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  • Writer's pictureAndrea Darby
    • Sep 7, 2021
    • 13 min read

Advice on Preparing an Application for the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship Program

Updated: Sep 16, 2022








Introduction


Hello! I am a 2020 awardee of the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, and here I want to share with you what helped me throughout my application process. Unlike other fellowships like the National Science foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP), there are not a lot of resources easily available online or even across campuses for applicants to refer to. I found while applying that not a lot of faculty have heard of the Ford Foundation Fellowship or are unfamiliar with the process due in part that this fellowship is meant to support those historically underrepresented and marginalized racial and ethnic groups in the academy.


Through this blog post, we can start to fill in some gaps for applying for the Ford Foundation. I applied for the NSF GRFP the same cycle I applied for the Ford, so I will speak on ways I adapted my GRFP application for this fellowship. I also link other sites that have been important for me and others through their fellowship writing experience. The advice I share could potentially be translated to the Dissertation and Post-doctoral Ford Fellowships, but be mindful this is written from the perspective of someone who wrote this during the Predoctoral stage. This is a huge step for applying for a fellowship like this, so congratulations for starting this journey!!


What is the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program?


The overall goal of the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program is to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of US Faculty at universities and colleges and increase the number of professors that utilize the diversity of human experience in their education practices. The fellowship program does this by awarding scholarships to those at the predoctoral, dissertation, and postdoctoral stages. For the Predoctoral Fellowship, the award encompasses a stipend of $27000/year for three years over a five year period, which during your funding year can be dispersed to you monthly over the year either over 9 months or 12 months. Be aware that the fellowship offering changes with the level. I opted in to have it dispersed to me over 9 months, and my department/advisor covers me during the summer months. But you can choose how you want it dispersed to you!

Sometimes university stipend rates for graduate students can be higher than the 27K Ford offers, so to bring you up to rate, Graduate Schools can give you a top-off fellowship. That is the case for myself since Cornell’s grad student stipend rate is higher than the Ford Fellowship. For example, the 2021-2022 AY stipend rate for teaching and research assistantships at Cornell is $28,654, so I am supplemented $1,654 to get my Ford stipend of $27000 to the same stipend rate at my institution. I choose to have my stipend given over the Fall and Spring semester, but you can opt to have it distributed throughout the summer as well. Just be aware that the stipend is taxable but you have to do the deductions yourself! So if you are (fortunately) awarded the fellowship you will need to get familiar with paying your taxes quarterly, or else you will likely owe a lot come tax season (which I had to learn the hard way). The Personal Finance for PhDs has a blog post and other resources on this very topic you can follow here.


They also ask for fellows to not take on full TAships, since one of the great perks of having a fellowship is to devote more time to focusing on your research. However, it is possible to do a reduced TA appointment if it is critical for your career development or supplementing your income..


For me, I think the best part about the Ford Fellowship is the network that comes with it. As a Black Filipino woman, having access to the The Fordie network is extremely fulfilling to correspond with Fellows from similar lived experiences as my own. The Conference of Ford Fellows is an annual conference where fellows can engage in networking with peer and senior Ford Fellows, receive one-on-one mentoring, and receive strategies for dissertation completion and academic career planning. There is also a regional liaison that junior fellows can rely on for further support. But really you can reach out to any fellow from the Directory of Ford Fellows, and people are always more than happy to help you with whatever you are seeking! So far, I have received a lot of welcoming warmth when I reach out to fellows for help.


To learn more about applicant eligibility and eligible fields of study go to the predoctoral 2022 program announcement linked here.


