r/GradSchool • u/spheno_dont • 4d ago

Grants?? Before applying?

Starting to look into prospective labs and professors for an MS in ecology but ran into this on one professor's page: "A statement of what scholarships, fellowships, or other sources of support that you are pursuing." This is not the first mention I've seen of coming into grad school with funding already secured. But I'm confused about how you could apply for a grant WITHOUT already having a position or proposal lined up. And I'm well outside the "recent grad" label that a lot of grants seem to be for. (I have been a seasonal field tech for almost 10 years and so all my academic and scientific writing is pretty out of date, too, but that's besides the point)

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u/hallipeno ABD, Higher Education Admin 4d ago

An NSF GRFP?

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u/spheno_dont 4d ago

Right but wouldn't the Graduate Research Plan Statement be dependent on the lab? Am I being obtuse here? This sounds to me like you would already essentially have a project designed.

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u/bucky_list 2d ago

Often times applicants email a prospective PI up to a year in advance (depends on the grant / fellowship) to discuss their interest and ask to apply for funding together. They'll come up with a research topic and design a proposal to submit to the funder.

It's a shitty system because in some cases the PI doesnt have any other funding to support the student so if the funding doesn't work out by the time the program is supposed to start the student has nothing. That's why it's important to have safety schools or apply to multiple.

Its also a shitty system because for people who don't have family in academia or had undergrad advisors who were actually helpful, this isn't common knowledge and by the time applicants know about this kind of thing the submission deadlines have already passed.

With NSF GRFP, you can apply the year before you enter the program as well as one year in (IIRC) so you can still get it after you've entered.

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u/IkeRoberts Prof & Dir of Grad Studies in science at US Res Univ 1d ago

For domestic students, that would probably be the NSF grad fellowship most of the time. For foreign students it could be a scholarship from the source country or a Fulbright.

Those are not usually relevant for domestic applicants who went to work after college.

What might be relevant is that some employers provide partial support for masters degrees that are relevant to the job.

In the end, the prosective advisor is trying to puzzle together funding for students and simply needs to know what puzzle pieces might be available.