NSF GRFP Acceptance Rate: About 18% in 2026
Quick Answer: The NSF GRFP acceptance rate was about 18% in 2026: NSF made offers for 2,500 fellowships from nearly 14,000 applicants.
Full answer and how we checked it
Another 1,470 applicants (about 10%) received Honorable Mention, which carries no money. Over the last decade NSF has offered roughly 2,000 to 2,600 fellowships a year from about 13,000 to 14,000 applications, a rate in the 15% to 20% range, except 2025, when the list shows only 1,500 offers. NSF estimates 1,500 awards for the 2027 competition.
This guide is for: undergraduate seniors, bachelor's degree holders and first-year graduate students weighing an NSF GRFP application, plus the advisors and fellowship offices who counsel them, who want the real acceptance rate and how it has moved year to year.
Data note: Offer and Honorable Mention counts come from a Grantsights pull of the official Research.gov GRFP awardee list (opens in a new tab) on November 2, 2026, one query per year and award type for 2015 to 2026, plus the list's own Excel export for the field counts. Applicant counts come only from NSF documents: the April 13, 2026 announcement (opens in a new tab), the FY2024 budget request (opens in a new tab) and the FY2025 budget request (opens in a new tab). Where NSF hasn't published an applicant count, this page doesn't estimate one. The Research.gov list can change after announcement day, so counts may differ slightly from NSF's press figures.
In this guide (11 sections)
- What Is the GRFP Acceptance Rate in 2026?
- GRFP Offers and Honorable Mentions by Year, 2015 to 2026
- Acceptance Rate in Every Year NSF Published an Applicant Count
- Why the 2025 and 2026 Counts Moved So Much
- The 2027 Outlook: 1,500 Awards Would Mean About 11%
- Offers and Honorable Mentions by Field, 2023 to 2026
- What NSF Doesn't Tell You About GRFP Odds
- How To Use These Numbers Before You Apply
- How the Data Was Pulled
- FAQ: Common Questions
- Sources
| Competition year | Applicants (NSF figure) | Offers (NSF figure or Research.gov list) | Acceptance rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Nearly 14,000 | 2,500 announced (2,597 on list) | About 18% |
| 2023 | About 13,000 | 2,555 on list | About 20% |
| 2022 | About 13,000 | 2,193 on list | About 17% |
| 2027 (estimate) | Not yet published | 1,500 estimated | Not yet known |
For the full program guide, eligibility rules and application advice, see the NSF GRFP guide. This page answers one question: how many applicants win, and how that number has changed.
What Is the GRFP Acceptance Rate in 2026?
About 18%. According to NSF's April 13, 2026 announcement (opens in a new tab), NSF made offers and will award 2,500 Graduate Research Fellowships for the 2026-2027 academic year, selected from "nearly 14,000 applicants." Divide 2,500 by 14,000 and you get 17.9%. Because NSF said "nearly," the true pool was a little under 14,000, so the real rate was a little above 17.9%.
NSF's GRFP additional FAQ (opens in a new tab) adds the second half of the result: "An additional 1,470 applicants were named as Honorable Mentions." That's about 10.5% of the pool. Put together, about 28% of 2026 applicants left with either an offer or an Honorable Mention, and about 72% received neither.
| 2026 outcome | Count | Share of nearly 14,000 applicants | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fellowship offers (announced) | 2,500 | About 17.9% | NSF announcement |
| Honorable Mentions (announced) | 1,470 | About 10.5% | NSF GRFP FAQ |
| Offer or Honorable Mention | 3,970 | About 28.4% | Sum of the two |
| Neither | About 10,000 | About 71.6% | Remainder |
| Offer records on Research.gov, Nov 2, 2026 | 2,597 | About 18.6% | Research.gov list |
| Honorable Mention records on Research.gov, Nov 2, 2026 | 1,442 | About 10.3% | Research.gov list |
The list and the announcement don't match exactly. Research.gov showed 2,597 offer records and 1,442 Honorable Mention records when Grantsights pulled it on November 2, 2026. The safest reading is that NSF announced 2,500 fellowships and the public list carries a slightly larger set of offer records. Either way, the rate rounds to about 18%.