Components of the Application


Three essays

Personal statement (2 pages double spaced, 12 pt font)

Previous Research Statement (3 pages double spaced 12 pt font)

Plan of Graduate Study (2 pages double spaced 12 pt font)


Letter of Reference (min. 3, max. 5)

Baccalaureate and Graduate transcripts

Verification of doctoral study (required only for those already in a degree program)

Work history and relevant honors and awards


Personal statement


I believe the personal statement for this fellowship is really integral for one’s success in getting this fellowship, in part because the majority of the positive factors for selection are also prompts for the personal statement which you can find quoted below:

  • The applicant's capacity to respond in pedagogically productive ways to the learning needs of students from diverse backgrounds

  • the applicant’s sustained personal engagement with communities that are underrepresented in the academy and ability to bring this asset to learning, teaching, and scholarship at the college or university level

  • the applicant’s likelihood of using the diversity of human experience as an educational resource in teaching and scholarship

  • the applicant's membership in one or more of the following groups whose underrepresentation in the American professoriate has been severe and longstanding


This fellowship wants to fund people who are coming from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds in the American professoriate, so unlike other grants or fellowships, speaking on your experience as a Person of Color and ways you have worked to uplift your community is an integral aspect of this application. There is not a neat way I could suggest on how one can structure their personal statement because of the diversity of people’s lived experience, but this is roughly the way I outlined my personal statement:


  • Introduction of my lived experience as a Black Filipino woman in STEM

  • My efforts as an undergraduate to facilitate diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM

  • Current efforts as a graduate student to facilitate diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM

  • My goals in the future to cultivate inclusive teaching for diverse student populations


The personal statement is a small space (2 pages doubled spaced) to speak on all of your experiences, describe the ways that you cultivate inclusive practices particularly with those underrepresented in the academy, and what your ultimate goals are. So it is important that you highlight aspects of your work and lived experiences that directly address the prompts and positive factors for selection. Think about the work that you have done and groups you were involved with that gives you a unique perspective. You want to leave a strong impression with the reviewers and help them understand more about who you are and what are your goals and motivations. To help with my own reflection and thinking process for this essay, I did an exercise where I wrote underneath each of the prompts examples of ways that I have demonstrated what they are looking for. This way I could make sure that my personal statement essay addressed everything they want to see in a successful applicant.


Previous Research statement


With the previous research statement, this is an opportunity for you to highlight all the cool and exciting research you have done prior to your graduate degree program while also highlighting the research you may be doing currently. Any research experience you may have done whether as part of a class, a formal academic setting, employment, internship are all encouraged to speak on. Reviewers are going to be looking for whether or not you understand the research you did, and not that you were just following directions. They also want to see any personal and intellectual growth from you in the research you have conducted. Below is a formula I use to describe my own research:


  1. Start with a sentence about the major question you addressed

  2. State the hypothesis of your study

  3. Briefly describe your methods used

  4. State the major result and how that result fits or conflicts with your original hypothesis

  5. Then state what are the implications and broader impacts of the work you conducted

  6. Finish with a sentence describing your personal growth as a consequence of that specific research experience.

    1. You can describe what you learned, how your interests shifted

    2. Share whether it resulted in a paper, poster or oral presentation


Using this formula to describe your research experiences will be extremely valuable in communicating with reviewers your knowledge of the work you have done already. Sometimes people have plenty of research experience to share (which is amazing), and it may not fit within the confines of the 3 page limit. It’s important to highlight the select research you have done which have been integral in developing you and your research interests as a scholar.

Lastly, you may end your previous research statement by adding a reference section of select presentations or publications you may have. Being a published scholar for the Predoctoral stage is not necessary! I did not have any pubs at the time of my submission, but I did highlight the presentations of my work I have done at local, national, and international conferences. I also highlighted invited talks to give on a specific topic of my work as well. And it is okay to list publications that have been submitted or currently under review.


Plan of Graduate Study


This essay is where you get to gush to the reviewer the area of research you want to do your dissertation research on and discuss how the fellowship will aid you in your future career goals. This is your opportunity to demonstrate to the reviewers your ability to address a knowledge gap, your ability to describe how you will address it, and how well equipped your university and major advisor is to facilitate the completion of your work.


