NSF GRFP 2016

[littlemoondragon]

The NSF is definitely interested in its fellows pursuing science policy careers. One of the main perks of the fellowship is that it offers professionalization opportunities NOT oriented toward academic research -- for example, the GRIP (Graduate Research Internship Program) which places NSF fellows in government research and policy positions. Also, science policy is a classic example of "broader impacts" criteria, so your desire (and plans -- always make sure to list concrete plans, no obligation to follow thru) to contribute to policy enhances the potential broader impacts of your application.

(PS - I'm a GRFP grantee now)

This! Definitely! Also another point: imagine you are reviewing around 50 applications, where most of the applicants have stated they wanted to pursue the traditional academic route. Then, you have someone who wants a career in science policy. Being different makes you stand out, which helps with being memorable in a stack of around 50 applications.

GOOD LUCK!

[Vader Was Framed]

Good luck to those applying this cycle. Soon you will be submitted and will forget about your application. 

DO be confident, take it seriously, allow yourself to shine on paper, and don't wait until deadline day to submit because shit happens. 

DO NOT get DQ'd over playing tricks with fonts/margins, or get caught up with what others are doing in their applications. Screw them. 

The process itself of preparing, developing, analyzing, and getting feedback on your proposal is a huge part of a research career. Many feel the notion of writing an original research proposal is so daunting they don't even both to apply to GRFP. But you did bother to apply. Remember that you are already a better researcher having gone through the vigorous process of preparing the application and proposal. Your advisor probably thinks so, too. 

Lastly, get on this damn thread the night before the award is announced. It's loads of fun when "The Countdown" begins. Some nerd will post the predicted exact date and time in late March or early April. Staying up late the night of the awards list is 98% of the fun. Just go ahead and clear any deadlines you have that week. 

[pterosaur]

I just realized that since I'm in the UK, the middle of the night announcement time will be at a reasonable hour for me.

[pterosaur]

A question on personal statement essay: how much are you concerned about making the whole thing.... exciting? I want to make a point of saying what I did in each of my research experiences and how they connect (to each other, my future plans, and my proposal), especially since there's no CV or resume part of the application where I can include descriptions. My undergrad PI thinks mine could be more "pithy" and less experience-listing. Looking at some previous winner examples essays, they don't seem to really push the excitement factor and mostly focus on what research they did.

[madbiochemist]

A question on personal statement essay: how much are you concerned about making the whole thing.... exciting? I want to make a point of saying what I did in each of my research experiences and how they connect (to each other, my future plans, and my proposal), especially since there's no CV or resume part of the application where I can include descriptions. My undergrad PI thinks mine could be more "pithy" and less experience-listing. Looking at some previous winner examples essays, they don't seem to really push the excitement factor and mostly focus on what research they did.

You don't need to go for pithy. I would say that you shouldn't go for pithy, because it could sound really gimmicky and it puts you at the mercy of your reviewer's sense of humor. Just make a cohesive story between and within your essays.

Edited October 23, 2015 by madbiochemist

[farflung]

A question on personal statement essay: how much are you concerned about making the whole thing.... exciting? I want to make a point of saying what I did in each of my research experiences and how they connect (to each other, my future plans, and my proposal), especially since there's no CV or resume part of the application where I can include descriptions. My undergrad PI thinks mine could be more "pithy" and less experience-listing. Looking at some previous winner examples essays, they don't seem to really push the excitement factor and mostly focus on what research they did.

Excitement or cuteness won't get you too far with NSF reviewers.

However, I would also avoid the laundry-list type of personal statement -- they are usually unmemorable, and no different than a CV. If they wanted a CV they would ask for one. What you should be doing is telling a compelling story about yourself that has a THESIS. Have an argument about yourself as a scientific researcher that connects past-present-future. Everything in your life should appear to be moving toward the moment where you are awarded this GRFP. That means everything you've ever done (that is relevant to your grad career) should be framed in terms of broader impacts and intellectual merit. The statement doesn't have to be "exciting," but it should be a compelling, coherent whole about who you are as a researcher, not a dry fragmented list of experiences.

