NSF Application

<p>Hey guys!! </p>

<p>I was wondering if anyone has had experience applying to NSF or related scholarships for graduate school in previous years or are in the process of applying this year. I am thinking of applying but I have varied research interests and I don't have specific research area yet where I want to work on. The NSF application requires that an applicant write a proposal that is specific and feasible to their research field. How do you go about doing this if I have varied interests and not sure of a specific research area yet? Should I just wait and apply after a year of graduate school when I have somewhat of a clear idea of what I want to work in? Any thoughts or advice? </p>

<p>Thanks a lot!!</p>

<p>You will need to write this fellowship with the support of your graduate progam and your adviso if you have one. It is premature (non-competitive) to apply prior entering the program. Once accepted, you can apply and your program will likely provide substantial guidance on the application process.</p>

<p>^^not true. For the GRFP you write it without the graduate program and without the adviser. It’s good to apply, if just for the experience. They fund the person not the project, so you just have to come up with a proposal, not necessarily the project that you are going to work on. Talk to your current research adviser for some ideas-- its okay to write about what you’re doing in undergrad, just extend it further or ask about a slightly different question.</p>

<p>So it’s ok to come up with a hypothetical project, knowing full well it might not be what you work on when in grad school?</p>

<p>Yes, I believe so from my daughter’s application. They wan to see a fully formed proposal, and that you know how to perform an application for inquiry. You are never held to do so.</p>

<p>Of course, it is difficult to get–they will look at what you are doing. if you are working with someone, get input.</p>

<p>Everybody’s right here: it’s tough to get an NSF before entering a graduate program, because you can write the NSF totally by yourself on a completely imaginary project, but it is a lot easier to write an NSF with input from your advisor or other personnel in your graduate program on a topic that you know intimately.</p>

<p>Isn’t the difficulty that you have to have had no more than 1 year of grad school? To me, that means that you either have to be applying to grad school OR you’ve just started, hardly enough time to form a complete proposal based on the lab you’ve chosen. If you wait until after you’ve completed that first year, then you’ll be over the year limit, since the application deadline is in the fall. You would have completed a year and a month or two.</p>

<p>^no, it’s completed classes… so you can apply your first and your second years of grad school because you have only finished one year by the time that the deadline rolled around. Second years tend to get it more often than first years who get it more often than seniors. This is assuming that you haven’t gone to get a masters first or something, which makes the eligibility rules more complicated</p>

<p>I am applying as a senior this year because I think I can write up a good research plan extending the things I’ve already done as an undergrad. I even found a specific lab at a school I’m interested in doing grad studies at that meshes with my research interests, so that might help as well.</p>

<p>On another note, I’ve been told that the GRFP emphasizes GRE score. Does it really? I feel as if my GRE is the weakest point in my application right now.</p>

<p>There is some incorrect/misleading information in this thread! Here are some clarifications:

  1. The probability of getting one is the same whether you apply your senior year, grad school year1 or year. Apps from each group are divided up and reviewed together and close to 10% get an award.
  2. You can apply as a senior-you just list a school that has faculty doing research related to your proposal.</p>

<p>Some other points:

  1. They fund the person and not the project
  2. Make up a project. You do not need to do it, but you need to make them believe that you could actually do the proposal (have the background/skills). I applied without a clear idea of what I wanted to do (I still dont!). You just need to pick an interesting project and write about it. Write your app as you actually want to do this and not that you are unsure what you want to do.
  3. Make sure that your personal statement is entirely devoted to broader impacts (teaching, volunteering, etc). These also need to be discussed in the other essays
  4. This award is hard to get! Everyone I know that has received an award or HM had at least one pub. My friend merely got HM last year with three 1st author pubs! I have applied twice and each time my reviewers have commented on how my lack of pubs is killing my application. If you dont have pubs, you should still apply but dont count on getting an award.</p>