Below is how I roughly structured my plan of graduate study

  • Introduction

    • Briefly introduce your topic of study and what is the knowledge gap you are addressing

    • Describe your study system (organism, field site, etc.) and preliminary research you think is relevant to share

    • State exactly what your proposed project will be addressing


  • Project objectives

    • Have anywhere from 2-4 objectives for your project

    • Within each objective describe your hypothesis and experimental approach

      • Ensure your experimental approach is addressing the hypothesis which you are testing

    • Where possible discuss anticipated results

      • Bonus points if you can describe results that would support your hypothesis and discuss alternative hypotheses if your results differ from your hypothesis


  • Broader implications

    • Discuss what the impact of your research may have on your field and society at large

    • This can be a space where you discuss how the fellowship will help you attain your future career goals


  • Institution and relevant coursework

    • Briefly describe how your major advisor and university will help facilitate your research

    • List courses you have taken or anticipate to take that will advance your knowledge to facilitate your project


The reviewers are going to be experts as close to your topic of study as possible, but often it is uncommon to have someone from your specific field reviewing your content. Thus it is important that you do not get too much into the weeds and excessive use of jargon when describing your project. It’s important to have people outside of your research group review your content to make sure it is clear and easy to understand for those not familiar with your area of interest.


Adapting my NSF GRFP for the Ford Predoc


I applied for the NSF GRFP the same cycle I was applying for the Ford. If you are unfamiliar with what the NSF GRFP is check out the links below to learn more! I put in a lot of effort into making that proposal, so I adapted a lot of what I used for the Ford, since I already had a lot of the brainstorming completed. NSF GRFP has two essays, a personal statement and a research statement. It was intuitive for me to adapt my research statement for the GRFP for the plan of graduate study for the Ford Fellowship. Although there are different expectations for both of the research statements, I essentially had the bulk of my planned project already thought out. I just had to adapt it for a more general audience to read as well as including things such as the appropriate fit of my institution and advisor and relevant coursework.


Additionally, there is technically less space to write the essays for the Ford Fellowship than the NSF GRFP. Double spaced, two pages, and a 12 pt font is basically a page, maybe a page and half single spaced. So, I had to cut some things I had in my GRFP proposal, for example, I removed my citations from this proposal. They technically are not required, although one of my reviewers noted my lack of citations as an issue. In my GRFP, I personally had 4 citations, but there is not a minimum or maximum number on citations to have.


The personal statement of the GRFP expects applicants to speak on their intellectual merit and broader impacts. Intellectual merit meaning what are the ways you have demonstrated research and academic excellence and broader impacts being what has either your research had on society or what work you have done with outreach and inclusion of people historically excluded from research. My intellectual merit section for the GRFP basically lays out my previous research experiences, so I applied a lot of that to my previous research statement. I adapted a lot of my broader impacts section to my personal statement since I described a lot of my efforts of diversity and inclusion work in STEM.


However, where the two personal statements really differed is the huge emphasis on teaching pedagogy that Ford has. At the time I applied, teaching was something I did not have a lot of formal experience with, so I did find it intimidating as a first-year graduate student to “respond in pedagogically productive ways” as I never had any formal teaching experience aside from being an undergraduate TA. However I did lean on my UTA experience and discussed my future goals with dismantling eurocentric cis-het views in future classes I instruct. I relied on my former McNair advisor with this effort, and he referred me to papers that discuss teaching pedagogy in a multicultural context to help me understand what even is pedagogy.


Application Advice


Below is just general advice from my own experience applying for this Fellowship. Be mindful that not everything works for everyone, but I’m hoping some of what I have to share is useful to you in some way.

