NSF GRFP 2016

[Cookie]

I also have a question about LORs. I'll have two good ones -- one from my undergrad thesis advisor, and one from my new PhD advisor. But I'm stuck on who I should ask for the third. My other two grad school application letter writers aren't super relevant to the research I'm doing now (plus I'm not on good terms with one of them, long story). Should I pick a different undergrad professor? A new grad school professor who doesn't know me that well? I'm torn...

Undergrad applicants: 3 rec letters from undergrad.

First-year grad applicants: 2 from undergrad (including undergrad advisor), 1 from graduate advisor.

Second-year grad applicants: 1 from undergrad advisor, 2 from grad (including graduate advisor).

 

[Eigen]

Undergrad applicants: 3 rec letters from undergrad.

First-year grad applicants: 2 from undergrad (including undergrad advisor), 1 from graduate advisor.

Second-year grad applicants: 1 from undergrad advisor, 2 from grad (including graduate advisor).

This is my recommendation as well.

For second year, that's what I used- I'd recommend a second professor you've worked with, a collaborator works well- or if you're in a rotation field, another lab you did a rotation with.

[ERR_Alpha]

Thanks Cookie and Eigen! I kind of lucked out (if that's the right word). I worked in a lab for six months, but then my advisor moved, so now I'm in a new lab. So I'll definitely have two solid grad school recommendations. I'm planning on asking both my undergraduate advisor and my REU advisor for letters and then deciding which I would rather have. My REU advisor worked with me in a more typical research setting, but my undergraduate advisor would write an amazing letter.

 

Also I'm viewing this more as a learning experience. I don't have my hopes up for getting funded, but going through applying for a grant is a useful experience.

[Eigen]

Not just a useful experience in grant writing, but it can also really help in focusing on a project early on in grad school. 

[Robin G. Walker]

A couple of thoughts on the above comments:

• reviewers need to learn if you are prepared to undertake grad study and a grad research project. That readiness comes from engagement in activities that include undergrad research, leadership, work, etc. Clearly explain (a) how your previous experiences have prepared you to persist/succeed in grad school and (b) your rationale for pursuing a different discipline. Be sure to connect your decision to your career goals. 
• know that your selection of discipline will be the disciplinary panel  that reviews your proposal; even with an interdisciplinary proposal, you need to pick a primary field. For interdisciplinary proposals, make sure that you are drawing from more than one field in your lit review/methods and the study has impolaincation for more than one field, i.e., it can't be a "stretch."
• the changing fields language applies to those who have been offered a fellowship
• the most powerful references come from faculty who have supervised your previous research.
• although the dot org site is funded by the NSF, official rules are in the solicitation. http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf15597

My site, http://grfpessayinsights.missouri.edu/ has additional information on the statements, scoring criteria, reference letters, and broader impacts.

[VulpesZerda]

Hi all! Am I way too late to start my application? I hadn't thought about doing this until I received an email from a faculty member who is going to help students and run workshops this month. I wouldn't want to turn down free help, but it's September and I have nothing yet. Seems really bad. Would it be a waste of time?

[Eigen]

Hi all! Am I way too late to start my application? I hadn't thought about doing this until I received an email from a faculty member who is going to help students and run workshops this month. I wouldn't want to turn down free help, but it's September and I have nothing yet. Seems really bad. Would it be a waste of time?

Probably not, I put mine together about a month before the deadline, and it worked out fine. 

Chances are, you already have some research ideas- it's just putting them all together.

[gellert]

Hi all! Am I way too late to start my application? I hadn't thought about doing this until I received an email from a faculty member who is going to help students and run workshops this month. I wouldn't want to turn down free help, but it's September and I have nothing yet. Seems really bad. Would it be a waste of time?

No way! I think I started mine this time last year.  Go for it.

[FantasticalDevPsych]

Hi all! Am I way too late to start my application? I hadn't thought about doing this until I received an email from a faculty member who is going to help students and run workshops this month. I wouldn't want to turn down free help, but it's September and I have nothing yet. Seems really bad. Would it be a waste of time?

No! My advisor (who won this in grad school) had set me a deadline of September 1st to come up with an idea that I'd want to write up. I gave them my idea earlier than that and we are now refining it though if I hadn't we'd have just started on that now. 

