<p>Have anyone on here applied for the NSF GRFP that can give me some insight on what application material they emphasize?</p>
<p>I was an REU intern this summer and the coordinator of the program is one of the panelists for the GRFP for my area of study. He said, at least for our field, they tend to emphasize the essays more than anything else.
I wanted to see what other people's experience with this application process were.</p>
<p>It seems like there are 3 main parts of the application: letters of rec, essays, and GPA.
I am mostly worried about my GPA. It's currently at a 3.85 (IMO this is pretty high for engineering, but it seems like GRFP awardees are in the 3.9+ range. My GPA would be close to a 4.0 if not for my freshman year). Do they value the last 2 years' GPA more than the overall GPA like most graduate schools?</p>
<p>I was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow from 2010-2013 (my tenure ends this August).</p>
<p>I had a 3.42 cumulative GPA from undergrad; my major GPA was around a 3.6. While you need good grades from undergrad, your grades are not necessarily the biggest or only thing they consider. (I will also note that I got my NSF at the end of my second year of grad school, so I had a year of grad performance for them to consider as well.)</p>
<p>There are two criteria for the GRFP - intellectual merit and broader impacts. Intellectual merit includes your GPA, but really weights your research proposal and past experience heavily. Broader impact takes into account the impact that you will have on the scientific community, and uses your past behavior to measure that. They like to see things like volunteer tutoring, judging science fairs, how your science is applied to fixing real world problems, how it may impact disadvantaged groups, etc.</p>
<p>Your essays are the most important part of your application. Excellent essays can overcome a multitude of sins, including your GPA. As I think I demonstrate, your GPA doesn’t need to be astronomical (although they will weight it more heavily if you apply in undergrad, since there’s less to know about your potential). But really, you can’t change your GPA - so there’s no use agonizing over whether it’s high enough or low enough. What you really need to work on is the essays. Get everyone and their mom to read your essays and give you feedback. Start now, if you will apply for this round. My essays were excellent, but they were the product of literally around a year’s work and <em>everybody</em> gave me feedback. People I didn’t even KNOW gave me feedback!</p>
<p>One last note - the first time I applied (in my first year of grad school), I didn’t get anything, not even HM. So it is totally possible to go from nothing to the award - you don’t have to go through HM first. On the other hand, I know some people who got HM both years they applied for the award.</p>