  • Create a strategic plan using SMART goals

    • Whether this is your first fellowship application or your 10th, having a set plan for how you will manage this task is important for pushing out your best application and saving you from a lot of stress and anxiety that comes from writing a fellowship

    • Using SMART Goals (more details on this here) helps make big goals into small, actionable tasks you can mark off

    • Doing this along side setting a timeline for your application will help you stay organized in the process

    • For example, a SMART Goal I would have is to write one paragraph for the previous research statement

      • Your self-imposed timeline can then be “I will have a 1st draft of my previous research statement done by October 31st”

      • You can be flexible with yourself if you don’t make your own deadlines because you made them, of course make sure you have these tasks done before the deadline in December

    • Ideally you would want to submit your application at least one day prior to the deadline to avoid any traffic that may crash the website on the day of the deadline


  • Address all positive factors for selection in all your essays

    • Cannot express enough how important this is. If you don’t address the majority of the positive factors then you make the reviewers job easier to not highly consider your application for acceptance. This fellowship has an acceptance rate of 3%-5%, so you want to make sure you address as much as positive in a limited space to make sure you are a competitive candidate


  • Highlight the parts of your essays that address what reviewers are looking for

    • To help visualize whether you are addressing the positive factors for selection you can see it by highlighting the prompts and where you addressed it in your essays

    • In the final stages of my own writing, I had a mentor highlight the text in my essay that answer the prompts addressed in the application instructions for applicants

      • For example, in the personal statement they highlighted each bullet point in a different color then went into my text to see how I address each of these points. The points that had the least amount of colors was where I identified where I should write more on and could take away some bits from parts of the text that addressed one of the bullet points the most


The Personal Statement Personal Statement Prompts are each highlighted in a different color. This way yourself or someone who is reviewing your document can highlight in the different colors which your documents reflect each of the prompts.
Highlighting prompts answered in your statements

  • Addressing your capacity to discuss teaching pedagogy when you have limited experience

    • If you are an undergrad applying or a 1st year grad student with no formal teaching experience this part of the application may seem daunting and even something you may neglect to address because you may feel like you cannot speak on your capacity to discuss pedagogical ways of the learning needs of students from diverse backgrounds

      • 1st recognize your experiences of teaching even if they were not formal teaching assistant experiences (e.g. tutoring, science outreach) and how you made those experiences inclusive of people from diverse backgrounds

      • Personally, I spoke to my goals and how I will develop my pedagogy during my PhD and identified teaching institutes on my campus that help train instructors to be more inclusive in your instruction even if you have limited teaching experience


  • Page limit struggles

    • Whatever you cannot fit in your personal statement that you may want to highlight, have one of your letters of recommendation highlight those experiences for you. It especially is helpful when your letter writers also reflects on components of your personal statement you do include

    • Also note that the margins are 1” top and bottom and 0.5 “ left and right, which helped a lot for me at the end when I thought I had to cut things!


  • Reduce passive voice when it is not necessary

    • You may hear this often to not use passive voice, but using a more active voice instead not only relays more confidence but can also save you space.

    • If you’re always writing “I hopefully will be able to” you can instead be more poignant and say “I will…” that saves you four words right there and you sound a lot more confident and sure of what you’re saying


  • Who to write the plan of graduate study with?

    • If you are a current graduate student already with a major advisor, you can work with your advisor to help you brainstorm and craft ideas of what your project will be

    • If you are applying without your major advisor deciding OR you are an undergraduate or person yet to be in a graduate program, it is okay to reach out to a faculty member who you view as your prospective lab of choice to collaborate with on writing this essay.

      • It is intimidating to send a cold email to a professor about wanting to work on a fellowship essay from the perspective of doing a project aligning with their interests. However, it is a great opportunity to foster connections with potential advisors and build vital communication skills.



Example Essays


Below is a document that includes all three essays that I submitted for the 2020 competition for the Ford Predoctoral Fellowship. The document also includes my reviewer's comments. If you are someone who applied to this fellowship and received an honorable mention or successfully won, please feel free to reach out to me if you are interested in sharing yours here as well!



Darby-A-2020-Ford-application-with-comments
.pdf
Download PDF • 371KB

Honorable Mention for Biomedical Sciences


Bovell _Ford_Predoc_Materials
.pdf
Download PDF • 430KB


Grant and Fellowship Writing Resources


Here is a collection of various articles and websites that provide more insight and strategies for applying for grants and fellowships.












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