[thefairhelen]

Are GRE scores a part of the application? I heard that they used to be but I can't find that requirement on the website.

[FantasticalDevPsych]

Are GRE scores a part of the application? I heard that they used to be but I can't find that requirement on the website.

GRE scores used to be part of the application but thankfully that has changed! 

[Rach9415]

Hi All!! Does anyone have any experience submitting a proposal that involves direct research on human subjects? That portion of the eligibility regarding excluding clinical or disease-related research is concerning. My research involves direct observations of symptoms in a neurological disorder and quantifying relationships/interactions between some of these symptoms. I'm really worried that this type of work would be excluded from consideration! Any thoughts?

 

[aebi56]

Hi All! I'm applying to bioengineering and biomedical engineering programs this fall. For the primary field of study on the NSF app, I'm unsure which one to choose since both fields overlap a lot. I haven't been able to find how NSF defines each field.

Any insight on this?

Edited September 6, 2015 by aebi56

[gellert]

Hi All!! Does anyone have any experience submitting a proposal that involves direct research on human subjects? That portion of the eligibility regarding excluding clinical or disease-related research is concerning. My research involves direct observations of symptoms in a neurological disorder and quantifying relationships/interactions between some of these symptoms. I'm really worried that this type of work would be excluded from consideration! Any thoughts?

 

I did human subject research for my proposal, but in experimental (non-clinical) psychology.  Interactions between symptoms is probably too clinical for the NSF -- is there any basic science you could do related to your research?  If not, the reason NSF doesn't fund clinical stuff is because that falls under the purview of the NIH.  Your study might have a great shot at the F31/NRSA which is aimed toward clinical kids.

Edited September 6, 2015 by gellert
info about f31

[littlemoondragon]

Hi everyone! I wanted to pay it forward from all the help I received online, so here is a page I made about applying for the NSF GRFP. There are a lot of other websites that provide great tips and tricks as well such as the one that is listed on the front page of the thread (http://bit.ly/1ScBFob). Take advantage!

http://www.clairemckaybowen.com/fellowships.html

[sierra918]

Hi everyone! I wanted to pay it forward from all the help I received online, so here is a page I made about applying for the NSF GRFP. There are a lot of other websites that provide great tips and tricks as well such as the one that is listed on the front page of the thread (http://bit.ly/1ScBFob). Take advantage!

http://www.clairemckaybowen.com/fellowships.html

Thanks!!!

Edited September 10, 2015 by sierra918

[TongueSten]

Hi all!

I was wondering if I could get some advice on LORs. I have my first 2 letters set (as well as a standby). I am a bit torn as to who the 3rd letter should come from. I could either ask the PI from a previous REU (last summer), or my program director. I've read that if you have previous external research experience you should get a letter from that advisor, unfortunately I'm unsure if he knows me well enough to strongly speak to the BI aspects of my application. I'm already getting a letter from the advisor of my most recent REU, and I'm worried it might look suspicious if I don't get one from this guy. Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

[littlemoondragon]

Hi all!

I was wondering if I could get some advice on LORs. I have my first 2 letters set (as well as a standby). I am a bit torn as to who the 3rd letter should come from. I could either ask the PI from a previous REU (last summer), or my program director. I've read that if you have previous external research experience you should get a letter from that advisor, unfortunately I'm unsure if he knows me well enough to strongly speak to the BI aspects of my application. I'm already getting a letter from the advisor of my most recent REU, and I'm worried it might look suspicious if I don't get one from this guy. Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

It depends on what you wrote on your personal statements. Your LORs are the only part of the application that can vouch your claims in your personal statement. If you spoke a lot about your REU, it would look odd to be missing a letter from your REU advisor. In addition, it is good to have writers outside of your institution talk about your abilities, stating how you understand the rigors of research by their university's/department's standard. Furthermore, you do not need your letter writers to vouch both Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts in depth. The people I asked were: 1. my graduate advisor, 2. a collaborator from another institution, and 3. my undergraduate advisor.

1. Graduate advisor talked about how I was conducting research so far.
2. Collaborator talked about our work together and how we published a paper (graduate career).
3. Undergraduate advisor talked about my hard work in courses and all the STEM Outreach we did together.

