Are there certain numbers of fellowships set aside for each discipline, or is it competitive across fields?
The fellowships are meant to be distributed to the most meritorious of applicants. Effort will be made to encourage fellowships across all fields. However, due to funding constraints, a maximum of only two awards per department can be expected. For this reason, it is important to discuss your proposal and its merits with your departmental representative before compiling a proposal. Even excellent proposals may not be funded due to fiscal constraints. We know that rejection is disappointing and demotivating, but it is also a valid part of the scientific experience. Although your discussions with your departmental representative can provide some guidance, you should not expect your probability of success to be better than 50% (by comparison, 75% of proposals to NSF are rejected) such statistics dictate that a maximum of 4 students per department should be encouraged to develop proposals.
