NSF Fellowships in Geosciences - advice?

[InquilineKea]

Hello everyone,

So I'm applying for Geoscience NSF Fellowships for the first time this year. I'm wondering though - does it matter that much whether we target our applications to Climate Dynamics or to Paleoclimatology or another category? If we target our apps to Climate Dynamics, will we get different people who read our application as compared to, say, those who read Paleoclimatology? Are we also going to be compared with ALL geoscience applicants, ALL NSF applicants in all fields, or simply applicants in the same fields as ourselves?

I'm also interdisciplinary to an extreme, so I don't know where to start (my two primary advisers, too, are unusually interdisciplinary as well). The adviser I spend the most time with will actually most likely be a physicist who is moving into climate modeling (though he isn't that widely-known in the climate-modeling community yet). My background is in astronomy and physics, and planetary habitability (especially how atmospheres relate to it) is the main research topic that I'm interested in - basically - my research interests are very close to those of Jim Kasting. My physicist adviser has actually suggested that I target paleoclimatology because my school is particularly strong in paleoclimatology, but it isn't known for climate modeling (though it is trying to expand in that direction).

Does anyone also know if Planetary Science is usually targeted towards Physics/Astronomy or some area of Geoscience? The competition in Physics/Astronomy is likely to be far more vicious than that of Geoscience.

Also - how much does GPA matter? My GPA is unfortunately low due to horrible mistakes I made early on, but it seems that Geoscience is a field where people can get into top schools even with a sub-3.5 GPA. I was one of those people with sub-3.5 GPAs who did get into top schools, but I wonder if standards are different for the NSF. Geoscience is also one of those fields where applicants don't have common backgrounds (because people come from all over the place) so maybe that might make transcript comparisons harder?

And what types of people do they choose for the review committees? What are the chances that the review committee might contain someone who might already know you, and what is the possible impact of that? Some Geoscience fields are pretty small in scope.

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Also - does anyone have experience with applying for NDSEG or Hertz fellowships as well? What about the other fellowships within the geosciences?

Edited September 29, 2012 by InquilineKea

[Usmivka]

Here is my understanding of the process based on conversations with the program office last year:

1. You will get different referees based on which unit you apply under, but not everyone applying to the same field will get the same referees if the applicant pool is large. The same referee may look at multiple units depending on their field, and you can get an extra referee by selecting two fields (interdisciplinary).

2. The reviewers rank you, and your rankings are compared to all otehr NSF applicants in Geosciences. I don't know how those scores then get compared against other fields, but my understanding is that they try to pick the best reviewed proposals regardless of field. So if there are a ton of great geosciences applicants one year, there might be more awards there at the expense of, say, astrophysics.

3. I can't offer you advice on which field to apply to.

4. Planetary science can happen in a variety of fields, and depends mostly on what you are studying. Climate tends to fall in its own category. Honsestly I thought there was already a planetary science or exoclimatology type subfield somewhere on the list. Take a really good look at that topics list and highlight anything applicable. As long as you make a strong case for why your proposal belongs in a field, it will be considered. If it involves rocks, fluid interactions, or biogeochemistry in some way, you can make a case for geosciences in my opinion.

5. GPA is a consideration. Your research proposal and letters of recc are far more important than GPA though. I don't think it is even specifically considered as a cut off like grad apps, but a reviewer may look at it and decide not to recommend you as highly as someone else she is reviewing. I don't think NSFrequests transcripts, but I don't remember that for sure.

6. I beleive reviewers are often postdocs and young faculty in the field you are applying too (I know some prior reviewers). If they know you more than tangentially, they are obligated to recuse themselves and pass on your application to another reviewer.

7. I applied and was selected for NSF GRFP and the NDSEG, but for biogeochemistry focused topics. Specific questions? Also, consider NASA GRF (must use a NASA product), NOAA Nancy Foster Scholarship/Fellowship (targeted towards women and minorities in marine and climate science), and, if you are an underrepresented minority, the Ford Foundation. The Hertz fellowships are really for the cream of the crop (at least that is the read I get). There are only a few awarded each year. Check out their website, but my recollection is that they went almost entirely to people from name brand schools who had already made major contributions to their field. I think outstanding GPA, transcripts, and GREs are expected for Hertz.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Usmivka

[InquilineKea]

Wow - thanks SO much for the excellent reply. I really appreciated it.

[UnlikelyGrad]

Eh...my sister got the Hertz (in an extremely interdisciplinary field; she actually does climate stuff as well). She did not go to a name-brand school for her undergrad. Granted, it is not unknown, but not Harvard or Yale or MIT caliber. She also got an NSF fellowship.

