cheme24

Mollie is right. You technically can propose anything and not have to do it in grad school. But you should propose something that you have a sufficient background in so that there is a nice connection between your research experience and proposed research.

The two toughest parts about the NSF are the research proposal and satisfying the broader impacts criteria. Both can make or break your application. I cannot emphasize how important the broader impacts criteria is and it should be present in all 3 essays. It is much tougher to satisfy broader impacts than intellectual merit. Anyway there are a lot of successful application essays online that help, so I would start looking at those and seeing what they have in common.

spectastic

Hello,

I'm a graduating senior and I was wondering whether anyone here has any experience with applying to the NSF fellowship; the one that basically pays for 3 years of your tuition + stipend. I heard that once you apply, you get feedback on your application from the reviewers. It would be nice to get some pointers - any tips in general.

One topic in particular I'm worried about is the research proposal essay. I was told that this doesn't strictly have to be the title of your research once you enter grad school. It just have to be close to your area of interest. Does that mean as long as long as it's well informed and has a large impact potential, you can basically propose anything, without the pressure to follow through on it? So in essence, it's a design project condensed to 2 pages, with passionate innuendos about society?

I'm also wondering how one would go about formulating his/her research proposal. Do you read a lot of papers and go off on a tangent, or come up with something completely original, and hope that it's actually plausible in practice?

It would be great to get any general tips about the fellowship, as well as opinions on the research proposal. thanks

molliebatmit

Right. It's useful if it relates in some way to your research background (if it uses techniques/methods with which you are already familiar, for example), because the reviewers will be evaluating your ability to complete the work. But you aren't required to actually do the work you propose if you are awarded the fellowship.

juillet

Hi, I'm an NSF fellow.

-Yes you do get feedback on your application - but only after you get rejected in April, and it's not very extensive. It is helpful, but it's basically a paragraph from each reviewer.

-No, it doesn't have to be the topic of your research per se, but it should be strongly related to what you plan to do. There's no pressure to follow through on it, but your proposal will be evaluated not only on its merits but your capability to actually do it and the support that your university give you. Basically, NSF is not interested in the particular project you do, but they ARE interested in whether you are capable of proposing a realistic project that you can carry out. That says a lot about your potential for success.

No, you don't have to pick a target school that you intend to attend, but I would caution against selecting a school you have no intention of attending. The proposal will be much more convincing if you are actually passionate about your topic and excited about your future program.

-Typically at this point in your career, you work closely with a mentor to formulate a research proposal. You should read a lot of papers first. Your paper should have a unifying theory - some theory you want to test or a way to extend a body of research into an area not previously touched. As a graduating senior, you won't be able to do anything "completely original" yet; and ideas like that are unlikely to get funded anyway. Research is like a long extended conversation between researchers and nothing is "completely original" anyway.

I had a 3.4 ugrad GPA. Don't worry about things you can't change. (I also got the fellowship as a second year PhD student, though.)

I do have another question though. Most PhD's don't know what they're doing after graduation. How were they able to justify their career goals prior to applying?

What would make you think most PhDs don't know what they are doing following graduation? Most PhD students may not know exactly where they will work, or they may change their minds during graduate school. But no PhD student should go into a program with zero idea of what they want to do next, and I would wager that few do. There's a reason you get a PhD, after all. Many (most) want to be academic professors, and most probably already know whether they want to work at research-intensive schools or more teaching. There are some (like me) who want to work in government research. I wrote about that in my own proposal. Others want to do industry research or something else. It doesn't matter, but it must be research-oriented and you must justify to the NSF why their money would be well used on preparing you to do whatever it is you say you want to do.

At this point, the selection process doesn't sound like it's based on individual merit, so much as it is based on your ability to embellish your writing.

You need to get this idea out of your head now if you want to be successful at writing this proposal.

