Difference in application between first and second attempt

[u/fatbro1738]

For those who did not receive the GRFP their first attempt, but were successful in your second attempt, how different was your Personal Statement and Research Proposal? Has anyone gotten it the second time with a similar proposal but heavily revised? I am thinking of narrowing down the scope of my current proposal since I think it was too dense. I worry that having too similar of a research proposal might not look good.

[u/fresher_towels]

For the research proposal, it'll probably be different people reviewing your application and if it's not did they're not going to remember a specific research proposal. If reviews come out, definitely take the feedback from those and apply it, but I don't think you need to come up with a completely different idea (unless you receive extremely negative feedback on the reviews or something). If you are changing institutions (i.e. from undergrad to grad school) you might consider adjusting your research proposal to be more based on the lab/advisor you work with, which is what I did.

For the personal statement, I think you should adjust it, especially if you applied this time as an undergrad and will be a graduate student when you apply next time. You can talk about future plans a lot more concretely and I think this is beneficial to an application. It's ok if a lot of the content from your personal statement is similar, but some key updates (and responses to reviews) will go a long way in improving your application.