Table of Contents

Overview
List of fellowships
Why apply?
General application advice
Specific advice for the NSF GRP
Specific advice for NSTGRO, also somewhat applicable to FINESST
Specific advice for Draper Scholars

Overview

Disclaimer: this advice is based on my personal experience¹, so it is probably most applicable to people in similar fields (aerospace engineering) or at similar institutions (MIT), and who are US citizens or permanent residents.

I’m focusing here on fellowships that provide stipend + tuition support for PhD students for multiple years. There are whole other categories of fellowships, like fellowships that provide internships/professional development², prestigious fellowships for Americans to study abroad for a couple years after college³, and fellowships that provide a single year of funding for PhD students⁴.

Many fellowships are only open to people who either haven’t started grad school, or who are still early-stage graduate students, so this advice will probably be most useful to undergraduate seniors and bachelor’s degree holders applying to PhD programs, as well as first-year graduate students. However, some fellowships allow later-stage graduate students to apply, so don’t lose hope!

Fellowship information

This is a highly non-exhaustive list of fellowships which may be useful to apply to. I’ve done my best to list the duration of funding, approximate due date, and citizenship + graduate school stage requirements for each fellowship, but this information may be incorrect, incomplete, or outdated.

Some of these fellowships require internships or research stays at federally funded research centers, and some are only open to students at certain universities. Most are also only open to graduate students in certain fields of study – but aerospace engineering students are eligible for all of these!

• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP)
  • 3 years of tuition + stipend
  • Must be US citizen, US national, or permanent resident
  • Undergraduate seniors and bachelor’s degree holders eligible
  • First-year graduate students eligible
  • Second-year graduate students eligible if didn’t apply in first year of graduate school
  • Due in October (usually)
• NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO)
  • Up to 4 years of tuition + stipend
  • Must be US citizen, US national, or permanent resident
  • Eligibility criteria are complicated, but may be eligible if have completed < 3 years of graduate school
  • Due in November (usually)
• Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST)
  • Up to 3 years of tuition + stipend, capped at $50k per year in total costs
  • No citizenship requirements!
  • Due in February (usually)
• Hertz Fellowship
  • Up to 5 years of tuition + stipend
  • Must be US citizen or permanent resident
  • Undergraduate seniors and bachelor’s degree holders eligible
  • First-year graduate students eligible
  • Due in October (usually)
• GEM Fellowship
  • Up to 5 years of tuition + stipend guaranteed through RAship/TAship (for PhD students)
  • Must be US citizen or permanent resident
  • Undergraduate seniors and bachelor’s degree holders eligible
  • Master’s students eligible
  • Due in November (usually)
• Draper Scholars
  • Up to 5 years of tuition + stipend
  • Must be US citizen
  • Due in February (usually)

Why apply to fellowships?

Applying to fellowships forces you to think about research topics. Many fellowship applications require research proposals. In my experience, writing a short research proposal as a prospective or first-year graduate student is a very useful exercise. My master’s thesis project was actually pretty close to what I proposed in the fellowship applications I wrote during my first semester of grad school.

Fellowships make it easier to get into grad school. Fellowship awardees often have an easier time getting into grad school, even to the point of getting un-rejected after receiving a fellowship. Many schools would like to accept more PhD students, but can’t afford to pay more students – but if you bring 3-5 years of your own fellowship funding, you may suddenly become affordable and therefore admissable.

At some schools, fellowship awardees get extra pay. Most fellowships guarantee a minimum stipend, which may be higher than your school’s stipend. At one conference, I met some NSTGRO awardees who earned $40k at a school in a low-cost-of-living area where most PhD students made around $20k. Some schools will also supplement fellowship stipends to reward students for bringing in fellowship money.

Fellowships guarantee funding. Some schools/departments, including MIT AeroAstro, do not guarantee 5 years of tuition + stipend support for PhD students, so some students need to constantly seek out TAships, RAships, grants, and fellowships in order to stay funded. Having 3+ years of guaranteed fellowship funding provides some stress relief.

Fellowships offer flexibility. Generally, the alternatives to fellowships are teaching assistantships (TAships) and research assistantships (RAships), which usually require around 20 hours/week of work providing teaching support or working on a specific research project. Fellowship awardees usually have more freedom than RAs to choose their own research topics, and have more time than TAs (and often RAs) to dedicate to thesis research.

Some fellowships offer additional perks. Common fellowship perks include mentorship, guaranteed internship placements, high-performance computing time, funding for lab equipment, funding for conference travel, and exclusive networking opportunities.

General application advice

Advice on the NSF GRFP

Advice on NSTGRO

Advice on Draper Scholars

1. I applied to (and was awarded) the NSF GRFP and NSTGRO in fall 2021 as a first-year aerospace engineering grad student. I later applied to (and again was awarded) Draper Scholars in spring/summer 2023 as a rising third-year graduate student. I did not apply to any other fellowships before or during grad school, so can only specifically comment on the application + award process for these three programs. ↩

2. e.g. Brooke Owens, Matthew Isakowitz, etc. ↩

3. e.g. Fulbright, Gates Cambridge, Marshall, Rhodes, etc. ↩

4. e.g. Jane Street, Google-MIT ↩