Alumni Gradute School Plan and Application Resources

Welcome to “Making a Graduate School Plan,” a self-guided workshop put together by Northeastern’s Undergraduate Research and Fellowships office.

If you are a Northeastern alum, this is the place for you! Please write to us at URF@northeastern.edu to let us know you intend to work with us on your Grad School process.

If you are a current Northeastern student, please email URF@northeastern.edu to be connected to the Canvas site for current students.

The goal of this workshop is to help you get into graduate school! We’ve prepared a set of 7 modules that will help you identify potential right fit graduate programs, create a plan and schedule for applying, craft your applications, fund your education through a fellowship, and follow your dreams.

If you move through the 7 modules and complete the complementary exercises, not only will you learn a lot and get a leg up on preparing for your post-bac future, you will have materials ready to apply to graduate programs and at least one external fellowship to support your study.

**As of October 3 2025, the 7th module, “GRFP and STEM Awards.” is now live, and updated with details of the application process that include the 2025 solicitation.

Each module focuses on a different element of the application process. The modules go in sequence and are accompanied by short exploratory writing assignments. Each has a suggested due date, which you can find below. Going through the modules on this schedule will prepare you for the writing workshops we will host throughout the summer. We strongly suggest that you attend the workshops, but if you can’t make it, recordings will be available on this site. The URF Staff is also available to offer one-on-one advising throughout the application process.

The page also includes External Resources you may wish to use as you craft your application.

Write to us at URF@Northeastern.edu with any questions.

Go Huskies!

URF and Graduate School

You’re here, presumably, because you’re hoping to go to grad school. We’re here to help you in that journey. In the Undergraduate Research and Fellowships office, we’re here to help you find money, glory, or hopefully the combination of money AND glory to fund your ambitions after graduation.

We do this in two major ways: helping undergraduates identify and fund opportunities for research, and helping them find and apply for nationally competitive awards. So–if you’ve won a PEAK (Project-based Exploration of the Advancement of Knowledge) award, participated in RISE (Research, Innovation, and Scholarship Expo), or applied for a nationally competitive award, you are already familiar with our office.

The main ways that we can help you with the process of applying for grad school boil down to a few factors:

  • Working with students in a range of disciplines and types of projects has given our staff useful insight into how to articulate a research question in an accessible way to a broad audience
  • We can offer accountability and feedback but don’t have any power over your future trajectory, making our staff really useful coaches/cheerleaders
  • We have deep familiarity with the genre of the application essay, and can help you articulate your goals without under- or over-selling yourself
  • We can help you find sources of funding you might not have considered

This course offers a range of tools that should help you with this process, including writing prompts, examples of successful past applications, and informational videos.

Let’s get to it!

  • Module I: URF and Graduate School. Due June 16, 2025
  • Module II. What is Graduate School? Due June 23, 2025
  • Module III. Finding Your Match. Due July 7, 2025
  • Module IV: Building a Process. Due July 14, 2024
    • Peer Accountability Conversation: Reviewing your right fit programs and timeline. July 15, 2025.
  • Module V: Write! Due August 4, 2025
  • Module VI: Funding your Graduate School Education.
    • Discussion on funding your graduate education through fellowships. As part of our Scholars Graduate Fund, we ask that students submit an external fellowship application. Due August 8, 2024
    • Workshop: Graduate School Application Writing Workshop. 11:00 AM ET -12:00 PM ET, August 11, 2025 
  • Module VII: The NSF GRFP and STEM Awards.
    • The major award for those applying to graduate school in the STEM fields and quantitative social sciences is the NSF GRFP. We strongly encourage all eligible to complete this application process. It will fall a bit earlier than your graduate school deadlines and will be useful for your graduate applications. In this section, we offer online guidance about each of the application elements. We’re hosting workshops for this throughout the summer — don’t miss them! Due August 18, 2025
    • Workshop: NSF GRFP Personal Statement. 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET, August 19, 2025
    • Workshop: NSF GRFP Personal Statement. 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET, September 4, 2025
    • Workshop: NSF GRFP Academic Statement. 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET, September 18, 2025
    • Workshop: Graduate School Application. 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET, September 23, 2025
    • Workshop: NSF GRFP Full Proposal. 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET, October 7, 2025
    • Workshop: Graduate School Application Writing Workshop. 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET, October 21, 2025
    • Workshop: Graduate School Application Writing Workshop. 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET, November 12, 2025

To register for NSF GRFP Workshops, please use this link.

