Who can apply?
NSF-funded REU participants must be undergraduate students pursuing an associate or bachelor's degree and be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals or permanent residents. Individual sites can add restrictions, such as eligible academic years or prerequisite courses. Community college attendance is not a program-wide exclusion.
Read the site's eligibility paragraph before writing its essay. A strong research interest will not resolve a requirement to return to undergraduate study after the summer, where a site imposes one. Likewise, the absence of previous lab employment is not automatically a disqualification: use the experience requirements of that site.
Sources[1]
Find the sites, then follow their application links
Search NSF's REU directory by subject and location, then open the individual program pages. ETAP is another application route, but NSF says it does not contain every opportunity. A search confined to ETAP can therefore miss relevant sites.
For a first pass, keep a small table: site, project or research theme, deadline, work dates, application destination, required letters and housing. Put a site with no current-cycle instructions in a separate revisit group rather than spending an afternoon preparing its old application.
There is also a less visible route: an investigator with an NSF award may support an undergraduate through an REU supplement. A professor already working in your area may know whether that is possible. This is a question for the investigator, not a separate student application sent to NSF.
Sources[1]
Show a question, a method and something you noticed
Use the site's prompt to connect one piece of preparation to its research. Coursework is useful when you explain a decision you made, not merely name the class. The following is an invented example of a student applying to a hypothetical freshwater-measurement project; it is not a claim about an actual REU site.
In an environmental science course, I compared water-quality readings collected on different days. Our group initially treated the readings as directly comparable. I noticed that the sampling times differed, so I separated the observations by collection period before interpreting the pattern. That exercise made me interested in how sampling design affects the conclusions researchers can draw. Your project's focus on freshwater monitoring fits that question. I can contribute careful data organization and basic analysis, and I want to learn how a field team chooses sampling locations and checks measurement quality.
The useful detail is the student's change in interpretation. Replace the example with a decision from your own work. Then add one specific connection to the actual site; changing only the program name leaves the most important part unwritten.
Give each referee one clear request
Ask someone who has seen you solve a problem, learn a method or respond to feedback. Send the site's prompt, your draft statement, a short reminder of the work you did with them and the submission deadline. A message can be simple: 'Would you be comfortable writing about my work on the sampling project for this REU? The letter is due [date] through [system]. I have attached the prompt and a one-page summary of the project.'
Record whether each site has received its letters. Two programs sharing a platform does not establish that every required submission is complete. Finish the application's own final submission step rather than stopping after uploading a transcript.
A larger stipend can leave less money
Compare the support package over the same period. These two ten-week offers are fictional. The calculation subtracts only the listed expenses and is before tax; it is not a market estimate or a complete personal budget.
| Item | Site A | Site B |
|---|---|---|
| Stipend | $6,000 | $7,200 |
| Housing expense | $0; housing provided | $2,400 |
| Travel and food | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| Stipend minus listed expenses | $5,000 | $3,800 |
- Site B advertises $1,200 more but leaves $1,200 less after these expenses.
- Ask who will supervise your day-to-day work and what you could complete during the placement.
- For reimbursement, ask when it arrives. A later payment does not cover a deposit due before you move.