Competition Grows For Summer Funding

Harvard undergraduates received over $2.6 million in grant funding for summer projects last week, but this year’s grant applicants faced increased competition as more students searched for alternatives to paid internships in light of continued weak economic conditions.

“We had the same amount of money, but an economy that was not too strong, so more students were trying for funding,” said Robin Mount, director of the Office of Career, Research, and International Opportunities.

In years when more internships were available, fewer students turned to the grants provided by the College, administrators said.

“A lot of them would have gotten picked off by a paid opportunity,” Mount said.

Most of the funding went out on Friday, when just over 400 students were offered a share of $2 million from the David Rockefeller International Experience Grant, which funds overseas student experiences that span eight weeks or longer.

Last year, 900 students applied for the Rockefeller grant, but this year saw 1,028 applications according to Erin E. Goodman, the assistant director of career, research, and international opportunities at the Office of Career Services.

This is the second year that students have been able to apply for the David Rockefeller grant—which was established by a gift from David Rockefeller ’36, who plans to donate money annually to enable undergraduates to take part in a significant international experience.

Besides the Rockefeller grant, about $600,000 were awarded to students through the Fellowships Office at OCS, which recently announced the recipients of the Weissman International Internship Program grant, Herchel Smith Harvard Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, David Roux Fund Grants, and the Alex G. Booth ’30 Fund Fellowships, along with several smaller fellowships. About 350 students applied for those four grants, and 146 recipients were selected, administrators said.

The Harvard College Program for Research in Science and Engineering also offered spots to approximately 140 students a week ago, according to Mount, and many of Harvard’s centers announced summer grant awards as well in the past week.

Nancy Saunders, the associate director of undergraduate advising for OCS, estimated that Harvard gives out a total of about $4 million in grant money for the summer.

But this sum is not enough to guarantee every Harvard undergraduate funding this summer, administrators said, so OCS is planning programming for students who are still looking for a productive way to spend their summer.

For students who were unable to find funding for their summer projects, Saunders suggested another solution.

“We’re going to encourage students to sandwich their learning opportunity with an earning opportunity,” she said.

—Staff writer Eric P. Newcomer can be reached at newcomer@fas.harvard.edu.