Supporting “The Best And Brightest†In Science And Engineering: NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) is a highly prestigious award for science and engineering (S&E) graduate students. This paper uses data from 1952 to 2004 on the population of over 200,000 applicants to the GRF to examine the determinants of the number and Characteristics of applicants and the characteristics of awardees. Consistent with efforts to increase S&E diversity, women and minorities have higher changes of winning an award than white men with similar attributes.