Grants and Writing Resources for Penn State University
Two Penn State undergraduates won 2026-27 Goldwater Scholarships in April 2026. One majors in computer science and mathematics and plans doctoral work in a computational field. The other studies engineering science and physics and is headed for a Ph.D. in materials science. The national program picks 300 undergraduates a year in the natural sciences, engineering and mathematics.
Undergraduate Research Money
The Discovery Summer Research Grant, formerly the Erickson Discovery Grant, pays for about eight weeks of half-time summer work on an independent project. The idea has to be the student's, or a project the student leads. Funds cover living expenses and project costs such as supplies, books, specialized software and travel for data collection. Applicants need a Penn State research mentor and at least one semester left after the funded summer, and a student can hold the grant only once. Each recipient presents a poster.
Students at Commonwealth Campuses who have been accepted to present at a professional conference can request conference travel support: up to $400 for a trip to University Park and up to $700 for a conference elsewhere. Posters, talks, performances and entrepreneurial demonstrations all qualify. The academic colleges keep separate conference funds.
Exhibitions and Research Prizes
Every spring the Undergraduate Exhibition takes posters, oral presentations and performances from undergraduates at every Penn State campus, provided the project has a faculty mentor. Faculty, postdocs and doctoral students judge the entries, and the top entries in each category win cash prizes. University Libraries adds its Undergraduate Research Award: Excellence in Information Literacy, which in its ninth year, spring 2026, went to more than 100 students at 19 campuses. Judges score how students chose, used and cited their sources. At University Park the 2026 grand prize carried $500.
Graduate students have had the Graduate Exhibition since 1986. The 2026 edition drew 260 participants, 214 of them with research posters, and named 32 award recipients. Entries can also be art, design, performance or video. In the Three Minute Thesis competition, students first submit a three-minute video with a single slide; ten finalists then present live at University Park, and first place in the 2026-27 competition pays $2,500.
Writing Prizes and Student Magazines
The English department runs six undergraduate writing contests, open to every full-time undergraduate at any campus, BA/MA students included. The Cranage Award and the two Nichols Awards are reserved for poetry, fiction and nonfiction written in beginning writing courses. All other work goes to the Lehman and Mihelcic poetry awards and the Lehman awards in fiction and in nonfiction and journalism. A selection committee sets the prize money for each category.
Kalliope, the undergraduate literary magazine, prints a fall chapbook of micro fiction, micro nonfiction, short poetry and greyscale art, then its main magazine in the spring. Reading committees choose the work. Its online sister journal, KLIO, takes music, dance and film as well as writing and visual art; the 2026 issue is Volume 10. Peer tutors publish in The Dangling Modifier, an international online publication edited by the Writing Center at Penn State Learning in association with the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing.
Fellowships and Graduate Awards
Undergraduate Research and Fellowships Mentoring (URFM) advises students on 21 major fellowships, among them the Goldwater, Truman, Udall, Marshall and Rhodes scholarships and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Staff give detailed feedback on application materials. First- through third-year students can start earlier with the Spark Program, a free seven-week non-credit course that covers résumés and personal statements.
The Fox Graduate School gives a set of student recognition awards each year. Doctoral programs nominate final-year students for the Alumni Association Dissertation Award, with at least two awards made in each of five fields, from arts and humanities to engineering. The Distinguished Master's Thesis Award is for M.A. and M.S. students in their final year with a GPA of at least 3.5. When thesis or dissertation research takes place outside the United States, the Graduate Student International Research Award can pay for travel and living costs along with research expenses such as lab or field supplies and translation fees.
Writing Help and Thesis Review
Undergraduates get free writing tutoring from Penn State Learning. The tutors are undergraduates who have finished a semester of tutor training. Students can drop in at 220 Boucke or The Search Bar in Pattee Library, book 30-minute sessions in person or on Zoom, or send up to six pages for written and video feedback.
The Graduate Writing Center has served graduate students since January 1999. Its consultants are doctoral students in English, and they meet writers in Sidewater Commons at Pattee Library or online, on anything from a thesis chapter to a conference talk. Consultants advise on style and leave line editing and proofreading to hired editors; the center keeps a list of editors and suggests asking any editor for references and samples.
Finished theses and dissertations go to the Office of Theses and Dissertations, which checks format and Graduate School requirements against the Thesis and Dissertation Handbook. The handbook asks for clear, grammatically correct English, tells authors to proofread carefully before final submission, and allows no changes after approval. Approved work is published in Penn State's Electronic Theses and Dissertations collection, which holds more than 22,000 graduate works.
Before a thesis goes to the Office of Theses and Dissertations, our editors can give it a final check for grammar, consistency and format. See our Penn State University dissertation and thesis editing and Penn State University 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 Penn State University, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your Penn State writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.