I was awarded the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship in 2021 as an undergraduate student. Personally, I think it is easiest to apply as an undergraduate or Bachelor’s degree holder rather than a current graduate student as you do not necessarily have to have produced results for the proposed project. As a first or second year graduate student, the general expectation is that you have some results to show in your application. In fact, you may not necessarily proceed with the proposed research! In my case, I found that working with eye-trackers with wild birds was going to be a near-impossible task, so I found a new project within my field of study (animal behavior). Below you can find some of my tips and suggestions for a successful example, as well as a copy of my personal and research statements.

Tips and Tricks

• Find a mentor who can spend a lot of time talking about your project with you and giving you feedback on your statements
• Read successfully funded applications. Alex Lang’s website was a great help in my own writing process
• Have multiple people read over your statements, especially professors, post-docs, or advanced grad students
• Read over the Program Solicitation multiple times! It’s a very dense document and I recall reviewing it almost every time I sat down to write.
• Be yourself in the application– the reviewers want to see your unique personality!

My Statements

On the left is my research statement and on the right is my personal statement.