One more wrinkle: the denominator includes applications that never reached a reviewer. NSF's FAQ says that "each year, hundreds of applications" are returned without review for eligibility or formatting problems, and an NSF 101 post on GRFP (opens in a new tab) puts formatting returns alone at "over 800 applications" a year. So the acceptance rate among applications that were actually reviewed runs a bit higher than 18%.
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GRFP Offers and Honorable Mentions by Year, 2015 to 2026
The Research.gov list is the only public year-by-year record of outcomes. Grantsights analysis of the list on November 2, 2026 counted 25,306 offer records across the 12 competitions from 2015 to 2026, an average of about 2,108 a year.
| Competition year | Offer records | Honorable Mention records | Change in offers vs prior year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2,050 | 1,901 | |
| 2016 | 2,048 | 2,865 | -2 |
| 2017 | 2,069 | 1,695 | +21 |
| 2018 | 2,056 | 1,366 | -13 |
| 2019 | 2,052 | 1,541 | -4 |
| 2020 | 2,076 | 1,787 | +24 |
| 2021 | 2,074 | 1,786 | -2 |
| 2022 | 2,193 | 1,377 | +119 |
| 2023 | 2,555 | 801 | +362 |
| 2024 | 2,036 | 1,719 | -519 |
| 2025 | 1,500 | 2,534 | -536 |
| 2026 | 2,597 | 1,442 | +1,097 |
Three patterns stand out. From 2015 to 2021, offers barely moved, staying between 2,048 and 2,076. In 2022 and 2023 they rose, reaching 2,555 in 2023, the year NSF's FY2025 budget request (opens in a new tab) lists a plan of 2,500 new fellows. Since 2024 the count has swung hard: 2,036, then 1,500, then 2,597.
Honorable Mentions don't track offers. They ranged from 801 (2023) to 2,865 (2016). In 2023, when offers hit their high, Honorable Mentions hit their low, which fits a fixed pool where more of the near-misses became winners. In 2025 the reverse happened: offers fell to 1,500 and the list shows 2,534 Honorable Mentions.
Offers also aren't the same as fellows who start. NSF's FY2022 budget request (opens in a new tab) reports 2,007 new fellows in FY2020, and the FY2023 request (opens in a new tab) reports 2,005 in FY2021. The Research.gov list shows 2,076 and 2,074 offers for those years, so roughly 70 offers a year weren't converted into new fellows in NSF's budget count. People decline, defer or fail the enrollment check.
Acceptance Rate in Every Year NSF Published an Applicant Count
NSF doesn't publish a single table of applications by year. Grantsights checked NSF's announcements, solicitations, FAQs and budget requests from FY2022 to FY2027 and found applicant counts for three competition years, plus a general statement.
| Year | NSF applicant statement | Offers | Acceptance rate | Offer or HM rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | "GRFP reviewed about 13,000 applications" (FY2024 budget request, on FY2022) | 2,193 | About 16.9% | About 27.5% |
| 2023 | "about 13,000 applications" (FY2025 budget request, on FY2023) | 2,555 | About 19.7% | About 25.8% |
| 2026 | "nearly 14,000 applicants" (April 13, 2026 announcement) | 2,500 announced | About 17.9% | About 28.4% |
| General | "nearly 14,000 applications are received for about 2,000 fellowships" (NSF 101 post) | About 2,000 | About 14% | Not stated |
The 2022 and 2023 applicant statements are on federal fiscal years. GRFP applications are due in October and results come out in April, both inside the same fiscal year, so FY2022 lines up with the 2022 competition. For 2015 to 2021, 2024 and 2025, Grantsights didn't find an NSF-published applicant count and doesn't print a rate for those years. Rates you see elsewhere for those years usually come from university slide decks, not NSF.
The honest summary: in years NSF documents, roughly 1 in 5 or 6 applicants got an offer, and a little over 1 in 4 got an offer or an Honorable Mention.