To register for Graduate School Workshops, please use this link. 

What is Graduate School?

People can mean a range of things when they talk about “graduate school”: a professional degree, a master’s, a terminal degree, etc. We’ll go over definitions and big questions in this video, which is followed by some writing prompts which will help you think through whether graduate school makes sense for you and the kind of degree you might consider. Onward!

 

  1. Take some time and list here the kinds of activites and groups that you find yourself returning to over and over again in your life. Your intellectual work (coursework and research) are part of this picture, but consider the other parts of your life as well. What kinds of extracurricular or public service projects have you been involved in? What communities are central to your life? What issues or ideas do you find yourself unable to stop talking about once you get started?Once you’ve got your list, step back and see if any patterns emerge. Are there core priorities or values that show themselves to you based on what you prioritize with your time? List three core values or priorites that have structure how you spend your time and energy.The point here is that it’s not just our heads that give us information about what we care about: often, our feet tell us more.
  2. Where do you think you want to be, personally and professionally, in ten years?Having trouble defining this? Share a bit about some of the people in the world that are doing work that you admire — in roles you want to occupy, in organizations that seem interesting.
  3. Given these aspirations, how do you see graduate study helping you to get there, personally, professionally? What degree, if any, seems most appropriate?

 

 

 

 

Finding Your Match

In the immortal words of Cher Horowitz, heroine of Clueless, when asked about picking a boyfriend: “You see how picky I am about my shoes, and those only go on my feet!”

Graduate school is a serious commitment of time and money–you want to be sure that you’re considering all the relevant factors when you’re deciding where to apply. The video below goes into a lot more detail, but here are some of the questions you should be asking about the grad programs you’re considering:

  • Are there faculty who can enable me to do the kind of research I find interesting?
  • Is this a place I want to live for the next 2-8 years (length varies depending on the kind of grad program)?
  • What will this degree enable me to do after I complete it?
  • Is there funding available? How much? If I have to pay tuition, can I afford it?
  • What is life like for graduate students at this school? Is there a union?

 

Once you have watched the “Identifying Right Fit Graduate Programs” video, take a moment to contemplate and get down on paper your thinking at this point in time. Think through what you want and get it down in writing. Respond carefully to the prompts. The more your write, the more useful the process will be for you!

  1. What would make a graduate program a good “intellectual fit” for you? In other words, what types of topics, theoretical approaches, methods, and so on would you like to see well represented in the graduate program that you attend? Who are some people you might be interested in working with and why — and at what places?
  2. When you think about the type of mentorship you’re seeking, what is your ideal? Do you want multiple mentors? Someone who will be more directive or more hands off? If you are from an underrepresented group, to what extent is it important to you to be mentored by someone from the same group?
  3. To put together a great application, you’re going to need strong letters of reference from folks who know you well and can speak to your capacity to do the work you set out to do in graduate school. They should bring together a combination of knowing you well and having good credentials (so other folks will value “their word” about what you can do).These folks are also great for helping you to understand what schools might be right for your ambitions and they likely know people at other institutions. Tell us about a few folks who you are going to reach out to about graduate school, why you admire them, how they know you, and their names and titles.Think broadly. You can talk to people about graduate school without asking them to write a reference too — for example, a post-doc in a lab might be a good person to talk to about graduate school but it might be better to get the PI to draft a reference (working with the post-doc).Who are your mentors — write down their names, titles, organizations, followed by a sentence or two about the context in which you know them — and what you think they’ll share about you. This helps you understand the parts of your story that are being told by your application.
  4. What type of funding are you looking for with any programs? What can you afford? Are you willing to take out loans? If so, for how much and what are outcomes associated with your degree relative to lifetime earnings? Are you ready to take a financial leap or would you prefer to wait until everything is fully funded?
  5. When you’re a graduate student, you’ll also be a person! Tell us about where and how you’d like to live. Remember, you’ll be an adult, likely living on a restricted income.Are you drawn to studying in particular areas or regions? How important is it for you to live near family and/or preexisting friends while in graduate school? Do you have a preference for an urban, suburban, or rural environment? Do you want to go to graduate school in a location associated with a particular industry? What considerations for your health, well-being, and safety might you want to take when considering a graduate school?
  6. What are some of the programs and universities that you are currently contemplating — and for what reasons?

