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The #NSFGRFP is an incredible opportunity... so I analyzed winners from 2011-20 to understand who gets it. The good news: things are slightly worse in 2018-20, but they& #39;re stable. The bad news: "stable" means >50% of awards go to undergrads or grads at the top *20* schools.
I first got interested in analyzing the #NSFGRFP data after a policy change, announced in 2016, changed eligibility rules. Many others aside from me (esp @hormiga, but for an exhaustive list, check out @jane_c_hu& #39;s article https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2019/08/nsf-graduate-fellowships-disproportionately-go-students-few-top-schools)">https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2... have examined bias in the GRFP.
But I was interested in a quantitative evaluation of the policy change, which was theoretically supposed to bring in more diverse applicants from diverse undergraduate schools. So I looked at the # awards to students coming from baccalaureate institutions ranked by # of awards.
Over 10% of awards go to the 9 most selective schools (at a rate of 0.5% of the tiny! undergraduate student body getting them). That& #39;s 38x the rate at which the students from the ~60 least selective schools win them.)
Private schools costing $60k+ a year make up only 1.3% of schools in America (at least according to the College Score Card data I& #39;m using). But their undergraduates get nearly 40% of #NSFGRFP awards.
But that& #39;s just for UG institution, and I have data for UG and grad. If you ask what % awards go to people who have *ONLY* gone to a top 20 school (whether undergraduate or grad), that& #39;s 20%. If you ask what % of awards go to people who have *EVER* gone to a top 20, that& #39;s 50%.
These numbers are the realities of 10 years of data and 20k awards, not just results of recent policy change. Funding and independence are an incredible opportunity for a graduate student and there are thousands of deserving students. It& #39;s not easy to know where it should go.
What we do know, from these numbers, is it& #39;s going to places which are already immensely selective and have immense resources. Perhaps it& #39;s even going to diverse students at those institutions. But is that where the gift of independence and funding could have the most impact?
Another thing we know: the 2017 policy change, if anything, increased the % of awards going to top institutions. The scientific community cares about creating change here, but as far as I can tell, that change hasn& #39;t happened anywhere in the last 10 years.
I& #39;m not the first to run these numbers. Lots of others (eg @hormiga) have thought about this (see @jane_c_hu& #39;s article https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2019/08/nsf-graduate-fellowships-disproportionately-go-students-few-top-schools">https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2... for a great summary). Thank you to them for inspiring me to continue, and to my cats for keeping me on task
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