Also this may seem silly, but make sure to vary your sentence structure / grammatical choices in your personal statement -- this is a simple way to get over the laundry list hump. 

[Infinito]

The NSF is definitely interested in its fellows pursuing science policy careers. One of the main perks of the fellowship is that it offers professionalization opportunities NOT oriented toward academic research -- for example, the GRIP (Graduate Research Internship Program) which places NSF fellows in government research and policy positions. Also, science policy is a classic example of "broader impacts" criteria, so your desire (and plans -- always make sure to list concrete plans, no obligation to follow thru) to contribute to policy enhances the potential broader impacts of your application.

(PS - I'm a GRFP grantee now)

This makes me happy as I wrote about science policy as well in my intro and ending. Yay!

[Flux2]

Hi I have three papers but overall mediocre gpa 3.5 and I have a C+ in two of my courses. Do I have any chance?

[ohboyabbyjoy]

Hi I have three papers but overall mediocre gpa 3.5 and I have a C+ in two of my courses. Do I have any chance?

All of the advice I have been given has said that a mediocre gpa is not necessarily an application killer. What you have to do though I explain why your grades are bad. (i.e. was it at the beginning of college and you needed to mature, was there a personal crisis you were going through, were they courses that weren't related to your major?) They can be very understanding about that if you sound like you are owning up to your shortcomings and have worked on fixing them.

One of my colleagues got the NSF last year as a 2nd year grad student and she said had pretty dismal grades as an undergrad but then took a few years off to improve. She also made up for it with good grades in her first year of grads school.

[krizzle]

How important is the "With the resources provided by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, I will" sentence/paragraph? Mine is 5 lines long and right now I am 7 lines over the 3 page limit on my personal statement. Overall, I feel like it isn't very compelling and everyone says something along the same lines, so I could just completely remove it?

[dname]

I took two, 200-level courses at a community college in 2012 (after completing my bachelors, one course a semester for 2 semesters). I do not think of them as graduate level courses at all, but technically I was a postbacc since I had already gotten my bachelors. Now I am in a PhD program for just under the 1 year mark. Do those two courses screw my eligibility? Would this qualify as part time graduate studies before my PhD?

How do I even list this on my application? Would I say I was an undergrad for these courses? or not applicable? It was a community college, so there are no official graduate studies there.

[rehab-robotics]

Looks great. Was just struggling with this... I was going to use the IEEE Transactions style, since it used 10-point font as well.

I may end up just "hard coding" a bibliography and put everything in a single line in the tex file. That way the layout engine will not add carriage returns. I've seen some proposals where they manage to fit 10 or more references. Currently I only have room for 4!

Anyway, please post the .bst file!

Put in in a pastebin here: http://pastebin.com/Kw5kzUxm 

[gellert]

I took two, 200-level courses at a community college in 2012 (after completing my bachelors, one course a semester for 2 semesters). I do not think of them as graduate level courses at all, but technically I was a postbacc since I had already gotten my bachelors. Now I am in a PhD program for just under the 1 year mark. Do those two courses screw my eligibility? Would this qualify as part time graduate studies before my PhD?

How do I even list this on my application? Would I say I was an undergrad for these courses? or not applicable? It was a community college, so there are no official graduate studies there.

Nope you're totally fine.  By graduate coursework they mean graduate-level classes at a graduate degree-granting institution, not cc classes you took for fun that just happened to be after you graduated.

[gliaful]

So... I submitted my application on Friday. I felt very ready to submit, and so I did.

I'm a 1st year grad student. I have a paper from undergrad that I recently submitted to a journal X, and although it was received favorably, X asked for some significant changes. In my NSF, I listed the paper (and described it in the personal statement) as "under review" by X, because I didn't know what else to say about it.