Building a Process

Okay, so you’ve figured out where you want to apply… Now what?

In what follows, we’ll describe how you may want to put together a plan of action for getting these applications done (and applying for a fellowship). It will be helpful for you to download the Grad_Plan_Worksheet_2025-2026 here — you’ll use it after watching the video and it’ll be helpful to have on hand to understand what we’re discussing.

Also! We’ll be hosting a Zoom check-in party on July 15 at 12 PM. RSVP here with your @northeastern.edu email!

Write!

I don’t believe in hell, but if I did, I think there would be three rooms where you could spend eternity: writing personal statements for high-stakes opportunities, family therapy, or a matinee screening of The Emoji Movie. Put another way, writing personal statements is hard. You need to identify your goals, name your strengths in a way that’s accurate and impressive without seeming like a jerk, and explain your fit with this specific graduate program.

Here’s the good news: there’s a formula for this kind of writing, and you’re not alone in this process! In the quiz that follows, we ask a number of questions that will help you structure your application for graduate school, and then we’re going to have a workshop where we’ll all help each other take those notes and turn them into something polished.

Writing is a skill like any other, and the best way to develop it is through practice. To that end, please complete the questions below by August 4, and we’ll host a workshop on zoom on August 11.

Onward!

The graduate school statement of purpose will combine elements of a personal statement, as well as a more focused research statement. For our purposes, we’ll use the prompt of Stanford University as a guide. They ask applicants to do the following:

Describe succinctly your reasons for applying to the proposed program at Stanford, your preparation for this field of study, research interests, future career plans, and other aspects of your background and interests which may aid the admission committee in evaluating your aptitude and motivation for graduate study.

The goal of the graduate statement is to convince the admissions committee that you will be a successful graduate student — they are asking you very specifically for the information in the prompt. Just do what they ask! They are looking for a clear-eyed vision of what you want to do at their university in particular and assurances that you will complete your studies in a timely fashion through a demonstration of your preparation for undertaking that degree.

In what follows, we lay out elements of the formula. Get started writing by answering the questions! Go back and elaborate later on. The biggest hurdle is getting started. Be prepared to revise and re-draft, and remember–you don’t have to go it alone! You’ve got lots of support through the process; all you need to do here is get started.

  1. Write some succinct answers to the following questions to introduce your audience to you and your graduate application.
    • Declare what you want to study — degree field, degree level, and institution. “I write to apply for a PhD in bioengineering at Northwestern University,” “I write to apply for the JD at Harvard University.”
    • Briefly, what is the problem/challenge you are interested in? In other words, why are you applying to the degree program above.
    • What is the scale of the problem or challenge? Who or what does it impact?
    • How or why is it important in the context of your field, the world?

    “I write to apply for THIS DEGREE in THIS DEPARTMENT at this UNIVERSITY in order to UNDERSTAND WHAT PROBLEM that is INTERESTING TO MY FIELD BECAUSE and IMPORTANT TO THE WORLD BECAUSE.”

  2. You’ve outlined the problem. The question is then, what do you think more particularly you are interested in doing — what type of study — to understand that challenge in more detail?Part of what you are planning to do is go to graduate school — and here is where you may be doing the “INSERT PARAGRAPH ABOUT SCHOOL AND FACULTY MEMBER HERE.”What programs are you interested in and why are the good fits for helping you develop the capabilities you need in order to do the things you want to do?Remember, the admissions committees know that their schools are great. You don’t need to say that — speak to the particular areas of excellence you are interested in and WHY they are excellent — what are the qualities of the education you are most interested in.
  3. In the section that follows, you’ll describe how your interest in this topic developed — personally and professionally. It is sometimes hard to separate the two, don’t be worried. You’ll want some combination of describing how you came into the interest via personal story (brief) and built a career (professionally) from that curiosity. Start with your motivations.
    • Tell us why you care about this topic personally? When did you become curious about it and how? This is the passion piece. Graduate school is hard and sometimes tedious. Think back to what lights your fire about your field. Any particular moments stand out? Write about this.
    • The more specific you can be here, the better! It’s not “I have always loved to read,” but “stories about the lives and struggles of queer women of color helped me understand that I wasn’t alone”; not “I’ve always wanted to help people,” but “tuberculosis is one of the world’s deadliest diseases but remains understudied and underfunded and thus misunderstood.”

