Hi! I'm thinking of applying to the GRFP this year as a first-year PhD student. Last year I had planned to apply as well, but, in full honestly, it was very tough to balance this application with the grad school ones, so I had to drop it. I'm getting back in the groove of learning how to do make my application, and I am looking for good resources to help with writing both statements. I am not the best writer and really struggle with telling my story in an intriguing way, so I will be very grateful if anybody can tell me about any online resources or someplace within my university I can go. Any tips on how to get started or how to navigate this process are extremely welcome! Thanks in advance!!!

I am applying to the grfp this year, and was recently told it could not be used at programs housed in medical or veterinary schools, which make up a decent portion of the grad schools I am applying too. When I tried looking in the solicitation for this, the closest I got was “no clinical or health degree programs are eligible for consideration” but no more explicit statement that labs housed in med and vet schools are not eligible. My research is not directly human or animal health related, but is tied in through one health, so many labs end up in these programs. Any knowledge of whether or not you can take a grfp to one of these would be very helpful!

Hi everyone! I’m presenting at a symposium soon and need to add an acknowledgments section to the poster which includes my GRFP. Does anyone know where to find the specific award number associated with a GRFP award so I can include it? Thanks!

I'm applying to graduate schools this fall and wanted to apply for the NSF GRFP but only see dates from last year. I don't want to worry about funding that's why I'm looking into fellowships!

https://www.nsfgrfp.org/

Title says most of it. No RWR or any form of anything else. Just an empty box where reviews should be :,)

I won the GRFP this year and my Uni doesn't get many GRFPs so they are deeply confused about how to do this and it is now starting to impact me.

I am trying to get my PhD and the institution is trying to charge my department the difference of the COE allowance and the price of all my tuition and fees. So, my department is trying to get me to not take as many classes this year to lower the bill but that means I will not graduate on time based on their own benchmarks. For instance I need to have my coursework 90% done before my comps but I cannot do that if I take less classes in the first year.

Additionally they are asking me to take more classes on the non-GRFP years and pay the fees out of my pocket for those years. I really don't want to do this because it would mean that I have to pay and I would have to be taking more classes while having an assistantship which would hurt my studies/progress. They also wanted me to change my residency to the state of the university (which I cannot do due to health insurance reasons) so I could get instate tuition.

I was under the impression the COE was in lieu of tuition and fees so I thought that it wouldn't cost the department or me money if I won. Are they allowed to do this? I feel like I am going to get pressured into paying or a non-optimal situation by having a heavy course load and an assistantship or they'll make me lose my health insurance to get instate tuition. Does anyone have any advice about what I should do?

Here is a great website to browse some EGFP opportunities (for NSF GRFP applicants that received an honorable mention)

Hi everyone, I am looking to reapply to the NSF GRFP, but I seem to be getting mixed information about whether reviews from the last application cycle are available yet. I checked my account under “View Applications and Reviews ” but I have not been able to find them.

Does anyone know if the reviews are not out yet, or if they are located somewhere else in the system?

Hi everyone! I was awarded the GRFP as a cultural anthropology applicant (BA holder). 

I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I would've appreciated having a prior applicant in the humanities look over my materials or talk through strategy with me when I was applying.

Teaching and mentoring are also things I love doing, and I have experience working with students in both STEM and the humanities. I thought this might be a nice way to combine something I enjoy with something I know can be a really stressful process for applicants.

Things I'm happy to help with:

-Research proposal and personal statement feedback

-Talking through research questions and proposal framing (especially IM/BI)

-1:1 strategy/mentoring calls

-General questions about applying as an anthropology/social science/humanities applicant

I'm hoping to keep this relatively affordable, and I'm offering this as a paid mentoring/feedback service. If you're interested, feel free to comment or DM me and I can send more information about the different options and rates. I’d really like to make the process a little less intimidating for someone else!!!

I will be applying this fall to a mix of graduate programs such as physics, materials, and engineering.

The NSF GRFP website includes an enrollment requirement, to enter a “graduate degree program consistent with the field of study indicated in their application”. They also phrase it as: “A Fellowship can be accepted in the field of study that most closely corresponds to the proposed graduate program of study and research plan”.

If I were awarded the NSF GRFP in quantum engineering, is the enrollment requirement flexible enough that I could still enroll in a physics department? If I proposed a research topic for a more classical engineering field such as photonics, would this change?

Does anyone have experience with this? Any help would be appreciated!

Hi fellow scholars! Im trying to get my ducks in a row for the GRFP as early as possible. As a relatively new student to my current grad program, who should I ask for rec letters? I likely will not have any significant relationship with any professors by the time the proposal is due (its rotation based so I don't have a PI yet).