As far as picking the field goes, try not to pick the field in which climate change researchers function. It's supposedly very competitive. Aside from that, I don't have much input, sorry.

[InquilineKea]

Wow really? How do you know that the field in which climate change researchers function very competitive? Are all geoscience applicants compared together regardless of sub-specialty?

[UnlikelyGrad]

Wow really? How do you know that the field in which climate change researchers function very competitive? Are all geoscience applicants compared together regardless of sub-specialty?

Uh...my sister (the one who got the Hertz) is a tenured professor who does research related to climate change. It is a 'hot' field right now. Hot enough that, even with all her funding, my sister can afford to be very particular about which grad students she takes...she turns down a lot and still has a fairly large group.

I don't know how NSF groups applicants, sadly...otherwise I might have had more of a shot at it myself.

[InquilineKea]

Wow - very interesting. Which university does your sister go to? I'm curious. Since I got the opposite impression - though at least with professors who did research relating to the most theoretical aspects of general atmospheric circulation - not climate change per se (surprisingly enough, I was very competitive with the most theoretical professors [1] despite my low GPA at top schools- but ultimately I was too interested in exoplanets to be trusted to stay with some of them).

[1] In fact, I was competing with another poster here (hope4fall2012) for the EXACT same slot at Yale!

Edited October 21, 2012 by InquilineKea

[UnlikelyGrad]

InquilineKea--she did her BS at the University of Washington. Isn't that where you went too?

Being pseudonymous, I try not to give out info on where she actually teaches right now, so I will just say that it is one of the top state schools in the coutnry. She's not much into predictive modeling--more into the lab/fieldwork side of things--so maybe things are different on her side of the arena.

[Usmivka]

On 10/19/2012 at 7:04 PM, UnlikelyGrad said:

Eh...my sister got the Hertz (in an extremely interdisciplinary field; she actually does climate stuff as well). She did not go to a name-brand school for her undergrad. Granted, it is not unknown, but not Harvard or Yale or MIT caliber. She also got an NSF fellowship.

As a UW alumnus and current MIT student, I would argue that the UW is a "name brand" school. It is viewed with great respect and considered something of a "public ivy." The school is immediately recognized when I say where I studied, whether I'm talking to folks on either coast or internationally--more or less the definition of a name brand school. Certainly former UW students (grad and undergrad) are overrepresented relative to graduates of other programs in climate and the earth sciences. Anyway, my point stands about the competitiveness of Hertz fellowships, and you (IK) mentioned here and elsewhere that you are concerned about grades--I think you need to decide which fellowship applications have the best return on investment given your circumstances, otherwise you could spend 80 hours a week for the next 3 months just doing fellowship apps.

Also, I found UG's sis in about 2 minutes of googling ("U Washington Hertz fellowship winners climate"). It is a well known R1 state school in the midwest, unless she has a research twin out there : ).

[UnlikelyGrad]

I never make myself impossible to identify (I've certainly linked to things with my own name on my blog) but I do attempt to make it impossible to reverse-Google: i.e. when I go to get a job, and an employer Googles my own name, he/she won't find my blog, or anything on this site, or whatever.

I talk about other people pseudonymously for the same reason: don't want people Googling my advisor and then telling her, "Hey, did you know that one of your grad students blogs about you?" (Although she would probably find my pseudonym for her very, very amusing.)

So I'm sure you found my sister. She is indeed at an R1 in the midwest, and as far as I know she has no research twins. BTW, she's a great example of a non-traditional student as she spent many years doing stuff like being an auto mechanic before she got her bachelor's degree. (In fact, it was working with engines that got her interested in particulates.)

[Usmivka]

UnlikelyGrad, the point of the above was not to tweak you or prove that I'm clever with the internet. It was to answer IQs question, which I felt was a reasonable one to have given that, as you pointed out, s/he is interested in a similar research field (even if the setting is extraterrestrial). IQ is trying to follow a similar academic path, and I thought it would probably be useful for her to find out more than "I have a sister who became a prof" if she is going to learn from your sister's trajectory. That is why I gave a search term to find the desired answer based on the info you provided--I really am sorry if I offended you, things don't always come across right on a computer screen.

[InquilineKea]

WOW - thanks so much for this excellent discussion, UnlikelyGrad and Usmivka!! And yes - I agree! I go to an Ivy League school now, but seriously, people in the earth sciences have so much more respect for the UW than it...

And I so agree about the point on reverse-googling - heh.

PS: Usmivka - what did you major in at UW?