajillion loans).
What I meant by "nominations" is referring to the heavy money scholarships (e.g. full-tuiton, ra position, etc.). The individual departments don't have that much money, so the heavy money scholarships don't come from the department itself. Instead, they come from level above, whatever that is.
These heavy money scholarships, if I'm not mistaken, are competed on a campus-wide basis. In other words, you're competing against people from ALL graduate schools for these limited scholarships. Thus, each department must choose who they'd like to nominate for these campus-wide scholarships.
At least with my department (HPM), the administrative staff member told me that they only nominate a few, as in the top 5% of priority admitted students. She then proceed to tell me that I wasn't one of them. damn.
I'm assuming that you would know of your nomination, because UNC and SUNYAlbany were both very active in terms of getting to know me more in order to best write their nominations for me.
Thus, since I was informed that I'm not in the running for any nomination at Columbia and many fellowships have already been offered at other universities, I'd think that people who are indeed nominated for scholarships at Columbia would know of their nomination by now. I think a few people on this forum from other departments have already received notice of their nomination from their respective departments.
Hope that helps clarify what I said I earlier.
p.s. i had to try several times to get these answers as well (both phone and email). i was redirected to different individuals many times. so i know how you feel.