It takes a LOT of work to write a research proposal. It's not just about being a good writer. You have to be creative enough to think of a good project, scientifically oriented enough to know what's doable with your skills and experiences, intelligent enough to synthesize past research and theories with current knowledge and your future expectations, disciplined enough to place limits on the problem and well-supported and mentored. You have to do all this in 2 pages. It's much harder than it sounds!

spectastic

Wouldn't that depend on your research and your grades? intellectual merit, is basically GPA, right? I have a 3.5, which will probably hurt me. On the other hand, the research I'm thinking about is polymerizing vegie oil, which aims to eventually replace commercial polymers derived from petro byproducts, and that is not only new, but also huge on the impact side, imo. the only down side to that is these types of research are probably way more prominent in the midwest than the schools I'm interested in (not midwest). So I might have to pick my target school to be some school that I don't intend to attend...

on the other hand, your research (polymeric membranes if I remember) might be geared a lot more towards improving separation processes in industry and make companies more money. it will probably be a little more difficult to put a broad impact spin on that.

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is it also a good idea to pick a school with lower tuition? Does the school you pick even matter?? The website says they're giving away $243m to around 2000 people. That's around 40k a year for 3 years for each person. In turn, would they be more inclined to give money to someone targeting a cheaper state school, than an overpriced private school?

spectastic

nevermind. I got a decent picture after reading the instructions. I should do that first next time. :|

I do have another question though. Most PhD's don't know what they're doing after graduation. How were they able to justify their career goals prior to applying? At this point, the selection process doesn't sound like it's based on individual merit, so much as it is based on your ability to embellish your writing.

warbrain

Intellectual merit will come from a lot of things, not just GPA. The NSF will also consider your essays, recommendations, strength of coursework, etc. You also compete against people in your own area, so you shouldn't worry if you feel like your research might not have obvious impacts - someone who wants to go to grad school in math will be competing with others who want to go to grad school in math. Broader impacts can also come from activities not related to research, if you did any type of outreach related to your field, I think that counts highly too.

I'm applying to the NSF fellowship too, so I'm not sure if everything I said is entirely accurate. But that's the impression that I get from reading about it online.

molliebatmit

In the same way that you might write about a research topic you don't actually intend to pursue, you might pick a target school you don't intend to attend. That's totally fine, and you're not tied to anything.

No, it doesn't matter what tuition is at the school you pick. It's not a factor.

You might not know what you'll actually be doing, but you can write about what you want to do.

(Is anybody else seeing cheme24's post as the first one in the thread? I don't even think I can fix it -- deleting the first post of the thread will delete the whole thread. Hmm.)

spectastic

cheme, now you know what happens when you drive in excess of 88 mph... shame on you

ya I'm on the same page after reading about it online. except I interpret that the intellectual merit is more along the lines of how well informed you are about the research; can you speak their language. the application is free, so I might as well roll the dice. at least I can recycle my essays for the real apps.

spectastic

for the record, I also heard that the award is mostly given to undergrads. They separate undergrads, 1st yrs and 2nd yrs into three tiers, and they're all evaluated differently.

tetrahedr0n

You heard wrong.

spectastic

by the way, there is a malware on this forum...

molliebatmit

If you see a problematic post, you should report it with the "report problem post" link so the mods can delete it.

spectastic

no problem with posts, it's just when i tried to enter talk.collegeconfidential, chrome shut me out because my computer detected a malware. same situation with firefox on a computer at the school library. But now, the problem seems to be gone. I have no idea...

the numbers at my school indicate a history where the undergrads consistently get more NSF fellowships than the grad students. It's probably different at other schools. But my latter statement is still true. seniors and graduates get a level 1 ranking, whereas first years get a level 9 ranking, or something like that.

tetrahedr0n

Each level has different criteria to determine the merits of the application. However, ultimately, the winners are divided (nearly) evenly among undergrad seniors, 1st year grad students, and 2nd year grad students. Your initial statement is strictly false. Undergraduates win approximately one third of the awards.