NSF pending with a date change = reject?

[research_prof]

Congratulations!

I have a colleague who is an NSF program manager. He said that in general, if your proposal is under review for a long, long time, it's because it's on the bubble and they're waiting to see how many they can fund. Early summer is when they generally make positive decisions, late summer when they generally make negative decisions (as FY end approaches).

He also said that funding rates are sky high right now, by historical standards, since his program went away from due dates.

I have a proposal for which the PM got back to me in April and asked me to answer some reviewer questions, and send a public abstract.  Everyone I asked told me this is a sign he will recommend for funding. It has now been 2 months since  that contact with PM but I haven't heard a peep since then. What do you think ? Could he have asked for public abstract if he didn't intend to fund ?

Nah, you're still very likely to get funded. I've had >2 months pass between abstract request and official recommendation for funding twice already.

My most recently recommended NSF proposal took about 1 month and 20 days from the day I sent the public abstract to the PD to get officially recommended.