While I am happy that this worked out for you, I would caution others against trying to get into PhD programs on a last-minute basis after receiving the GRFP. I had a NSF GRFP fellowship (in “chemistry of life processes” not computer science) and this was my experience:
I was in a rather unusual but broadly similar situation, and ended up needing to enroll in a PhD program to avoid losing my GRFP while I did a 1-year Master’s program in England through the Churchill scholarship. None of the PhD programs I wanted would let me do this, so what I ended up having to do is formally enroll in the PhD program at my undergrad school, and then transfer. I made the deadline by about 3 days and was very stressed out.
This is good advice. It is very helpful to 1) have a home school that will let you stick around as a backup and 2) have a sufficiently general research topic and flexibility to apply to make many schools be good fits.
While I am happy that this worked out for you, I would caution others against trying to get into PhD programs on a last-minute basis after receiving the GRFP. I had a NSF GRFP fellowship (in “chemistry of life processes” not computer science) and this was my experience:
I was in a rather unusual but broadly similar situation, and ended up needing to enroll in a PhD program to avoid losing my GRFP while I did a 1-year Master’s program in England through the Churchill scholarship. None of the PhD programs I wanted would let me do this, so what I ended up having to do is formally enroll in the PhD program at my undergrad school, and then transfer. I made the deadline by about 3 days and was very stressed out.
This is good advice. It is very helpful to 1) have a home school that will let you stick around as a backup and 2) have a sufficiently general research topic and flexibility to apply to make many schools be good fits.