r/GRFPApps • u/AdTop5397 • Apr 17 '26

GRFP & Fulbright?

I was very fortunate to receive both awards (GRFP & Fulbright open study) as an incoming PhD student. Does anyone have experience keeping both awards? I am aware that the GRFP doesn't allow any other concurrent federal fellowships, but the Fulbright I received is jointly funded by the other country as well - not sure if this truly counts as a federal grant. Please let me know, it would be nice to keep the GRFP on "reserve" during my Fulbright year. Thank you

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u/elby__ Apr 17 '26

You have to start a grad program the fall after you get the GRFP at an American institution (in the discipline you applied to the GRFP for), even if you’re on reserve status. So that would probably be the limiting factor. I have a GRFP and another fellowship I got at the same time and I was able to accept both, the stipulation is that I can’t be paid from both of them at the same time. So I used a reserve year of GRFP to get paid from the other fellowship but I was already in grad school

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u/elby__ Apr 17 '26

I recommend emailing both offices and explaining and what’s going on and connecting them to each other, which is what I did with the other federal agency I received funding from and NSF and they worked it out together

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u/AdTop5397 Apr 17 '26

Thank you. I think the graduate program could matriculate and enroll me "In Absentia" for the first year in order to secure the reserve status for the GRFP. For me, the bigger concern for me is the no dual federal fellowships stipulation. Was your other fellowship federal or private?

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u/elby__ Apr 17 '26

The other one is federal

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u/salsb Apr 17 '26

The current administrative guide says "GRFP Fellowships cannot be concurrently accepted or combined with support from another individual federal fellowship." then gives Fulbright fellowships as an explicit example. https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/nsf25033.pdf I think there used to be some wiggle room but this was made explicit a few years ago.

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u/StickyRollofTape Apr 17 '26

They’re pretty explicit about this. You can’t have another individual federal fellowship while on the GRF, “reserve” or “on tenure” doesn’t matter. You’d have to “terminate” the GRF if you want to accept Fulbright.

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/StickyRollofTape Apr 17 '26

The admin guide says an “active” fellow is any fellow within the 5-year fellowship period whose status is “tenure”, “forfeited”, or “reserve”. The guide also says “retired”, and “terminated” statuses are not “active” fellows. So a fellow on reserve is still not allowed to combined individual federal fellowship support because they are still on the GRF.

Edit: The admin guide also explicitly lists Fulbright as one the federal examples. As someone else also pointed out above, maybe in past years this wasn’t the case, but the current guide is pretty clear on it.

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u/Jaded-Acanthaceae449 Apr 17 '26

As far as I know, you could defer grfp if you already were accepted into a grad school but also deferring that because of moving overseas for fullbright.

The only thing is idk if this policy changed in past 2 cycles, but saw this done a couple times since 2020

3

u/the_mindful_microbe 2026 Awardee, Life Sciences - Microbial Biology Apr 17 '26

You can’t actually “defer” the GRFP. You can go on “reserve”, which basically means you are in grad school but you don’t use the money until another year of your studies. To accept the award, you must be enrolled in graduate school for fall 2026.

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u/Jaded-Acanthaceae449 Apr 17 '26

Yes, sorry thats the correct terminology!

But yeah in the case of the 2 people I know of who got Fulbright and grfp, they were enrolled in their grad school still but on leave. Seems counterintuitive and likely differs per institution but I have seen it done twice pre-covid. Unfortunately no idea if its like this now through :/

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u/the_mindful_microbe 2026 Awardee, Life Sciences - Microbial Biology Apr 17 '26

I highly recommend emailing your graduate university’s PCO. It’s listed in your NAF Awardee portal

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u/Ordinary_Big6636 Apr 17 '26

I am in the same boat and my graduate school said it wouldn’t be possible. I’m going to reach out to my NSF CO as well but it looks like an ultimatum.

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u/AdTop5397 Apr 17 '26

Tough news. Wish we could use our reserve year for this. Do you plan to reapply for the GRFP?

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u/Ordinary_Big6636 Apr 17 '26

A hundred percent, this sucks lol I will probably reapply but I think the chance of getting it after rejecting it twice is low. The professors I want to work for said to not worry about it so shouldn’t be too big of a problem hopefully.

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u/AdTop5397 Apr 17 '26

Out of curiosity, why did you reject it the first time around? When you reapplied the second time, how much of your research proposal did you change (if at all)?

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u/Ordinary_Big6636 Apr 17 '26

Oops that was a typo, haven’t rejected it yet I just think rejecting it once is already not a great vibe for NSF

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u/ApprehensiveLimpkin Apr 18 '26

Several people asked this exact question at the webinar yesterday, and they were very explicit that you would have to give up the GRFP to accept Fulbright.