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Hi! I'm curious if anyone in a clinical program has applied for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, especially with the recent changes. This is the relevent info from their application materials: Individuals are not eligible to apply if they will be enrolled in an area of graduate study focused on clinical practice, for example, counseling, social work, as well as patient-oriented research, epidemiological and medical behavioral studies, outcomes research and health services research. Ineligible clinical studies include investigations to provide evidence leading to a scientific basis for consideration of a change in health policy or standard of care, and includes pharmacologic, non-pharmacologic, and behavioral interventions for disease prevention, prophylaxis, diagnosis, or therapy. Graduate study focused on community and other population-based medical intervention trials are also ineligible. I've had mixed advice from mentors: some say you can get around this by applying with a super "general science" research program, and others say its not worth it. What's the deal? Should I just stick with NIMH/NIH fellowships?

@Adelaide9216 That's a great idea! I feel like it probably develops over the course of people's experience in grad school as well. Right now we answer on question more in-depth during each episode, but it might be good to do a rapid-fire session! Are you a current or prospective student?

You seem quite qualified on paper. As @8BitJourney mentioned, depending on the schools you applied to and their minimum standards, your GRE scores alone might have bumped you from making it to the second round. Is re-taking the GRE a potential option? If yes, is there anything that would be helpful to feel more comfortable taking the test? If you felt you adequately prepared, there might be some sort of exposure task that might help anxiety around the test-taking itself. Otherwise, I think it wold be important to find a really good fit between what you want to research going forward and the mentors with whom you are applying to work. In your statements it will be essential to tell the story of how your experiences thus far make you a really good person to work with that particular mentor, in that particular line of research. I don't think it's negative that you have had so much "on the ground" experience and aren't applying straight out of school-- it's more about crafting the narrative about why you are the right candidate.

@fuzzylogician Oh, apologies! I didn't realize that was a violation. I won't do so again!!! Thanks for facilitating the forum.

I'm sorry this is happening, it sounds really frustrating and invalidating. We discussed this topic a bit in the 4th episode of the Graduates Anonymous podcast: https://gradanon.fireside.fm/4 Hopefully that helps a bit!

Let me know if you have questions about research that you'd like a round table of current graduate students to talk about on a podcast!! We'd love to hear from you. Check out the latest episode here: On this week's show the crew introduce special guest, Hana, to unpack how close is too close with your advisor, see an example of the kinds of things you can learn from animal research, distinguish between a wet and a dry lab, and hear about how Hana tackled the problem of diversity in her department. Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/graduates-anonymous/id1224791435 Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/I2a4hgncos2d7gvxlpkijkcudxq?t=Graduates_Anonymous Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=136082&refid=stpr Website: https://gradanon.fireside.fm/4

On this weeks show the crew introduce special guest, Hana, to unpack how close is too close with your advisor, see an example of the kinds of things you can learn from animal research, distinguish between a wet and a dry lab, and hear about how Hana tackled the problem of diversity in her department. Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/graduates-anonymous/id1224791435 Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/I2a4hgncos2d7gvxlpkijkcudxq?t=Graduates_Anonymous Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=136082&refid=stpr Website: https://gradanon.fireside.fm/4

On this weeks show the crew introduce our special guest, Hana, to unpack how close is too close with your advisor, see an example of the kinds of things you can learn from animal research, distinguish between a wet and a dry lab, and hear about how Hana tackled the problem of diversity in her department. Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/graduates-anonymous/id1224791435 Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/I2a4hgncos2d7gvxlpkijkcudxq?t=Graduates_Anonymous Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=136082&refid=stpr Website: https://gradanon.fireside.fm/4

Hi all! Anxiously waiting for 4/15? You might want to pass the time by checking out this new podcast called "Graduates Anonymous" created by two current first-year grad students documenting their experience, answering questions, and interviewing other students/relevent people. You can get it on iTunes, Stitcher, or GooglePlay.