Grants and Writing Resources for Massachusetts Institute of Technology
In November 2025, two MIT seniors, one in chemical engineering and one in biological engineering, were named 2026 Rhodes Scholars along with two recent graduates. One of those alumni, a 2025 business analytics graduate, is MIT's Rhodes Zimbabwe Scholar and plans graduate study in social data science and public policy at Oxford.
Research for Undergraduates
Through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, undergraduates join faculty research for pay or for academic credit, and some volunteer. Some positions are paid directly by UROP and others by a department's sponsored research.
Students with a project of their own design can propose it for a Peter J. Eloranta Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, awarded each spring. Each fellowship is $8,000 and can cover living expenses as well as project costs. The project can be in any field, and it has to be the student's own plan, though it may grow out of earlier UROP work.
The Karmel Writing Prizes
Every May the Comparative Media Studies/Writing program awards the Ilona Karmel Writing Prizes, named for a novelist and poet who taught in MIT's Writing program. First-year students have the Ellen King Prize, and undergraduates can enter the Robert A. Boit Writing Prize for essays, poems and stories, with $700 for first place. Science fiction, science writing for the public, engineering documents and autobiographical essays each have a prize of their own. The Obermayer Prizes for writing on how innovation happens pay graduate students up to $2,000 for public writing and $1,000 for academic work.
Fellowships and Graduate Awards
Each year more than 120 new graduate students start MIT as Presidential Fellows, with tuition and a monthly stipend covered for the first nine months. Departments nominate them; students can't apply. Later in their degrees, students nominated by their departments can be considered for the Hugh Hampton Young Fellowship, a nine- to twelve-month award sized to the student's needs. Its committee weighs character and leadership more heavily than grades. The Office of Graduate Education also runs an annual competition for its endowed fellowships and supplemental awards.
Writing and Communication Help
The Writing and Communication Center works with students and postdocs from every department on writing and presentations. That includes thesis proposals and dissertation chapters. Besides one-on-one consultations, it runs academic writing workshops and an online program called Writing Together Online.
Journals and Theses
The MIT Undergraduate Research Journal is a peer-reviewed science journal for MIT undergraduates. Its latest issue is Volume 51. Graduate work ends up in the MIT Theses collection in DSpace@MIT, which holds more than 58,000 theses going back to the mid-1800s, open to all readers.
For a final edit before submission, our PhD-level editors work with MIT students at every level. See our Massachusetts Institute of Technology dissertation and thesis editing and Massachusetts Institute of Technology essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.
From Our Writing Guides
Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Managing Editor of Editors For Students. Links checked October 2026.
Editors For Students is an independent editorial service and is not affiliated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your MIT writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.