Make a good story about how you want your work to help other people, and also play up the diversity angle if you have something like an immigrant parent. That's what my NSF friends did (except those who were so excellent that they didn't have to jump through hoops).
The cost you pay for this is that your place in grad school and your fellowship are now predicated on your ability to bullshit. This emotional weight may be worse than just plain not getting the shiniest fellowships, or into the most prestigious school.
Yeah...sometimes that works. But if you and your friends thought of it, what makes you think that every other smart grad student in the country didn't think of it, too? (Except for the "have an immigrant parent" part, of course.)