Why the 2025 and 2026 Counts Moved So Much
2025: about 1,000 offers in April, 1,500 by June. The 2025 solicitation, NSF 24-591 (opens in a new tab), said NSF "will support up to 2,300 new Graduate Research Fellowships per fiscal year." The first round fell well short. C&EN reported that NSF made 1,000 offers in April 2025 and that on June 13, 2025, "504 applicants were suddenly pulled from the GRFP honorable mention list and offered fully-funded fellowships," bringing the total to 1,500. Research.gov now lists 1,500 offers for 2025. NSF didn't publish an applicant count for 2025, so the 2025 rate can't be stated from NSF figures, but against a pool anywhere near 13,000 it would be the lowest rate in this table.
2026: 2,500 announced, with tighter eligibility. For the 2026 competition, NSF 25-547 (opens in a new tab) revised eligibility, and NSF's FAQ spells out the two changes: an applicant "must not have completed more than one academic year in a graduate program," and "clinical psychology degree programs are no longer eligible." Second-year graduate students, who could apply under NSF 24-591, were cut from the pool. NSF 25-547 didn't give an estimated number of awards; NSF then announced 2,500 in April 2026.
Funding behind the swings. NSF's FY2027 budget request (opens in a new tab) shows $433.00 million for GRFP in the FY2025 current plan and requests $246.54 million for FY2027, a 43.1% cut. Its FY2026 request (opens in a new tab) had asked for $127.29 million, down 55.3% from $284.52 million. The budget documents don't break those dollars into new versus continuing fellows, so they don't map neatly onto offer counts.
The 2027 Outlook: 1,500 Awards Would Mean About 11%
The 2027 solicitation, NSF 26-526 (opens in a new tab), posted August 25, 2026, lists an "Estimated Number of Awards: 1,500." NSF's FY2027 budget request says, "In FY 2027, NSF intends to fund 1,500 new fellows." Applications closed October 19 to 23, 2026, and NSF says results arrive by early April; the GRFP results date guide covers that timeline.
| 2027 scenario | Applicants | Awards | Acceptance rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pool like 2026 | 14,000 | 1,500 | About 10.7% |
| Pool like 2022 and 2023 | 13,000 | 1,500 | About 11.5% |
| Smaller pool after eligibility cuts | 11,000 | 1,500 | About 13.6% |
| If Congress funds more awards | 14,000 | 2,000 | About 14.3% |
These are arithmetic scenarios, not forecasts. NSF hasn't published a 2027 applicant count, and the 1,500 figure is an estimate that NSF ties to appropriations. NSF 26-526 also removed one field and several subfields for 2027, according to NSF's FAQ, and keeps the one-year limit for graduate applicants, so the pool could shrink. The common mistake is to plan around the 2026 rate. If NSF funds 1,500, the 2027 rate will be well below 2026's 18% unless the applicant pool drops by thousands.
Offers and Honorable Mentions by Field, 2023 to 2026
NSF doesn't publish applicants by field, so no one can give a true acceptance rate by field. What the Research.gov export does show is where the offers went. Grantsights counted the offer records by top-level field of study for the last four competitions.
| Field (Research.gov top-level field) | 2023 offers | 2024 offers | 2025 offers | 2026 offers | 2026 share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | 691 | 532 | 406 | 913 | 35.2% |
| Life Sciences | 638 | 499 | 214 | 486 | 18.7% |
| Computer and Information Science and Engineering | 182 | 151 | 208 | 260 | 10.0% |
| Chemistry | 224 | 182 | 154 | 214 | 8.2% |
| Physics and Astronomy | 175 | 144 | 166 | 170 | 6.5% |
| Geosciences | 161 | 134 | 84 | 165 | 6.4% |
| Social Sciences | 152 | 126 | 79 | 124 | 4.8% |
| Mathematical Sciences | 102 | 83 | 56 | 95 | 3.7% |
| Materials Research | 68 | 55 | 63 | 89 | 3.4% |
| Psychology | 139 | 112 | 56 | 62 | 2.4% |
| STEM Education and Learning Research | 23 | 18 | 14 | 19 | 0.7% |
| Total | 2,555 | 2,036 | 1,500 | 2,597 | 100% |
The shift is large. Engineering went from 27.0% of offers in 2023 to 35.2% in 2026. Life Sciences fell from 25.0% to 18.7%, and Psychology from 5.4% to 2.4%. Computer and information science rose from 7.1% to 10.0%. That matches NSF's stated emphasis: the 2027 solicitation says NSF "will continue to emphasize high priority research areas aligned with Administration priorities," and the 2026 FAQ refers to "national workforce demand in critical STEM fields."
