Forget acceptance, what about funding?

juillet
Sat, 11 Mar 2017 04:59:06 +0000

This is really going to vary on the kind of fellowship.

I have heard, anecdotally, that university fellowships do have a little more emphasis on GRE scores and perhaps GPA than regular admissions. That’s likely because the university is comparing across several fields, and there are fewer things that are universal to students from - say - philosophy and biomedical engineering. If you were admitted to a prestigious university with many top programs, you will be competing with top PhD students from across the world for those university fellowships, so they can be very competitive.

External fellowships like NSF are also much more competitive than admissions to PhD programs. Think about it this way: the funding rate for the NSF is about 20%, and those are largely from students who are already in doctoral programs, so the NSF is picking the top of the top - the best students who are already admissible to very good PhD programs. While your GPA is considered for NSF (and it can break you), the focus is much more on your research experience and your perceived potential to become a scientist and make contributions to the field. GRE is no longer considered for NSF fellowships, although it may be for other ones like NDSEG and Hertz.

I would imagine that most college seniors who are serious candidates for the NSF would already be highly admissible to several top doctoral programs.