The day after I submitted my NSF, I got an email from a journal Y saying my paper has been submitted (to Y). I guess my old PI decided to submit to Y instead of make the changes that X wanted. Later that day, I saw on Fastlane that her letter had been received. So, her letter probably mentions journal Y, and my application mentions journal X.

How big of a problem is this? I don't know what to do! I feel like any incongruity between what I said and what my recommenders say IS the end of the world.

I'm too stressed out by this to write my old PI an email and ask which journal she mentioned in her letter. I don't like to ask about what's in letters. I've never read a letter written for me and I don't know how I would gently ask about this situation.

...On the other hand, I feel like it shouldn't matter and maybe everything will be okay. In my personal statement, although I mentioned journal X's name, I only mentioned my publications (this will be my 2nd first-author pub) because I wanted to talk about the lessons I have learned from my scientific writing experiences. Journal names are pretty irrelevant to the discussion that I offer in my statements; i.e., what I wrote would still be worth writing even if I had zero pubs. But the incongruity is still there, and I don't want to get thrown out because of it.

[littlemoondragon]

How important is the "With the resources provided by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, I will" sentence/paragraph? Mine is 5 lines long and right now I am 7 lines over the 3 page limit on my personal statement. Overall, I feel like it isn't very compelling and everyone says something along the same lines, so I could just completely remove it?

Typically, in my office (Grants and Fellowships), we suggest applicants to write about 1 to 2 sentences on "How will the NSF GRF help you with your career goals?". The answer is required in your personal statement, but, as you said, everyone will have similar answers ranging from needing more financial assistance to using the recognition to complete certain goals. As further proof, on my application and other people I have helped win, we used 1-2 sentences.

I hoped this helped. Good luck!

[sc]

Anyone know the exact rules on using "et al" in the references to save space? I've seen it used in a lot of sample winners, but don't want my application thrown out by doing that

[gliaful]

Anyone know the exact rules on using "et al" in the references to save space? I've seen it used in a lot of sample winners, but don't want my application thrown out by doing that

There aren't rules, as reference styles are field-specific. I et al'd when there were 6 or more authors, but I still listed the first 3 authors (+et al). Also choose references wisely- you don't need many. Also reviews are great since they usually only have 1 or 2 authors. 

Edited October 25, 2015 by pasteltomato

[rehab-robotics]

There aren't rules, as reference styles are field-specific. I et al'd when there were 6 or more authors, but I still listed the first 3 authors (+et al). Also choose references wisely- you don't need many. Also reviews are great since they usually only have 1 or 2 authors. 

I had three or four references last year, and I had a reviewer complain there weren't enough references. How many would you say is enough?

[gellert]

I had 7 references.  They were footnotes, every single paper with >2 authors was 'et al.', and I used abbreviations in journal names.  Seriously, there are no guidelines for the references, so do what you have to do to save space.  It won't disqualify you.

It is an awkward balancing act though.  Too few references and your project idea isn't theoretically supported. Too many and it's unoriginal.

Edited October 26, 2015 by gellert

[otherss]

Well I submitted mine last night. I'm now just waiting on one more letter. Good Luck everyone.

[yolk]

Life Sciences applicant spending the day making last minute revisions checking in.

[rehab-robotics]

I had 7 references.  They were footnotes, every single paper with >2 authors was 'et al.', and I used abbreviations in journal names.  Seriously, there are no guidelines for the references, so do what you have to do to save space.  It won't disqualify you.

It is an awkward balancing act though.  Too few references and your project idea isn't theoretically supported. Too many and it's unoriginal.

Relevant: http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1821 

[gellert]

Relevant: http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1821 

[Infinito]

Submitted for Life Sciences. 
Time to take a break for a few days, then back to graduate school apps.
Oh, and hounding my LOR writers to submit their letters to the NSF.

[pterosaur]

I told my recommended that the deadline is tomorrow, not when the letters are due. Probably a good thing, since only 1 has uploaded their letter so far.