    This section will be the “My interest in this area is borne of…”

  4. What you’ll want to detail next is a bit about how you developed your curiosity about this topic or area over time — and worked to develop understanding and skill. Look at your transcript, your co-ops, your co-curriculars, any research experiences.
    • Create a brief list of the courses and experiences that are “highlights” for you in terms of understanding your big goal.
    • For each, write down what you did and what you learned — conceptually and technically. Start with the beginning and think — now in retrospect — how each connects to the other. Not everything is direct — you may have some experiences where you gleaned a piece of this or that. That’s fine. It’s not an equation — what you are doing is crafting an argument about your preparation — I did this and learned this, it helped me understand this, and now I can do this.

    Northeastern students often forget that they go to school, so don’t forget to discuss what you have studied and how that will prepare you. Remember, you are applying to go to school, so that is a language admissions teams will be very prepared to understand. For co-ops, you need to make the case that these were relevant learning experiences!

    This will be the section, “My preparation for this proposed course of study is extensive… I have complemented my rigorous course of study with a host of applied, real world research/experience, etc…”

  5. What happens after you get the degree? What’s the larger plan?
  6. Are there important things about you that weren’t included above that are relevant to your application? Describe any social and/or economic impacts you have encountered that influenced your education – either positively or negatively – and how you have dealt with them.

Great! You took some thoughtful time to get down your responses to the set of questions and prompts in our previous exercise. In advance of the upcoming workshop, take some time to turn those responses into a rough draft.

  • Put the application prompt from one of your school’s at the top of a page in a new, single document.
  • Next, pull each of your responses into that single document — turning each question response into a thematically coherent paragraph.
  • Write a topic sentence for each paragraph — that tells us what this paragraph is about — and how it connects to what came before. Easy to say, but harder to do.
  • Read it over and massage the essay, turning it towards the essay prompt in whatever ways you deem reasonable.

Funding your Graduate School Education

Depending on the type of degree you are interested in, the costs associated with graduate school will vary (we discuss this in our modules).

Typically, you can expect to pay for:

  • Master’s degrees
  • Law, medical, and other “professional” degrees that serve as a credential for entrance into a profession

PhD programs that you will be interested in going to will offer some type of tuition waiver, health insurance, and a stipend. You can earn the Master’s degree on the way into the PhD usually as well. In general, our advice as an office is that you should not pursue the PhD if you have to pay for it; that’s usually a sign that the degree is not going to be useful, and it’s a huge investment.

There are a number of fellowships and grants that you can use to fund your education. We encourage you to read our weekly newsletter to keep abreast of the opportunities and deadlines and look at our database of opportunities on our website (some dates may not be updated yet but you’ll get the gist).

The big ones that you should have on your radar.

STEM:

You can use the Fulbright. to earn a Master’s degree in some countries (if you’re interested in the Fulbright process, send URF@Northeastern.edu a note and we’ll enroll you in our Canvas application course).

Pickering, and Rangel. help fund master’s degrees in international affairs, public policy with a focus on creating a strong Foreign Service.

In the past, we’ve had Northeastern University students earn the nation’s premier public interest law scholarship at NYU, the Root-Tilden Scholarship.

There are fellowships linked to particular institutions and focused on demonstrated academic and leadership ability related to important challenges, these require endorsement by the university for application.

