NSF GRFP advice
In 2018, I was fortunate enough to have received the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award. Details, eligibility, and application process can be found here.
The fellowship requires that applicants write two essays: (1) a 2-page research plan and (2) a 3-page personal essay. Along with transcripts and letter of recommendation, these essays are incredibly important to how the NSF judges your application.
The main tips I have for applicants looking to write these two essays are:
- Know your audience. This is true for everything you will write. The people who will read your application will most likely be in your field, but not necessarily your sub-field. This means that they will know certain jargon, but might not be familiar with your research problem. Use jargon strategically and sparingly! Show them that you know the field, but can convey your message to a person out of your niche.
- Know that the NSF GRFP is looking for excellent potential for researchers, not for excellent research. They want to see that you are capable of designing a research plan with specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goals (SMART goals). The NSF will not look to see that you are following your research plan, they just want to make sure you are capable of performing research.
- Truly focus on broader impacts and intellectual merit. These are the two criteria that the reviewers look for and rate your application on.
- Spell it out. The reviewers of your application have to review dozens of essays, transcripts, and letters. In order to catch their attention, specifically title your paragraph “Broader Impacts” or “Intellectual Merit”. Additionally, for your research plan, it helps to divide your goals into a few main aims. These aims should be clearly titled and serve as a structure to your research plan.
- Emphasize community engagement and outreach. How does your research affect other people from children to field experts? Will you be able to convey the impact and results of your research plan to people that aren’t familiar with your field? Not only does outreach strengthen your case for broader impacts, it helps you think about how you will strengthen your network and work with the community. Be sure to research what community outreach events your university has conducted in the past for ideas.
- Talk to other NSF fellows. My advice is limited to my experiences. Be sure to ask your mentors or colleagues who have received the award for advice (preferably after you just offered to buy them coffee!).
My research plan philosophy
When I wrote my research plan, I tried to structure it as a scientific publication. My reasoning behind this was that the people reviewing my plan would be researchers who have read hundreds of scientific articles, so they may be comfortable reading this style of papers. Additionally, scientific papers are (typically) excellent at concisely and fully explaining a complicated topic. Since I only had two pages to convey my ideas, I would need to be to-the-point.
Here is a general outline of my paper, including the points I wanted to hit and the reasoning behind them:
Introduction
The introduction served to teach my audience what my research problem is, how solving it could expand knowledge in my field, and how it could affect the world (intellectual merit and broader impacts). I tried to make my research problem sound important and relevant to the world (e.g., reduce the damage from these increasing extreme weather events). I tried to hook the reader by telling them how my research was necessary!
Background
The purpose of this paragraph was to show that credible researchers (and myself) have already begun pursuing my research topic. I emphasized that people have done similar, but fundamentally different research, and that my plan should fill the gaps that I outlined in the introduction. I used citations the most in this section.
Procedure & methods
I felt that this was the most important aspect of my research plan. The purpose of this section was to outline three main goals that would solve my research problem and describe in greater detail how I would achieve these goals. My “procedure” followed a linear timeline with reasonable goals that all would lead to solving my research problem.
Results & discussion
This is the most abstract of the sections in that I didn’t have actual results to discuss…however, I assumed that I knew what my research would provide if it succeeded. This plays most into intellectual merit. I tried to focus on how my research would expand what people knew about origami-inspired structures. What would I learn from my research procedure? Is what I learn important to structural engineering? How will what I learn lead to more research? These are the questions I asked myself and attempted to answer in my intellectual merit paragraph.
Conclusion
The final paragraph of my research plan aimed to address the broader impacts requirement of the application. For this section, I asked myself the question: now that I know more about origami-inspired structures, how can I use this knowledge to improve society? I answered this questions in a few ways.
The first impact my research would have would be on other academics. I described how I would publish in journals and disseminate my work through conference talks. Perhaps this is the least bright and cheery impact, but important none the less.
The second impact my research would have would be on society in general. I sought to describe how my research would lead to technology that could save people’s lives in floods or after natural disasters. On the lighter side, I discussed technology that could improve lighting and heating conditions in buildings, automatically – something that most people could relate to.
The final impact my research would have would be on underrepresented groups. I described explicitly how I would work with children in the community and their parents to explain my research in ways they could relate to and get excited about. I talked about running a program for the University of Michigan’s Girls in Science and Engineering summer camp and participating in library talks in Ann Arbor. I could have also mentioned other community outreach events such as the university’s Xplore program. All these impacts reach people that might not be academics and make science and engineering accessible to all people.
My submissions/reviews:
Here are my essays and the reviews I received from the NSF:
Additional resources:
Here is a website I found particularly useful when researching how to write my application:
Mallory P. Ladd – This is one of the more thorough posts I’ve seen with many example essays.