NSF-GRFP Questions

[Chemist of Hyrule]

Does anyone on this forum have any personal experience with the NSF-GRFP fellowship. I recently was awarded one and I have a few questions. Like...

1. Can this money ever stack with the stipend you receive from Graduate School? (I really hope so...)
2. How does the GROW Program work? I'm currently in France and want to form a collaboration with my PI here, but I can't find any info on it really.
3. Are there any things that I should be aware of? Things like special benefits or tedious requirements/

I'm about to enter my first year of Graduate school. (Still don't know where, between Vandy MIT and Caltech, so if you have relevant info on that I would appreciate that as well).

[CozyEnzymes]

I can only answer your first question - usually the NSF replaces the stipend from the grad school, you can't receive both. Because the grad stipends at most schools come from NIH/NSF training grants, you can't "double up" in receiving two different sources of government money. I know it's kind of a bummer (I thought so) but I can see the reasoning and at least the NSF is higher than a lot of grad stipends. 

[jeanetics17]

On 3/18/2017 at 11:45 AM, CozyEnzymes said:

I can only answer your first question - usually the NSF replaces the stipend from the grad school, you can't receive both. Because the grad stipends at most schools come from NIH/NSF training grants, you can't "double up" in receiving two different sources of government money. I know it's kind of a bummer (I thought so) but I can see the reasoning and at least the NSF is higher than a lot of grad stipends. 

What they said. You can anticipate receiving the NSF stipend amount, and if it is greater than your school's stipend, you will be receiving more than your peers. (i.e. 30,000 vs 34,000). If you receive multiple fellowships, then you can segment them to cover you through different times on your grad school tenure. 

I also don't know about the other two (learning also). 

[PizzaCat93]

The other posters have #1 covered. As for #2, it's a fairly new program with lots of kinks and unknowns, but there is a thread here about it that can give some insight - 

If you go on the GROW website, you can see a list of possible countries (France is one) and from there you can look at peer institutions and such. 

As for #3, the only requirements are 1) that you fill out an annual report each year to ensure you're making satisfactory progress and 2) that you get training in IRB/ethics procedures. As for benefits, my school has a special seminar series only for NSF fellows; I'm not sure what others might have, as this tends to be school-specific.