  • RhodesLinks to an external site.: Degree at Oxford University in England (bachelor’s, master’s, DPhil) for folks interested in defining and solving important challenges
  • Marshall Scholarship: Two one-year masters degrees; one two-year degree, DPhil, any UK university, focused on leadership, ambassadorship.
  • Schwarzman: Public policy degree focused on emergence of China at Tsinghua University, for those working across disciplines.
  • Knight-Hennessy:  Any degree (including JD, MD, MBA) at Stanford University with a particular focus on leadership that is poised to define and work on 21st century challenges. This is not just funding for school.
  • Churchill Scholarship for STEM: A year of research at Churchill College, Cambridge University for those with extensive STEM research ambitions and accomplishments. Funds a masters degree.
  • Churchill Kanders Scholarship for STEM Policy: A year at Cambridge for students, with STEM backgrounds, to earn an MPP to bridge the science/policy divide.

We have Application Instruction Booklet and Request for Reference materials for the following awards: Fulbright, Rhodes, Marshall, Knight-Hennessy, Schwarzman, Churchill, Churchill Kanders. Write to us at URF@Northeastern.edu to request these materials.

 

You’ve learned about the opportunities. For which one or ones are you planning to put forward an application? If you are applying for the Fulbright, Rhodes, Marshall, Knight-Hennessy, Schwarzman, Churchill, Kanders Churchill, please be sure to write to URF@Northeastern.edu to secure the appropriate application materials and be added to our required mailing lists about these opportunities.

  1. What is interesting to you about the opportunity/opportunities that you have identified to pursue? How do they rhyme with your larger graduate school ambitions?

NSF GRFP and STEM Awards

Attention Mad Scientists and Math Geniuses!

The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Felloswhip Program (NSF GRFP)Links to an external site.provides funding for students pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in disciplines spanning the social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, computer and data sciences, and science education. The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to help ensure the quality, vitality, and strength of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. NSF actively encourages the submission of applications from the full spectrum of talent that the US has to offer. The five-year Fellowship provides three years of financial support, including an annual stipend of $37,000.

If you are heading toward graduate school in a STEM field, this is a singular opportunity! By completing the application, you can

  • Most obviously, get in the running for money and glory 🙂
  • Get practice writing for an audience that will likely be a major source of funding for the rest of your career
  • Receive feedback from NSF reviewers on your application materials

Individuals in the following statuses at the time of application are eligible to apply:

  • Undergraduate in the final (senior) year of a bachelor’s degree program
  • Bachelor’s degree-holder with NO enrollment in a graduate degree program (non-degree graduate coursework allowed)
  • Individual enrolled in a joint bachelor’s-master’s degree program with at least three undergraduate years completed
  • First-year graduate student in their first graduate degree program with less than one academic year completed in the degree program (according to the institution’s academic calendar)
    • Individuals enrolled in joint bachelor’s-master’s degree programs are considered graduate students. For GRFP, joint bachelor’s-master’s degrees are defined as degrees concurrently pursued and awarded.

Number of Times an Individual May Apply

  • Undergraduate seniors in bachelor’s degree programs and bachelor’s degree holders with no prior enrollment in a graduate degree program have no restrictions on the number of times they can apply before enrolling in a graduate degree-granting program.
  • Individuals enrolled in joint bachelor’s-master’s degree programs are considered graduate students and can apply only once.
  • Individuals enrolled in graduate degree programs can apply only once, in the first year of their first graduate program.

Limit on Number of Applications per Applicant: 1

An eligible applicant may submit only one application per annual competition.

 

Fellowships are awarded for graduate study leading to eligible research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in the science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) fields listed below:

  1. Chemistry
  2. Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering
  3. Engineering
  4. Geosciences
  5. Life Sciences
  6. Materials Research
  7. Mathematical Sciences
  8. Physics & Astronomy
  9. Psychology
  10. Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
  11. STEM Education and Learning Research

No clinical or health degree programs are eligible for NSF GRFP consideration. In FY2026, Clinical Psychology graduate degree programs are not eligible for NSF GRFP. Ineligible degree programs include, but are not limited to, programs awarding degrees in Business Administration, Public Health, Social Work, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, Veterinary Medicine, Dentistry, and Clinical Psychology.

There are two essays that make up the application to the GRFP: the Personal Statement and the Research Statement.

