I second the recommendation to apply for an NSF GRF. I had one in graduate school myself; it frees you from TA responsibilities so you can concentrate on your research, and many schools also “top up” your GRF stipend so you get paid a little bit more. (I still TA’ed under the NSF, but I only did it when I wanted to and for what classes I wanted to).
@iwannabe_Brown - like @xraymancs said, most of my friends at public universities were asked to establish residency in the state they were attending grad school regardless of their funding source - because it’s far cheaper for the source to pay in-state tuition than out-of-state. The rules are much more relaxed for grad students, so you’re usually eligible after one year. I myself attended a private university but I still chose to establish New York residency.
The NSF is pretty much entirely about your written statements (previous research experience and your proposed plan of research) and letters of rec, to the extent that the don’t even accept GRE scores as part of the application.
In general, it is always worth applying to the NSF GRF, especially if you have any intention of staying in academia. It is really good experience for grant writing, and for learning about the insane arbitrariness of the peer-review system
You have three chances at the NSF GRF, as a senior when applying for grad school, at the beginning of your 1st year, and at the beginning of your second year. I got my NSF as a 3rd time applicant. For third time applications, their grad school stats from their 1st year will weigh much more heavily than their undergrad stats. But in any case, research experience and plan still trumps pretty much everything else
My stats:
Undergrad @ top 60 ish engineering school, GPA 3.84, 3 years (or so) of research experience, ~5 publication/presentations
Grad @ Top 4 school for my field, GPA (1st year), 4.0, ~3 additional authorships
All but my son’s safeties paid for the visit and made the arrangements. The tough part was that some visits overlapped. All but one school offered visits on 2 weekends. The safeties did something like a Skype interview.
As mentioned, UCB was only public school son applied to and accepted. He was told he’d have to become CA resident, but they’d walk him thru it.
He didn’t apply for NSF until already in grad school. He took time off to work in a lab, and wasn’t sure of research interests.
Hope this helps.
Oh yes, I encouraged him to revisit 2 schools after all the acceptances in. One was a place he had seen early in the process.
I had a 3.42 undergradutate GPA and my GRE scores were 790 V/740 Q (old exam). I was successful applying as a second-year PhD student from a top 5 program in my field. But your stats (GPA and GRE scores) matter a lot less than the quality of your essays and letters of recommendation. (Your graduate institution does matter a lot; some institutions are very very successful at getting NSFs.)
You should always apply for the NSF, even if you don’t think you’re going to get it. It doesn’t cost you anything but time, but the time is good practice.
(Also, minor unrelated point, but when people report their GRE scores I wish they would report them broken out into section. A 334 is an average of 167 on each section so it doesn’t really matter in this case, but when people say something like a 310, there’s a big difference between a 155 in each section and a 145 Q/165 V.)
