The Power to Grant

With $10,000 of hard-won cash and four awards in as many years, Jeffrey Kwong ’08-’09 is a grant-writing machine. As early as his freshman year, Kwong started on the road to success when he received funding for language study at a Harvard Summer School Program in Korea. Kwong walked away with $3,000—a sum which he calls “average” in a program with an upper limit of around $5,000.

After years of raking in the Benjamins, Kwong has a system to navigate the often arduous process of grant applications: “The secret is to apply to the ones that are unpopular,” he says. Because all Harvard Summer School Programs have a fixed amount of financial aid to give out, the programs with the fewest applicants dole out the most cash per person.

“For Scandinavian countries that no one ever applies to, you get ridiculous amounts of awards,” Kwong says. Note to freshmen: Sweden’s where it’s at.

But not all grants are created equal, and not all programs are as easy to work. Even for a pro like Kwong, Harvard’s complicated thesis research grant program proved difficult to navigate. Over 30 different institutions at Harvard offer thesis research grants to undergraduates, and although a common application exists, it isn’t widley used. Students must provide extensive supplementary materials—in addition to the standard transcript and letters of recommendation, applicants are required to submit a proposal and budget that detail exactly what they intend to research, how they intend to do it, and how much it will cost.

Estimating the cost of living in rural China—or wherever research may lead—isn’t an easy task, as Kwong points out. Students juggling coursework and clubs—and especially those unfamiliar with grant applications—often seek a helping hand to guide them through the process. Unfortunately, help is not always easy to find.

HELP! I NEED SOME MONEY

Harvard has several resources for undergraduates seeking advice on the grant process, but none specifically targets thesis research. For general advice on grant applications, undergraduates can turn to the Office of Career Services (OCS). According to Adonica Lui, the assistant director for fellowships at OCS, the office has several informational meetings about how to write a proposal, how to choose a fellowship, and how to develop a budget.

But the fellowships office is not the best place to turn for close, individual attention. Lui says that because she and the other fellowship director sit on selection committees, they are unable to help students with specific applications. Instead, Lui says, “the Houses are the frontline advisors for feedback on drafts.”

Each House has its own fellowship tutor to give feedback and advice grant applications, but the number of tutors, as well as “the quality and the level of knowledge vary,” says Lui.

Jacob S. Jost is a fellowship tutor in Dunster House, and is on the “frontline” of grant advising. But Jost says that “thesis research grants aren’t really emphasized” in the fellowship tutor training. “My job is to help inform people, send out deadline reminders, and refer people to places where they can get answers,” Jost says of summer thesis research grants.

Without any institutional advising, students like Kwong are left to learn mostly through trial and error. “I never get grants from The Weatherhead Center [for International Affairs] because they’re looking for certain types of applications,” he says of the hit-or-miss system. “I always pay attention to their research presentations and the topics that they go for…to make sure [my proposals] are attractive to the committee.”

24-CARAT GOLD

While advising remains inconsistent, the application process for summer thesis research grants is starting to become more organized. The Common Application for Research and Travel (CARAT) centralizes applications for 28 offices offering close to 40 awards. OCS also coordinates the application process for the 15 international centers that participate. Since 1999, the applications to these centers have tripled—over 600 applications this year.

The CARAT has certainly made things easier for students, but it was originally designed with the needs of the grant-giving institutions in mind. Since centers now have access to the list of applicants for other grants, they can coordinate their funding decisions. In the past, students received separate award letters from each institution and were responsible for reporting their awards to other offices. Now, these letters are condensed into one check that lists which offices provided which portion of the total money awarded.

“Now you don’t have one student who comes away with more money than he can really use at the expense of some students not getting enough,” says Meg B. Swift ’93, director of Student Employment and Undergraduate Research Programs, which runs the Harvard College Research Program.

In spite of the benefits on both ends of the system, the CARAT could still use some improvements. “I don’t understand why I can’t electronically submit my applications,” Kwong says. “Everything is electronic but they make us print it out.”

‘PROSTITUTES IN THE LOBBY’

Even after scoring some cash for his thesis research—a total of $7,000 from three different institutions—Kwong found that the process didn’t get any easier.

“You don’t really know how much you’re going to spend,” Kwong says. “I ended up spending half of my budget on photocopying stuff and shipping [the copies] back to the United States.” Most offices provide budget guidelines on the application, but a significant amount of the grant is often spent on unanticipated necessities.

But when changes to the budget do arise, the grant-giving offices are typically forgiving. They will not provide additional funds, but they will understand minor deviations from the original budget. Even major changes are accepted in exceptional circumstances. Deep in rural China, Kwong says he had to stay four nights in a five star hotel because the only other option “had prostitutes in the lobby.”

Kwong’s summer adventure taught him that the relationship with the grant-giving office does not end as soon as the check is cashed. Almost all institutions require grant recipients to submit copies of their theses, but some play a bigger role in the writing process. For example, the Harvard College Research Program requires students to display their work during pre-frosh weekend.

As the grant application process is slowly clarified, perhaps more students will take advantage of funding opportunities—a choice that would be very much to their advantage. According to Kwong, applying for grants to pursue independent research is one of the most educative experiences available at Harvard.

“Because of this grant-writing process, I want to go into academia,” he says. “It’s not just money.”