hangin brain

My biggest recommendation would be to volunteer in a cognitive neuroscience lab. That'll do you more good than molecular bio. The experience will let you know if you're into all the little details that go into cog neuro work. It would also behoove you to email some PIs that you'd be interested in studying under to ask them what kind of stuff would make you a strong applicant to work in their labs. I think 3point14 said all of that stuff, but hopefully hearing 2 people saying it makes a difference.

My first piece of advice: ask the professor with whom you're currently working 1) what he/she thinks of your current qualifications, and 2) what he/she thinks you can do to increase your competitiveness as an applicant. He/She presumably sees tons of applications and can give you a strong sense of how to spend your year "off" in order to maximize your chances of being offered admissions. Another thing: there's maybe not much you can do with your GPA, but you can definitely boost your GRE scores. 96%/84% is very good, but, potentially, you could score a 99%/99%. It's no mystery that the closer to perfect your GRE score is, the better your chances are. LoRs: Audit a class, volunteer in another lab. Then: Try to publish a paper. Let your current PI know that you'd like to try to make that happen. He/She would likely be thrilled to have someone else to do some heavy lifting and may even provide a lot of the support that you'll need in order to get it done (e.g., give you a reading list, give reliable critical feedback, etc.). If you can publish a paper, it makes the 3.33 kind of fade to the background a little bit more. Also, present at some conferences. Society for Neuroscience is a good one. Finally: Only apply to schools where you think you are a good fit. I think "fit" means that the program's requirements work for your style (e.g., if you don't like to be in classes, don't apply to a school with a lot of required classes), and there is at least one PI there who does something you think you'd love to spend 5-6 years doing. Ask your current PI about which programs he/she thinks will work for you given your style and interests. For me, it was kind of tempting to try and get in to illustrious programs (I guess to feed my ego), but in the end it became clear that "fit" was the most important variable (for me and for the programs) and I ended up wasting some time applying to schools where I wouldn't have been happy or successful. Enjoy your application process! It can be tiring but very fun.

Here's a post from yesterday by NDSEG's on their Facebook page: National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship - Additional awards are still being issued. Please be advised. Yesterday at 7:29am · Like · 2 I guess they're still working it out

From the NSF FAQ: I received a GRFP Fellowship Offer and currently have a Federal Fellowship (DOE, EPA, etc.); may I accept the GRFP Fellowship? No. Starting with the 2011 Fellows forward, GRFP Fellowships cannot be concurrently accepted or combined with another US Government Federal Fellowship, irrespective of the Fellow's Status.

I'll add one BI comment that I got from all 3 of my reviewers: - "unique perspective" due to unusual life circumstances which gives applicant insight into the needs of underserved communities. If you've ever been through some weird shit, weave it into your personal statement. All 3 of my reviewers this year, and both of them last year, commented positively on that aspect of my application.

I'm a 2nd year grad student who won this year, but didn't even crack HM last year. Here are my last year's reviews: IM/BI g/g f/g g/g The basic criticisms were: 1) poor publication record (i.e., NO publication record), 2) poorly articulated research plan, 3) no K-12 outreach and 4) no plans for continued outreach. The great thing about the NSF GRFP is that they basically tell you how to win an award with the reviews and all the literature they provide as to how they judge proposals. So, I immediately just addressed each criticism, and came up with an award this year. Here are the reviews from this year: IM/BI: vg/e e/e e/e They still said I could have published more, which is true. But I think using the reviews from last year as a guide made my application pretty rock-solid. I published, I got a ton of feedback on how to articulate a research proposal, I started volunteering with K-12 students, and I wrote a bunch of continued outreach plans. So, if you came up short this year, hopefully they at least gave you useful reviews. Use them! They're basically instructions on how to win the fellowship. Best of luck to everyone next year!

This is a completely delicious fact to go crazy about. I love it

Yep, just yesterday. Looked at it and thought, "Oh, dang. This could be better in like a dozen different ways." On the bright side, I think it means I'm better at writing research proposals now than I was 4 months ago.

Pez, same thing happened to me. I pretty much wouldn't let my advisor leave the NSF alone until they agreed to accept the letter and my app. They're pretty harsh, but not impossible to reason with. Seriously, keep trying to get them to accept it and they probably will. It's worth a shot