<p>kryptonsa36,</p>

<p>If you do not have 1400+GRE, I would not submit them. If you reapply from a top school next year, definately dont include them. They are probably more important before you are a grad student. If they are bad do not include them. Not including them may hurt you, but including bad scores will definately hurt you.</p>

<p>A lot of friends have received comments about proposing stuff to similar to their prior research (they might not be the applicant’s ideas). A few others have received comments about not having a background in that field. My prior two applications proposed projects entirely unrelated to my prior work, and I have not received any comments about this being a negative or a positive.</p>

<p>Some reviewers may not be happy about you staying in the same lab for grad studies, so I would not suggest this.</p>

<p>Since the OP asked for related fellowships, I will remind everybody that biomedical sciences-type people can apply for NIH F31 NRSA fellowships, which I believe are substantially easier to get than NSFs (depending, probably, on your particular institute/center).</p>

<p>I’m confused with the time-line of the NIH F31 NRSA grant. It seems that it is meant for first year graduate students. Can anyone with experience help me out on this?</p>

<p>I’m lost on the timeline. Also, if seems NSF GRFP is much more attuned towards basic science. If my goal is biomedical, do I have any business applying here?</p>

<p>Mollie- Do you have to be post-prelim to apply for NRSA?</p>

<p>yaygrady- You need to spin your app the basic science route since they are not supposed to fund biomedical. This does not mean that you cant actually do biomedical. Spinning things to fit the agency is just part of grant writing so this is expected.</p>

<p>You don’t have to be post-prelim to apply for an NRSA per se, but you do pretty much have to be in a lab with an idea of what you’re going to do for your thesis. One of the major considerations for an F31 is your training environment in a particular lab with a particular PI.</p>

<p>I used my written prelim as a basic template for my NRSA application – it certainly helps, especially if your program’s prelim is essentially written as a grant application, which mine was.</p>

<p>It’s more a fellowship to apply for when you’re a second- or third-year PhD student, which is information that I fully intended put in the post above, but which clearly I did not. (If you’re really enterprising, you get an NSF as an incoming grad student, then get an NRSA when the NSF funding runs out. :))</p>

<p>

Where does the range of “bad scores” start? A 1390, for instance, while not 1400+, will probably not harm your application, right? Where is the range of scores that will neither help nor hurt, such that submitting is still better than not submitting?</p>

<p>Given the list of the participating NIH centers, it seems like the NRSA requires research that is not only health-oriented but related to specific topics (aging, neurobiology, etc.). It’s like the antithesis of what NSF wants to see in its biological research applications!</p>

<p>Well, you can’t use the same application for an NSF and an NRSA. But the same research topic could easily qualify for both – it’s all grantsmanship.</p>

<p>You’d send an NRSA application to the institute/center where your PI gets his/her grants.</p>

<p>kryptonsa36,</p>

<p>NSF GRFP applicants are typically the top grad students in the country. Ave GRE scores/top program is typically around 1350?-1400. I bet it is higher for NSF awardees. NSF reviewers are looking for the best out of the top applicants, so you need high GRE scores to be competitive. All of the people that I know got an award/HM had 1400+. Moderate GRE scores will probably hurt you since there will be plenty of applicants with higher stats. I did better in the app process when I left out my moderate scores (and had an acceptance from a good school). I do not know where the cut off is and whether absent GRE scores are a con. They probably would be if you apply before entering grad school.</p>

<p>I do not know where the competitive score boundaries are. I just suggested 1400+. If you have a 1390 it may not matter much. Another way to look at is that you probably want to be above 90% on all sections-but I dont know where they numbers fall to achieve this. </p>

<p>GPA, school, minority status, and pubs also come into play and mitigate a lower GRE score. If you are worried about the competitiveness of your scores, just leave them out.</p>

<p>While</p>

<p>

is obvious,</p>

<p>

feels like a situational case. Is the NSF committee going to think that, if the rest of an application is very strong/well above average, the weak/below-average GRE immediately relegates an applicant to “uncompetitive” status?</p>