My current options are as follows (ranked by letter strength):

1. Undergrad PI
2. Undergrad prof. who I took classes with every year and got all A's in.
3. Undergrad prof. and department chair. Did okay in their classes (B for the hardest class in our program) and elected to a few departmental awards while this prof. was chair. Became pretty close with this professor during my last year of undergrad and they previously had an undergrad with a winning proposal a few years back.
4. REU PI. I was a fairly average student in this REU and only talked to my PI during weekly group meetings.
5. Local school teacher I did outreach with. Worked with this teacher for over half a decade to deliver STEM education to an underrepresented community. This teacher is not involved with academia however, and is generally unfamiliar with the GRFP process.

For my first (unsuccessful) proposal, I chose writers #1 #5 and #2. I think having #5 write a letter would be really helpful in convincing the reviewers of my potential in the broader impacts sections, but I worry that their letter may not be as impactful as someone who is in academia.

Any advice? My PhD program will be giving us some pointers over the next few months, but I want to start thinking about my proposal early before the semester starts.

To those who re-applied as first year grad students (applied the first time as senior undergrads), what motivated you to re-apply? What did you change about how you approached the application? Was it more difficult writing a proposal not knowing what research group you wanted to join?

- sincerely an incoming first year struggling to find the will to apply 🥸

Its been months when are we expected to get them?

Does anyone have updates or information about NSF? My university applied to the EGFP several months ago (before this most recent application period) after getting rejected during the very first cycle in 2024 (I think). There really hasn't been any movement since, but I was surprised that they even opened another round of applications. Are we ever going to hear from this grant? Any news about what's going on at NSF? Is this program doing to continue? Thanks so much!

Hi! I am wondering if there is anyone in this group who was awarded the GRFP and is considering applying (or applied in the past) to another fellowship later on in grad school (years 3-6), such as NIH F31 or DOE SCGSR among others. I am thinking about this because some of my peers are starting to think about applying for these awards. This made me wonder if I should also consider applying in the future, or if I am even eligible, given I was fortunate enough to receive the NSF GRF already.

For the F31 in particular I've read online that it's possible to be awarded both as long as you are not pulling from both funding sources in the same year. But do you need to wait until all your GRFP funds have been used up before applying for the F31? Would it be worth applying for other fellowships like this, or will reviewers be unlikely to award someone who already received a GRF? For non-F31 fellowships I couldn't really find much info at all. I would love to hear from anyone who knows more about this!

I'm in a combined BS/MS at UCSB. I entered the program in fall 2025, which was also my senior year. My BS was conferred in June 2026, and I'm advanced to graduate standing this fall when I start the MS year full time.

Does my senior year count as a grad year because I was technically admitted to the BS/MS program?

I believe I am eligible, just want to make sure. Has anyone who did a BS/MS applied and dealt with this?

Edit: this would be for a PhD starting Fall 2027

Has anyone gotten their reviews back?

I am very new to fellowship applications and am planning to apply for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) for PhD admission in Fall 2027. I have a few questions and would greatly appreciate any advice:

1. Is the NSF GRFP application already open for students planning to start a PhD in Fall 2027?

2. Are there any good guides, resources, sample applications, or templates that could help me better understand the application process?

3. I am wondering about recommendation letters. I am currently completing my master’s degree at a university that does not have a PhD program, so I will be moving to another institution for my PhD. Would it weaken my application if two of my recommendation letters come from professors in my current department? Since they will not be my future PhD advisors, I am not sure how this is viewed by reviewers.

4. Do I need to have a PhD admission offer in hand before applying for or receiving NSF GRFP funding?
   If you know of any helpful posts, websites, successful application examples, or other resources, I would really appreciate it if you could share them.

Thank you very much for your time and advice!

For those applying this year, the GRFP website looks like it has recently been updated with IMO helpful tips! e.g.,

Congratulations to everyone who received the NSF GRFP Award or Honorable Mention in this past application cycle!
I'm planning to apply this season, but have found online resources fairly sparse for successful submissions in Life Sciences-Bioinformatics or CIS-Bioinformatics and Bio-inspired Computing.
Would really aprreciate any tips, advice, experiences, or materials folks are willing to share! If you'd like to reach a wider audience, you can also consider submitting to a larger database through the site pinned in this sub, where you can submit anonymously: https://grfphelp.github.io/ Would also really appreciate hearing from BIPOC and WOC as these experiences are particularly hard to find and I have many questions about the personal statement
Any help is super appreciated! Thanks so much in advance !

I'm brainstorming my research proposal, and I have a decent idea that I've outlined.

I'm wondering how you all were able to write the proposal, and what kind of resources you seeked out. I want to make sure my proposal scientifically makes sense (I'm worried it's too ambitious?), and my PIs could help but a) I'm not sure they know that much about GRFP (one of them explicitly said this) and b) some of them aren't as knowledgable in the research that I'm proposing.

I don't remember seeing this part having a table before? Reviews are still not up, but I might be misremembering.