The Honorable Mention list adds a second signal. In 2026, Grantsights counted how the recognized applicants in each field (offer plus Honorable Mention) split between the two outcomes.
| Field, 2026 | Offers | Honorable Mentions | Offers as share of recognized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | 913 | 128 | 87.7% |
| Life Sciences | 486 | 573 | 45.9% |
| Computer and Information Science and Engineering | 260 | 18 | 93.5% |
| Chemistry | 214 | 224 | 48.9% |
| Physics and Astronomy | 170 | 171 | 49.9% |
| Geosciences | 165 | 215 | 43.4% |
| Social Sciences | 124 | 4 | 96.9% |
| Psychology | 62 | 87 | 41.6% |
This isn't an acceptance rate, because applicants who got nothing aren't on either list. But it's a red flag for anyone in life sciences, chemistry, physics, geosciences or psychology: in 2026, more than half of the recognized applicants in those fields received Honorable Mention instead of money, while in engineering and computing almost every recognized applicant got an offer. In 2025 the split was even sharper for life sciences: 214 offers against 961 Honorable Mentions.
What NSF Doesn't Tell You About GRFP Odds
NSF doesn't publish acceptance rates by applicant level. Grantsights found no NSF table of applicants or awards by stage (undergraduate senior, bachelor's degree holder, first-year graduate student). The Research.gov list shows name, baccalaureate institution, field of study and current institution, not level, so the list can't be used to count it either. Anyone quoting a rate for seniors versus graduate students is using a non-NSF source.
The level rules changed, so older comparisons break. Under NSF 24-591, second-year graduate students could apply. Under NSF 25-547 and NSF 26-526, graduate applicants must be in the first year of their first graduate degree program, and NSF 26-526 says plainly that "Second-year graduate students are not eligible to apply." Undergraduate seniors and bachelor's holders who haven't enrolled in graduate school "can apply unlimited times before enrolling in a graduate degree program." For a senior, that means the real decision isn't one roll of the dice: a senior who misses can apply again as a bachelor's holder or once as a first-year graduate student.
Rates by field are guesses unless someone has applicant counts. The field tables above show where offers went, not how hard each field was. A field with many offers may simply have had many applicants.
Returned applications sit inside the denominator. Hundreds of applications a year never reach review. That's a cost you control. Read the page limits and eligible field lists in the solicitation twice, and don't propose research with direct health or disease goals, which NSF lists as ineligible.
An Honorable Mention isn't always final. In 2025, NSF converted 504 Honorable Mentions to fellowships in June. NSF also runs the EPSCoR Graduate Fellowship Program (opens in a new tab), which funds institutions in EPSCoR jurisdictions to support students who received a GRFP Honorable Mention "within the last three years" at the GRFP rates of $37,000 stipend and $16,000 cost of education.
How To Use These Numbers Before You Apply
Here's how the acceptance rate should change a decision, by applicant type.
| Applicant | What the numbers say | Next action |
|---|---|---|
| Undergraduate senior | About 18% in 2026, likely lower if 2027 funds 1,500; unlimited tries before grad school | Apply if your research plan and letters are ready; a miss isn't your last chance |
| Bachelor's holder not yet enrolled | Same pool and odds; still unlimited tries before enrolling | Apply; use research experience since graduation as evidence |
| First-year graduate student | One attempt only, in the first year of the first graduate degree | Don't apply until the plan is strong, because there's no second graduate-year try |
| Second-year graduate student | Not eligible under NSF 25-547 or NSF 26-526 | Skip GRFP; look at university fellowships, NIH F31 or advisor support |
| Applicant in life sciences, chemistry, physics, geosciences or psychology | 2026 offers went to under half of recognized applicants in these fields | Apply, but plan for an Honorable Mention outcome and line up a backup |
| Applicant proposing health or disease research | Ineligible areas are returned without review | Wrong route; compare NIH fellowships such as the F31 |
For example, one applicant from a physics program who applies as a senior and receives Honorable Mention can apply again as a first-year graduate student, while one applicant who first applies in the first graduate year gets a single shot. The arithmetic favors applying early when the application is ready.
