No Eligibility for Fellowships due to previous graduate education?

[biotechie]

Here is the dilemma: I am a first year PhD student who has a better chance of getting into the lab she wants if she can be competitive for funding (like all of us). However, a problem I recently discovered with this is that I cannot apply for most fellowships. This would be because I have completed a masters degree in cellular physiology, so not only do I have previous graduate coursework, but I have two years of coursework.

 

Most applications state that you must have a year (sometimes two) or less total graduate experience. This immediately makes it impossible for me to apply for things like the NSF fellowships or those through the department of defense. Have any of you experienced this problem or have some advice for me? Do you know of any fellowships that I could still apply for?

I feel like I could be a strong applicant with a decent GPA if I could find things to apply for. I've spent time looking, but I come up empty. My research area will be in physiology, cell and molecular biology, translational biology, epigenetics, and potentially a little immunology.

[mrmalawi]

I'm not very deep into the funding scene yet but I have run into the opposite problem.  I am an MS student and the only substantial funding sources I have been able to find for soil science based research is the NSF GRFP and Borlaug Fellows and the rest appear to be for PhD students and post-docs.  I suppose its really depending on the field of study though. 

 

It'd be worthwhile to ask some PI's you are interested in working with what graduate students in their labs typically do and/or cold call them yourself.

 

 

[biotechie]

I have spent a lot of time talking with professors about this since I started school in July. Unfortunately, the grants their previous students have obtained are mostly those for which I cannot apply. I was in your shoes during my masters, and the reason I didn't apply was because I wanted to be sure I could get funding during my PhD. Whoops!

I think there are a great deal of smaller 1-2 year grants that you could apply for, possibly getting a couple of them in conjunction if they do not conflict with each other.

[biotechie]

I talked to a representative at school, today, who gave me information on a bunch of fellowships, but they were the same that I'd previously looked at. It looks like there aren't any that I can apply for, but I will be eligible to apply for research funding once I progress to PhD Candidacy.

If anyone hears of fellowships that are available, I would love to apply.

[Robin G. Walker]

A note about the NSFGRFP: If you earned a master's degree, then worked for 2+ years (or stopped out for other reasons) and are just now starting a PhD, you would be eligible again to apply to the GRFP under the current rules.