I specifically choose those three to balance out all aspects NSF GRFP reviewers would look for. When asking for LORs, I told the writers what I wanted them to emphasize more based on what I wrote in my statements (in addition to giving them the guidelines for the GRFP). If it makes you feel better about asking someone who doesn't know you "well", I have never met my second letter writer or even talked to him over the phone before. We worked on a three projects over four months, spent two months writing a paper, and had the paper accepted. However, because of our email communication and the results from our research, he could talk about what kind of researcher I am.

[coffee_grad]

This almost seems silly to say, but I recommend that you select to request LOR from those who actually know you well. There is a big difference in the type of letter someone (presumably very busy) will write for you whether you were some random lab rat working on a project on which they were the PI, or someone you worked with collaboratively and had honest dialogue about personal, academic, and research endeavors. I see a lot of students trying to get a letter from someone whose name looks very nice on a piece of paper, but NSF wants to know more about who you are as a person and how you have the tools to be successful.

For the record, my LOR come from:
1) UG mentor, professor, and research PI: Someone who knows my academic achievements, research capability, and personal life
2) Program director/boss that I worked with for 1 year through co-op program in UG: Someone who works in an industry related to my research goals, who knows my work ethic and personality, and who can support my claims of career goals
3) My graduate adviser, professor, and research PI: Someone who knows my current interests, discipline, research goals, career goals, and personal life

[farflung]

Hi All!! Does anyone have any experience submitting a proposal that involves direct research on human subjects? That portion of the eligibility regarding excluding clinical or disease-related research is concerning. My research involves direct observations of symptoms in a neurological disorder and quantifying relationships/interactions between some of these symptoms. I'm really worried that this type of work would be excluded from consideration! Any thoughts?

 

Many many GRFP fellows do research involving human subjects, including almost all social scientists. What you're asking about, I think, is what qualifies as clinical research.

So, what exactly is your research question? In other words, why are you doing direct observations of symptoms of this particular neurological disorder? If these observations are oriented toward direct clinical outcomes (i.e testing drugs or interventions to see which one works best), you are doing applied clinical research, which is excluded from the NSF GRFP.

However, if you're merely studying interactions between symptoms, and have some larger question to probe that contributes to neuroscience as a whole (i.e. reasons to do these kinds of observations that aren't geared toward direct clinical interventions), you definitely qualify. It sounds like you fall more in this second category, so I say apply!

[farflung]

Hi all!

I was wondering if I could get some advice on LORs. I have my first 2 letters set (as well as a standby). I am a bit torn as to who the 3rd letter should come from. I could either ask the PI from a previous REU (last summer), or my program director. I've read that if you have previous external research experience you should get a letter from that advisor, unfortunately I'm unsure if he knows me well enough to strongly speak to the BI aspects of my application. I'm already getting a letter from the advisor of my most recent REU, and I'm worried it might look suspicious if I don't get one from this guy. Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

Hi, I'm a current GRFP fellow, on an additional NSF grant now, and have faculty mentors that have been NSF reviewers. You are judged for GRFP on the basis of intellectual merit and broader impacts -- that is truly it. Your 3 reviewers will sit down and read through your application, as quickly as possible, then write a few sentences about whether/how it complies with BI and IM. In other words, they will give you a score from Excellent --> Poor on BI and IM, then move on to the next application because they have others to read. NSF reviewers simply don't have time or energy to sift through who on your CV could have written you a letter but didn't. Just write badass statements and get 3 strong letters, that's it! And a general word of wisdom to everyone: spend your energy crafting excellent statements that do your research justice and are EASY to read, not worrying about holes in your record that you can't control. Good luck!

Edited September 18, 2015 by farflung

[Eigen]

Think of your entire packet, and then figure someone will take around 5 minutes to read it all. Write accordingly. 

Use of bolding and underlining to highlight important sections is highly suggested, and can be quite beneficial towards drawing attention to what you really want the reviewers to see.

[littlemoondragon]

This almost seems silly to say, but I recommend that you select to request LOR from those who actually know you well. There is a big difference in the type of letter someone (presumably very busy) will write for you whether you were some random lab rat working on a project on which they were the PI, or someone you worked with collaboratively and had honest dialogue about personal, academic, and research endeavors. I see a lot of students trying to get a letter from someone whose name looks very nice on a piece of paper, but NSF wants to know more about who you are as a person and how you have the tools to be successful.