Students on the biomedical side of the line should look at NIH's route instead; the F31 success rates by institute show NIH's numbers. For writing advice, the Intellectual Merit guide and the Broader Impacts guide cover the two review criteria, and the GRFP winners and award history page shows what the awardee roster can and can't tell you about who wins. Faculty and labs looking past the fellowship can search NSF programs in the free NSF funding hub.
How the Data Was Pulled
On November 2, 2026, Grantsights submitted the public search form on the Research.gov GRFP awardee list (opens in a new tab) once for each competition year from 2015 to 2026 and each award type (Offered Award and Honorable Mention), with a pause between requests, and recorded the "Applicants found" count the form returned. For 2023 to 2026 offers and 2025 to 2026 Honorable Mentions, it downloaded the list's Excel export and counted records by the top-level field before the first hyphen in the "Field of Study" column.
Applicant counts were taken word for word from NSF documents and not adjusted. Rates were computed as offers divided by applicants and rounded to one decimal place. Where a document says "about" or "nearly," the rate is labeled "about."
What this method can't do: it can't see applicants who received neither outcome, it can't separate seniors from graduate students, and it reflects the list as of the pull date, which can change after announcements.
FAQ: Common Questions
What is the NSF GRFP acceptance rate?
About 18% in 2026: 2,500 offers from nearly 14,000 applicants. NSF budget documents put the 2022 and 2023 pools at about 13,000 applications each, giving about 17% for 2022 and about 20% for 2023.
How many people apply to the NSF GRFP each year?
Roughly 13,000 to 14,000, according to NSF's budget requests and its 2026 announcement. NSF hasn't published an exact count for every year.
What percentage of GRFP applicants get Honorable Mention?
About 10% in 2026, when NSF named 1,470 Honorable Mentions. About 28% of 2026 applicants received an offer or an Honorable Mention.
Why did the GRFP award fewer fellowships in 2025?
NSF made about 1,000 offers in April 2025 and added 504 in June by converting Honorable Mentions, for 1,500 in total. The solicitation had said NSF would support up to 2,300.
How many GRFP fellowships will NSF award in 2027?
NSF estimates 1,500 in NSF 26-526 and its FY2027 budget request. With a pool like 2026's, that would mean an acceptance rate near 11%.
Does NSF publish GRFP acceptance rates by field or by applicant level?
No. Research.gov shows offers and Honorable Mentions by field, but NSF doesn't publish applicants by field or by level, so true rates for those groups can't be calculated.
Sources
- NSF, NSF announces 2026 Graduate Research Fellowship Program award offers (opens in a new tab), April 13, 2026, accessed November 2, 2026
- NSF, Additional FAQ: NSF GRFP (opens in a new tab), NSF 26-205, last updated October 5, 2026, accessed November 2, 2026
- Research.gov, GRFP awardee list (opens in a new tab), queried November 2, 2026
- NSF, GRFP solicitation NSF 26-526 (2027 competition) (opens in a new tab), posted August 25, 2026
- NSF, GRFP solicitation NSF 25-547 (2026 competition) (opens in a new tab), posted September 26, 2025
- NSF, GRFP solicitation NSF 24-591 (2025 competition) (opens in a new tab), posted July 12, 2024
- NSF, FY2027 Budget Request to Congress (opens in a new tab)
- NSF, FY2026 Budget Request to Congress (opens in a new tab)
- NSF, FY2025 Budget Request to Congress (opens in a new tab)
- NSF, FY2024 Budget Request to Congress (opens in a new tab)
- NSF, FY2023 Budget Request to Congress (opens in a new tab) and FY2022 Budget Request to Congress (opens in a new tab)
- NSF, NSF 101: The Graduate Research Fellowship Program (opens in a new tab), July 26, 2021, updated June 15, 2026
- NSF, EPSCoR Graduate Fellowship Program (opens in a new tab), accessed November 2, 2026
- C&EN, NSF names 504 new graduate research fellows (opens in a new tab), June 2025
Last updated November 2, 2026. Published by Grantsights from public sources. See our editorial policy, how we build and check guides, corrections and how we make money.
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