I am currently a 3rd year EE student at a top 10 engineering school. Would I start applying to fellowships now or in my senior year? I want to look into some prestigious fellowships such as Hertz, NDSEG, and NSF to have as a massive gold star on my application to Stanford and MIT PhD program. Even if I can't apply to some at this point because I am a junior, is there anything I can do to prepare myself to be as competitive as possible to receive one of these fellowships?