The questions below are what a strong NSF GRFP application PERSONAL, RELEVANT BACKGROUND and FUTURE GOALS STATEMENT consists of. Take some time to answer them, succinctly and in clear, simple language. The goal is to get you writing — and to this end we have made this a timed exercise. You’ll have 3 hours total! Get it down on paper — and then return to your answers to further elaborate an essay.

Before we begin, a few key reminders.

  • In a presentation by the program director at the time, Dr. Gisele Muller-Parker, she said “the GRFP program funds people, not projects.” Our readers want to know about you — so it important to be as specific and detailed as possible about what you have done and your ambitions.
  • In each portion of the NSF GRFP application, it is important to outline and literally call-out in the text the intellectual merit and broader impacts of what you have done and what you plan to do. In the activity that follows, we’ll ask you to begin outlining the experiences and ambitions with an eye towards elaborating upon these key criteria.

Intellectual Merit is the potential to advance knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields.

Broader Impacts is “the potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal impacts.” Broader impacts may be accomplished through the research itself, through the activities that are directly related to specific research projects, or through activities that are supported by, but are complementary to, the project. NSF values the advancement of scientific knowledge and activities that contribute to achievement of societally relevant outcomes. Such outcomes include, but are not limited to: full participation of women, persons with disabilities, and underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); improved STEM education and educator development at any level; increased public scientific literacy and public engagement with science and technology; improved well-being of individuals in society; development of a diverse, globally competitive STEM workforce; increased partnerships between academia, industry, and others; improved national security; increased economic competitiveness of the US; and enhanced infrastructure for research and education.

When complete you will have a strong basis for the prompt and the outline of an essay mapped in our info session.

Personal, Relevant Background and Future Goals Statement Prompt.

Outline your educational and professional development plans and career goals.  How do you envision that graduate school will prepare you for a career that allows you to contribute to scientific understanding and broadly benefit society?

  1. Describe in one or two sentences the topic or challenge that you are interested in studying during graduate school and what degree program you hope to pursue in order to better understand this problem or challenge.
  2. BEFORE NORTHEASTERN. Where did your interest in the sciences/engineering originate? Tell us a bit about your background before arriving at Northeastern and how you became “a scientist.” Think formative experiences, life in your family, early curiosities. Specificity is key here! Try to get past “I have always loved taking things apart to see how they worked” or “I’ve always been curious about the natural world” to statements more like “as a lifelong gardener, I’ve always been experimenting with how to make plants grow best. What combination of light, water, and food would make my ferns thrive? I’ve taken this interest in growing things to my work with cell cultures.” What got you interested in your *specific* research area?  

    List three possible “ways in” to your interest in your major: interests you’ve had, experiences that have shaped you, etc.

  3. In this section, we’ll try to get you to elaborate on how have you become further interested in becoming a scientist, generally, and in the problem or challenge you discussed above, particularly during your time at NU. For a first go, we’ll move chronologically from the beginning of your studies until now.

    To begin, what are the three or four most important courses that comprise your current undergraduate degree program? What do you know as a result of having taken these classes and how have they helped you understand or become interested in your big graduate school question?

  4. Continuing to elaborate, we’re asking about any research experiences you have you had — at the university, through REUs, through co-op, or elsewhere. Write a short paragraph or so for each using the formula below — you’ll likely abbreviate these, but it is good to have it written down.

    What did you do, when and where and with whom.
    For each elaborate on THE WHYs: Describe the intellectual goal of each experience in plain English and describe the benefits to society of the work in TWO SENTENCES. “In this project, I studied the role of neural activity within the anterior cingulate cortex of rats in order to better understand fear responses and pain sensitivity. The hope is that the elucidation of this potential neural circuit may help us better understand neurobiological factors underlying the differences in the prevalence of PTSD for different sexes.” Don’t be afraid to refer to the language that your PIs or co-ops use to describe their work — they are already working in the language of the NSF!
    Complete the following sentence for each experience: “This work is novel because ___________ and societally important because ________ ”
    Describe what you did specifically (not your PI or lab mates). This can be more technical — what skills did you develop.
    Discuss any publications, presentations that resulted from the experience, as well as any awards you earned either to fund the work or as a recognition of the work.
    Tell us what you learned in terms of conceptual frameworks and self-knowledge and how it led you towards your next steps.

