NSF GRFP and Ford Fellowship Questions

[goldenxpenguins]

Hi everyone, I hope that you are doing well! I am applying to Developmental Psychology PhD programs and a few post-bacc programs this Fall. I also wanted to apply for some fellowships, mainly the NSF GRFP, but I had a quick question. Is it better to write the research statement about a project that I have already done (that I would expand on) or one that I would like to do in grad school?

I have a few project ideas that I could write about such as my honors thesis, REU project (currently in the revision stage to be resubmitted for publication), one of my independent research projects, or a new project that I think I would want to do in grad school. For anyone who has applied for the NSF GRFP, what would you suggest? I also thought about applying for the Ford Predoctoral Fellowship, but I got the impression that it was mainly for those who plan on going into academia. Is it worth it to apply even though I already know that I want to work outside of academia in the future?