Grants and Writing Resources for Harvard University

In the 2025-26 academic year, eight Harvard College students won Rhodes Scholarships, four were named 2026 Marshall Scholars, and 23 received Fulbright awards for 2026-27, according to A Remarkable Year of Achievement at Harvard College. Campus prizes were counted too. The same report lists 71 seniors who won the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize for their undergraduate work, and each student winner receives $5,000.

Prizes for Essays and Theses

The Hoopes Prize rewards outstanding scholarly work or research by undergraduates, including research projects and written work done under faculty supervision. Faculty make the nominations. Each student winner receives $5,000, and the faculty member who nominated the project receives $2,000. Winning written projects are bound and kept in Lamont Library for two years.

Essayists can enter the Bowdoin Prizes. Undergraduate Essays in the English Language and Graduate Essays in the English Language each offer two prizes of $5,000 for essays of high literary merit in any field, written for the non-specialist and capped at 7,500 words. A thesis or dissertation chapter qualifies once it is revised to stand alone as a complete essay. The graduate and undergraduate Bowdoin lists also include prizes for essays in the natural sciences and for composition or translation in Greek and Latin.

Research Funding

Undergraduates from every concentration can apply to the Harvard College Research Program, run by the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, which supports independent research or creative work with a Harvard-affiliated faculty mentor in term time and over the summer. The student directs the project.

Doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences can apply for a Graduate Society Summer Predissertation Fellowship, a $3,000 award for summer language study or early dissertation research and fieldwork. For a full year of research abroad, GSAS runs five Traveling Fellowships through a single application. The 2026-27 stipend was $38,000. The Harvard Griffin GSAS Student Council also gives grants for conferences and for summer research and travel.

Fellowships for Doctoral Writers

Eligible humanities and social sciences students are guaranteed a Dissertation Completion Fellowship between their G4 and G7 years. The fellowship covers an academic year of writing to complete the dissertation. Harvard research centers offer their own completion fellowships. At the Radcliffe Institute, dissertation completion fellows get a stipend at or above the standard GSAS amount and a private workspace in Byerly Hall. They can also draw up to $750 for travel to conferences and job interviews.

Earlier in the degree, Merit and Beeuwkes awards free a student for a term of research and writing once generals are passed and the prospectus is approved. Both last one term. Doctoral students with findings can also compete in GSAS's Three Minute Thesis competition, where first place pays $1,000.

Where Student Work Appears

Finished GSAS dissertations go into DASH, Harvard's open-access repository, and into ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. An approved embargo keeps the full text closed for a set time while the abstract stays public. Embargoes are rare. Undergraduate writers can join The Harvard Advocate, the student organization that publishes the literary magazine of the same name and runs readings and literary contests.

Writing Centers

The Harvard College Writing Center helps undergraduates with any writing assignment, and it also helps with fellowship applications and graduate school admissions essays. Students can book an appointment at any stage of a draft or come to drop-in hours. Seniors writing a thesis can get Senior Thesis Tutoring.

Graduate students work with the GSAS Fellowships & Writing Center. Through its writing consultations, specialists give written feedback and then meet with the student about the argument and structure of course papers, prospectuses, articles, dissertation chapters, and fellowship essays. Students tell their specialist ahead of time what they want to work on.

When a paper, thesis, or dissertation is ready for a final edit, our editors can help. See our Harvard University dissertation and thesis editing and Harvard University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.