This website helped me so much. Thank you. I told myself if I won, I would upload here ! Thank you.

Start early, have a lot of people give feedback, and make sure it's your voice that carries through at the end. Make your story compelling!

BUG YOUR RECOMMENDERS EARLY AND OFTEN. I had to withdraw my submission in my first year of grad school because a letter writer missed the deadline. I reminded him a day before, but I didn't check the status on the due date, and he was a few minutes late because he thought the deadline was in local time not EST. Remind your reviewers as much as they need and be careful with timezones!

My CV at time of application: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-_JLZI5uN_9zRvI_1AhuXdAn7da9XaF9/view?usp=sharing Have people from many professions (STEM and non-STEM)/ages/experiences read your material.

Be very explicit in outlining how your experiences fit the NSF profile. Reviewers skim these applications quickly so it's important to be straightforward and clear.

Have as many people as possible read your essays and give feedback. The more editing and drafts, the better.

Start early and stay in touch with professors along the way! Literature reviews are a good source to help with the research proposal.

Remember that the reviewers are people too. Science as an industry can seem cold and unfeeling, but it is run by people with biases and emotions who will respond to your honesty and unique life story. Also, start work early and, if your advisor is willing, communicate with your advisor often to ensure you're on the right track.

Get your essays reviewed by as many people as possible, tell your story with a punch.

Start early, iterate often, and seek feedback from lots of different people (even if you feel like you're being needy). I talked to two subfield experts, two scientists in different fields altogether, and three non-scientists, and their collective feedback helped immeasurably, and all in different ways.

Explain any dip in undergrad GPA. Explanation goes a long way since GPA is a large factor.

Don't be afraid to write down stuff about you that may seem silly/cringe. Embrace your uniqueness.

Tie every awesome skill you want to showcase to some cool and impactful result for a wider community.

Add in a visual diagram to illustrate a conceptual framework for your study (if applicable)

Revise, revise, and revise again, and get as many people as possible to read your statements.

Highlight key sentences to aid the reader, especially those that won't have time to read the entire research proposal/SOP in detail.

Focus on *your* contributions to science, discuss interesting/innovative future plans for outreach if you're lacking in broader impacts

Interdisciplinary: Physics - Condensed Matter and Materials Research - Materials Theory

Feel free to contact me - I wrote this application 100% by myself with only this website to guide me so I'm happy to help anyone that comes from a small university where no one has ever applied before and needs help.

Write as many drafts as you can and get feedback from multiple people. Also, make sure to really explain your broader impacts in your personal statement. For the research proposal, don't worry so much about the cost of your experiment or the overall feasibility, just show that you can think like a scientist.

Interdisciplinary: Life Sciences - Microbial Biology and Life Sciences - Bioinformatics and Computational Biology

Taylor Alexandra Hutchison