Goldwater Scholarship

Background

The Goldwater Scholarship is a national award financed by Congress that “seeks to identify and support college sophomores and juniors who show exceptional promise of becoming this Nation’s next generation of research leaders in the natural sciences, engineering and mathematics.”

The selection criteria a “strong commitment to a research career in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering, effective display of intellectual intensity, and potential for a significant future contribution to research in his/her chosen field.”

I applied for the Goldwater Scholarship through UCLA and was awarded a Goldwater Scholarship in 2020.

Resources

While the Goldwater website contains tips and advice that you should read if you intend to apply, and it is straight forward to find advice through a Google search, it is rather difficult to find examples of successful applications. Here I have compiled a list of applications that won a Goldwater Scholarship or honorable mention.

Old Format

The first application is from Joe Schall’s 2006 essay book, Joe Schall’s 2006 Book (which has two more old-format Goldwater essays), and the rest are from the 2005 competition. The old format applications have a 1.5 page research essay.

New format

Here are some applications, including my 2020 application. The new format applications have a 3 page research essay.

Other Resources

Here is a document describing the Goldwater Scholarship and the “ideal essay” written in 2013 by the president of the Goldwater foundation.

The Goldwater Scholarship is very similar to the NSF GRFP application. Goldwater asks to describe your previous research while GRFP asks you to propose future research, and Goldwater has many short-answer sections while GRFP has one three-page personal statement. For good advice on GRFP and many successful GRFP applications, check out Alex Lang’s site.

Tips

While it helps to have a high GPA, this is a research focused scholarship not an academic scholarship, so an applicant with a 3.7 GPA, a couple conference presentations, and strong letters of recommendation from research mentors is a much stronger candidate than one with a 4.0 GPA who is just beginning research.

Get external feedback on your application. By seeking out help, your application will become the best it can be.