  5. Continuing on the path, tell us about any outreach activities or commitments to society beyond your research agenda (e.g., teaching, mentoring, community service, leadership, civic engagement). Describe what you have done, your motivations, and what have they taught you about how you want to be a scientist.
  6. You’ve led us through what you have done — now what’s next. Answer the following questions.
      • What types of problems do you want to work on — and what do you do want to study to be prepared to tackle them. This should be more detailed than above.
      • What types of institutions (remember your “Grad Plan” logic) will enable you to do this the best (be specific) and why?
  7. Where do you see yourself after the completion of your graduate studies? What type of work do you want to be doing and where? Why? Think of this as an extension of the research and outreach activities you have already outlined.

questions below are what a strong NSF GRFP application THE GRADUATE RESEARCH STATEMENT (and research statement in general) consists of. Take some time to answer them, succinctly and in clear, simple language. The goal is to get you writing — and to this end we have made this a timed exercise. Get it down on paper — and then return to your answers to further elaborate an essay.

In each portion of the NSF GRFP application, it is important to outline and literally call-out in the text the intellectual merit and broader impacts of what you have done and what you plan to do. In the activity that follows, we’ll ask you to begin outlining the experiences and ambitions with an eye towards elaborating upon these key criteria.

  • Intellectual Merit is the potential to advance knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields.
  • Broader Impacts is “the potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal impacts.”

There are many ways to approach the graduate research statement but all will have these elements within them.  Go through these questions and write down brief answers to each. It’s a timed activity. The goal is to get you writing — not perfection.

  1. Describe for us the problem, question or challenge you want to explore in your graduate studies.
    • What is one key data point that helps define the problem?
    • What is one of they key findings in the field that you’re working off of?
  2. What are you proposing to do or study in order to “solve” the problem?
      • Why is it intellectually interesting?
      • What are the societal benefits of “solving” the problem?
  3. More particularly, what are the objectives you hope to achieve in your study — and what are some of the frameworks or questions you’ll be moving to?
  4. Getting into more particulars, what will you do to work the problem and how? Describe the research phases, methods, and benchmarks.
  5. What resources do you anticipate using? This can include potential intellectual and laboratory resources of a few graduate schools.
  6. In what ways is the work you are proposing to do important in your field and across fields? How do you anticipate advancing knowledge or practice?
  7. How is the project or the person conducting it advancing explicit societal goals?
  8. What are some of the key, contemporary articles in your field? You’ll want to be sure to include them in your citations.

Great! You took some thoughtful time to get down your responses to the set of questions and prompts in our previous exercises — and you’ve also had a chance to go through the examples of other students. In advance of the upcoming workshop, take some time to turn those responses into a rough draft of the NSF GRFP Personal Statement.

  • Put the essay prompt at the top of a page in a new, single document.
  • Next, pull each of your responses into that single document — turning each question response into a thematically coherent paragraph.
  • Write a topic sentence for each paragraph — that tells us what this paragraph is about — and how it connects to what came before. Easy to say, but harder to do.
  • Read it over and massage the essay, turning it towards the essay prompt in whatever ways you deem reasonable.

Great! You took some thoughtful time to get down your responses to the set of questions and prompts in our previous exercises — and you’ve also had a chance to go through the examples of other students. In advance of the upcoming workshop, take some time to turn those responses into a rough draft of the NSF GRFP Research Statement.

  • Put the essay prompt at the top of a page in a new, single document.
  • Next, pull each of your responses into that single document — turning each question response into a thematically coherent paragraph.
  • Write a topic sentence for each paragraph — that tells us what this paragraph is about — and how it connects to what came before. Easy to say, but harder to do.
  • Read it over and massage the essay, turning it towards the essay prompt in whatever ways you deem reasonable.

The Graduate School Application Process: Useful External Resources

How to Cold Email for a PdD

Some Tips on Writing an Email of Interest to Potential Graduate School Advisors

Sell Yourself and Your Science in a Compelling Personal Statement

Key Questions to Ask During a Grad School Interview (Table disseminated on Twitter by Dr. Amanda Kay Montoya)