About the program
The GRFP funds people, not projects: a portable fellowship for research-based master’s and PhD students in NSF-supported fields, awarded early — senior year of undergrad or the first years of grad school — on the strength of the applicant’s potential. The proposed research plan demonstrates how you think; you are not bound to execute it.
Review runs on NSF’s two merit criteria, intellectual merit and broader impacts, weighted equally — and the broader-impacts half is where otherwise-strong applications die. Concrete, evidenced engagement (teaching, outreach, mentoring, community work, with outcomes) beats aspiration every time.
Who can apply
- US citizens, nationals and permanent residents only.
- Early-career limit: apply as an undergraduate senior, before starting, or once during the first two years of a graduate program (rules on prior enrollment are strict — read them).
- Research-based MS/PhD programs in NSF-supported fields; clinical practice-oriented degrees are excluded.
Writing a competitive application
- Give broader impacts equal wordcount and equal specificity — with receipts (what you did, for whom, with what result).
- The personal statement should show a research arc: how each experience changed what you can do, not a chronological résumé in prose.
- Ask recommenders to address both criteria explicitly; reference letters are scored against them too.
- A feasible, hypothesis-shaped research plan with a named methodology reads better than a grand vision — reviewers know plans change.