Student Grant Program Application Process

If you are a student seeking to get involved in a research project, first explore the landscape of Undergraduate Research at Cornell. When you are ready to begin, take a look at our tips for approaching prospective faculty mentors.

Once faculty and student have agreed upon a proposal idea, each must separately complete and submit online applications.

Faculty Application

Student Application

The faculty mentor must submit the faculty application first. Upon submission, an application ID number will be assigned to the faculty applicant. The ID number screen will appear a few seconds after the faculty mentor clicks "Submit" to submit the faculty application. Be sure to write this number down. The student will need it in order to submit the student application.

To encourage high quality applications from students, we require all undergraduate applicants to obtain faculty approval for their proposals before submission. We ask that each faculty mentor review the student’s project proposal and personal statement. The faculty mentor should give his or her application ID number to the student, to enable submission of the student application, only after the mentor has reviewed and approved the student’s proposal and statement. Once approval has been secured, the student must then submit the online student application before the application deadline.

Please be aware that undergraduate research funds are available only for undergraduate students currently enrolled in the College of Engineering and Biological or Environmental Engineering (BEE) majors.

Important note: New word/character count maximums have been imposed on responses to each application question. Please use your word processing software to check the word/character counts on your responses before pasting them into the application response boxes. Responses that are too long will be truncated upon submission, such that any words beyond the limit will not appear for reviewers. Maximums are being enforced in order to keep review times reasonable. Please answer the questions with clear responses that are brief and to-the-point.

Projects Involving Multiple Students

Projects usually involve one student and one professor, although some projects may involve student teams.

Student Project Team proposals will not be considered for funding through the Engineering Learning Initiatives Student Undergraduate Research Grants Program. Teams of students working together with faculty mentors in faculty research programs may still apply as undergraduate research teams. However, Student Project Teams - largely student-run, competitive design teams - should not apply through this program. They will have the opportunity to be considered for College funding through a separate process.

If you are a faculty advisor who is considering applying for support for multiple students or your research team, please follow the bulleted guidelines below:

• If applying for team funding, the faculty advisor should submit one team application, listing the names of all student applicants on the team. Each team member must submit an individual application. The team application will be considered as a whole, and, if approved, awarded team funding. Individual team members will not be considered separately for individual funding.
• When requesting project support funds only (no student wages), the maximum team size is four students per team. When student wages are requested, maximum is two students per team. 

• Please note: Team applications are discouraged during the summer term for cases in which full student wages are required for each team member. Due to the high costs of summer support, individual applications typically have a greater chance of success.  

• If applying for individual funding for more than one student, please submit a separate application for each, with a unique project title, reflecting the specific research focus of each student. A maximum of 2 proposals per faculty member are allowable in any funding term.