Fellowships
From 410 Resources
1) National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP)
Website: http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/
Details: roughly $30K a year plus tuition, up to three years, can be deferred (if, say, you get another fellowship like NDSEG). however, this fellowship also includes a yearly travel grant - pretty cool.
Notes: 3 essays, 2 pages each. monster amounts of work, 10% acceptance rate, very prestigious. definitely worth the effort. most work for essays out of all of these fellowships. about 900-1000 awarded annually. application due at the beginning of november. can be applied for usually three times - senior year of undergrad, first year of grad, and second year of grad. as far as i can tell, you're equally likely to win any year you apply. people who have won this in the past should have "ratings sheets" that show how the judges evaluated their proposal specifically - these are a great thing to get your hands on to understand the judging process.
Extra Link: Advice - http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~gamble/nsfadvice.pdf
(2) Department of Homeland Security Graduate Fellowship
Website: http://www.orau.gov/dhsed/
Details: roughly similar money to the others, three years
Notes: the latest to become available, with applications due in mid February (I think). this is the one you'll likely be able to find the least help with as it (just like the department that offers it) is relatively new. can only be applied for twice, i believe (last year of undergrad and first year of grad school).
3) Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (DoD NDSEG)
Website: http://www.asee.org/ndseg/
Details: similar award package to other fellowships, three years, as mentioned above, can be combined with NSF if you are lucky enough to win both (this gives five years of support!).
Notes: two essays, if i remember correctly. you get no feedback as to what they thought about your proposal. your proposal _does not_ have to be related to the military in any way whatsoever. usually most people simply adapt their NSF essays to fit into the guidelines of this fellowship. due in early january, i believe. can be applied for three times, just like the NSF. about 200 of these awarded annually, but only a 6-7% acceptance rate.
4) Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DoE CSGF)
Website: http://www.krellinst.org/csgf/index.shtml
Details: similar award package to the others, except the package is for four years.
Notes: this one's a stretch for many people to apply to - you have to design a curriculum (including picking courses and such) that somehow meets the DoE criteria for computational science. hard to explain - read the website and see if you fit the mold. applying for this is a fair amount of extra work beyond the work already put in for the other fellowships. due in early to mid january.
5) Hertz Foundation Fellowship
Website: http://www.hertzfndn.org/
Details: roughly $30K a year plus tuition for three years or some lesser amount for five years, can be combined with NSF easily. involves a two-round interview process.
Notes: only 15-20 given out a year, 3 essays of 300 words, ~10% get interviewed, and ~2.5% get fellowships. earliest application deadline (end of october), so it's very important to start the process early. this is the hardest of all of these to win, and there's a real focus on the physical sciences for people who are awarded this. the interview questions are crazy - basic physics and chemistry stuff you would not expect one bit. cool fellowship though - they actually have retreats for all the winners so they can meet each other.
6) Others - Ford Foundation, Intel Foundation, Microsoft, Siebel, etc.
Details: varying - Ford is for underrepresented minorities, Intel and Microsoft are research fellowships usually awarded after a few years of grad school when you have more to show, Siebel is only awarded to last year undergrad and last year grad students, etc. the main ones are all in this list (numbers 1-5 above).
For all of these, it is strongly recommended to get people to read your essays. Among these people should be (1) a professor or two, (2) people who have won these fellowships before, and (3) your peers who are also applying for these fellowships. The judges are looking for fairly specific criteria, so being aware of these criteria during the writing and revising process is supremely important. Make sure you get started early, as the essays take a bunch of work and often require many iterations. Also, make sure you order GRE scores and transcripts early so those technicalities don't get you - they take some schools more than a few days to process.