For the record, my LOR come from:
1) UG mentor, professor, and research PI: Someone who knows my academic achievements, research capability, and personal life
2) Program director/boss that I worked with for 1 year through co-op program in UG: Someone who works in an industry related to my research goals, who knows my work ethic and personality, and who can support my claims of career goals
3) My graduate adviser, professor, and research PI: Someone who knows my current interests, discipline, research goals, career goals, and personal life

I agree for the most part that you want someone who knows you well. The better the writer knows you, they better letter they can write. It is obvious to reviewers if the writer doesn't know you well.

The only reason I suggested reviewing over the personal statement and then deciding who to be your LoR is because when I first applied, I asked the professors who knew me well. My most recent REU advisor saw me four times (total of 3 hours), so I didn't ask him. However, my negative remarks on my first GRFP application were on why didn't I have a REU advisor write a letter when I had done so many (I had done three). Granted, given I had three REUs, I should have had at least one REU letter writer. But I had three other people who knew me better and wrote very strong letters. This is where GRFP is a crap shoot. What reviewers like vesus not is random.

Think of your entire packet, and then figure someone will take around 5 minutes to read it all. Write accordingly. 

Use of bolding and underlining to highlight important sections is highly suggested, and can be quite beneficial towards drawing attention to what you really want the reviewers to see.

The section topics really helps breaking up the huge block texts.

 

Edit: apparently I can't write when traveling...  and I added more explanation.

Edited September 18, 2015 by littlemoondragon

[DavidB144]

Thanks everyone for the excellent information in these threads so far...

I have a question that came to mind after watching this video today, from the nsfgrfp.org website. In the video they touch on the LOR writers, and several times they mention people who know you professionally.

I recently earned a BS in Electrical Engineering and am currently enrolled in a graduate program. Fortunately, over the past year I have been working as an engineer for a small company that does embedded work. This job has given me much experience as an engineer, and the bosses (CTO and CEO) have both said that they are willing to write strong letters of recommendation. Of course, their context is the job market, not the NSF grant. And they have mentioned this because the funds of the company are drying up ("bleeding money" as they put it) and they have recommended that I shop around for another job.

The CTO knows me very well. He knows what type of work ethic I have. He probably knows me better than the letter writers who will be coming from academia. But he does not hold a PhD, and the job overlaps with my proposed research topic to a certain degree, but not completely.

Is it a bad idea to chose a writer that comes from industry?

This will be my first time applying for the GRFP, and I will be a first year grad student starting next week...

[coffee_grad]

Thanks everyone for the excellent information in these threads so far...

I have a question that came to mind after watching this video today, from the nsfgrfp.org website. In the video they touch on the LOR writers, and several times they mention people who know you professionally.

I recently earned a BS in Electrical Engineering and am currently enrolled in a graduate program. Fortunately, over the past year I have been working as an engineer for a small company that does embedded work. This job has given me much experience as an engineer, and the bosses (CTO and CEO) have both said that they are willing to write strong letters of recommendation. Of course, their context is the job market, not the NSF grant. And they have mentioned this because the funds of the company are drying up ("bleeding money" as they put it) and they have recommended that I shop around for another job.

The CTO knows me very well. He knows what type of work ethic I have. He probably knows me better than the letter writers who will be coming from academia. But he does not hold a PhD, and the job overlaps with my proposed research topic to a certain degree, but not completely.

Is it a bad idea to chose a writer that comes from industry?

This will be my first time applying for the GRFP, and I will be a first year grad student starting next week...

DavidB144, 

I have a letter from an industry professional. I think if your work experience is both relevant and highlights your desire to pursue graduate study, then it is a valid consideration. I worked for one year full-time (through a co-op program during my UG) with a city planning office directly related to my research field, and I highlight that work experience in my personal statement as evidence for my continued interest in the field and use it as support in my career goal claims.

That being said, this GRFP is not an ordinary LOR. I wrote up a kindly-worded email to this person stating the criteria that NSF is looking for in the LOR, and gave resources such as the NSF guide to letter writers (http://www.nsfgrfp.org/reference_writers) and opened line of communication between this person and my academic adviser so that question could be asked if needed. 

Good luck!