AnnzPB

That was really helpful, ImGrumpy. Thank you so much for the info! Really appreciate it.

Thanks for the reply, ImGrumpy. I did see that too in the FAQs, but I'm wondering if anyone has had experience with this already. I'll be going to a school that doesn't get that many NSF award recipients (much more weighted towards NIH/NIMH grants), and so I'm hoping to have some sense of what other people have done at their schools before I go into having a conversation with my coordinating officer. I'd love to hear thoughts/experiences from any current/past NSF folks if possible. Thanks everyone!

Does anyone know whether we can use the cost of education (COE) allowance ($12,500) this year to cover the annual costs of student health insurance? My school requires all graduate students to have health insurance. Since I'm over 26, getting student health insurance through my school is my only option for coverage, so I'm wondering whether I can have that paid for through the COE allowance or whether I have to use my monthly stipend to cover the cost. Thanks in advance for the help, everyone! Really appreciate it.

Does anyone know whether NSF awardees who are starting grad school this fall are allowed to start their stipend in the summer?

I emailed them like a week ago requesting feedback and have yet to get a response.

^^ Yup, that is what I did as well, and it worked out. I was advised to literally pull language from the NSF GRFP program solicitation and website and make headings out of it. It's a great strategy to help the reviewers along, and perhaps even more importantly, it really helped me stay on task and laser-focused in my writing process. Below are the headings that I used in my personal statement and my proposed research statement. Personal statement headings: I did these headings as italicized and underlined with a period at the end, and then started the next sentence immediately after the heading (as opposed to putting an enter and starting on the next line) Advancing discovery and understanding through research. Integrating research with teaching and learning. Advancing diversity in science and benefiting society. Broad dissemination of scientific and technological knowledge. I didn't use headings in my previous research statement. I just put superscripts throughout my essay to denote publications and presentations, which I put at the end of the essay in size 11 font. Proposed research statement headingsTitle Keywords Background Proposed research Participants Materials Procedure Anticipated results [*]Intellectual Merit [*]Broader Impacts Hope this is helpful to future applicants!

My husband and I are going to be starting med school and grad school (respectively) at UT Southwestern this fall, and we're trying to figure out what areas would be good for apartments. I heard from someone that there are nice yet reasonably priced apartments just east of 75 that might be good to look into...? Does anyone have any thoughts or advice on where to start the apartment hunt? We're looking for a 2-bedroom (ideally with 1 bathroom, but I know that 2-2's are more common when it comes to 2-bedrooms).

Has anyone ever had problems with changing their institution AND their minor field of study? I got the award as someone not yet in grad school, and the school I am choosing to attend and the minor field of study I will be pursuing their are different from the ones I listed on my application.

Just got my rejection letter. Got the NSF instead though so I'm not too heart broken. Best of luck to everyone who is still waiting, and congratulations to all the winners.

Has anyone on this list NOT gotten a decision email from them yet?

For those of you who got notifications, are you all getting them through email or are you checking something within the online application? I haven't gotten any emails yet--acceptance, HM, or rejection... :-/ Are they just sending them in batches or something? What the heck...

I'm sure all you applicants have seen this document already (or perhaps not, who knows), but I went through this Broader Impacts Activities document that NSF published to get a very clear sense for the types of things that they consider under Broader Impact, and I was awarded this year as a pre-graduate school student. Like most winners have already mentioned, the more specific you are in what you're going to do IN THE FUTURE (and tying that to your previous activities), the better. http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2002/nsf022/bicexamples.pdf

Has anyone on this thread ever dealt with making a change to their minor field of study once they were awarded? I have a question regarding this that I am very concerned about. I applied as someone not yet in grad school and specified "psychology - other" as my minor field of study since my proposal and previous experiences didn't really fit neatly into any of the listed options for minor field of study. At the same time, I applied to clinical psychology Ph.D. programs for graduate school (my application was not clinically-oriented at all, hence why I was still able to be awarded). I also specified my undergraduate institution as my proposed graduate institution since that helped me make the strongest connection between my background and a potential research project, as well as the fact that my recommenders would be able to speak best to a project that already fit with what their specialties were. I know several students (more than I can count) who have gotten the NSF even though they are enrolled in clinical psychology Ph.D. programs. They basically took the approach of making their application sound as "un-clinical" as possible, couching their previous experiences and proposed research in terms of basic science work. For example, several of them research ADD/ADHD, and so they wrote their applications under "cognitive psychology"; a few others I know who research marital and family clinical outcomes applied within "social psychology", etc etc. In any case, now that I am making a decision on where to attend grad school, I am concerned about the fact that I will need to make a change to my minor field of study in order to accept the award since I am leaning towards a clinical psychology Ph.D. program that is 1) housed within a medical center, 2) very "clinically oriented" in terms of the types of research that it specializes in. From what I gather, this is handled through the Coordinating Officer (CO) at the school that you'd wish to attend. Seems as if it is up to the CO's discretion as to whether they approve the change or not. Has anyone had to go through this before and run into an trouble? How much finagling/justifying do you think I would need to go through in order to iron everything out smoothly given my circumstances? I know I will have more follow-up questions on this depending on what you all have to say, so I will just leave it at that for now. Y'alls input would be SOOOOOO appreciated. Thank you to you all. =)

Sorry folks, just wanted to bump up my post again. Would REALLY appreciate it if y'all could give some input on my conundrum. Thank you so much.

Has anyone on this thread ever dealt with making a change to their minor field of study once they were awarded? I have a question regarding this that I am very concerned about. I applied as someone not yet in grad school and specified "psychology - other" as my minor field of study since my proposal and previous experiences didn't really fit neatly into any of the listed options for minor field of study. At the same time, I applied to clinical psychology Ph.D. programs for graduate school (my application was not clinically-oriented at all, hence why I was still able to be awarded). I also specified my undergraduate institution as my proposed graduate institution since that helped me make the strongest connection between my background and a potential research project, as well as the fact that my recommenders would be able to speak best to a project that already fit with what their specialties were. I know several students (more than I can count) who have gotten the NSF even though they are enrolled in clinical psychology Ph.D. programs. They basically took the approach of making their application sound as "un-clinical" as possible, couching their previous experiences and proposed research in terms of basic science work. For example, several of them research ADD/ADHD, and so they wrote their applications under "cognitive psychology"; a few others I know who research marital and family clinical outcomes applied within "social psychology", etc etc. In any case, now that I am making a decision on where to attend grad school, I am concerned about the fact that I will need to make a change to my minor field of study in order to accept the award since I am leaning towards a clinical psychology Ph.D. program that is 1) housed within a medical center, 2) very "clinically oriented" in terms of the types of research that it specializes in. From what I gather, this is handled through the Coordinating Officer (CO) at the school that you'd wish to attend. Seems as if it is up to the CO's discretion as to whether they approve the change or not. Has anyone had to go through this before and run into an trouble? How much finagling/justifying do you think I would need to go through in order to iron everything out smoothly given my circumstances? I know I will have more follow-up questions on this depending on what you all have to say, so I will just leave it at that for now. Y'alls input would be SOOOOOO appreciated. Thank you to you all. =)