Proposal Advising

The Office of External Fellowships offers one-on-one reviews of draft proposals for external fellowships or grants. We will critique your proposal and provide feedback to help you improve your application for submission. Our support has helped Illinois graduate students win prestigious national and international fellowships from government agencies, private foundations, and corporations. 

Our reviews are designed to supplement, not replace, the critical guidance of your advisor. Indeed, we require that your advisor review your draft before you submit it to us, and we encourage advisors to be heavily involved in the revision process.

Note: We only advise on external fellowships and grants, not internal awards or non-funding-related research proposals.

Ready for Feedback? Here are the steps:

1. Revise your draft

   Have your advisor review your draft, then make all the revisions your advisor recommends.

2. Send it to us

   Email your revised draft to us at ExtFellowships@illinois.edu at least one month prior to your application deadline. Your submission must include all required narrative components for the application—typically a research statement, and in some cases, a CV, personal statement, or additional essays. You are welcome to reach out with less than one month’s lead time, but our ability to offer a review will depend on the queue at the time your advisor-reviewed drafts are submitted.   

3. Get expert feedback

   A member of our staff will thoroughly review your draft, prepare written feedback, and contact you to schedule a review session.

What students and professors say about our proposal advising:

• I cannot thank you enough for your edits and our valuable one-on-one session yesterday. Whether I get the fellowship or not, you have been a tremendous help, and I'm certain this application will be useful in other endeavors.

• I am very happy to say that I received the NSF GRFP award!  I wanted to sincerely thank you for the help in editing my essays and, especially, your feedback on my research proposal.  My reviewers commented that the proposal was clear and understandable. So, thank you, again, so much. I really appreciate your help!
• I appreciate your critical comments.  One of my committee members told me, “One can only dream of getting the kind of detailed critical feedback that he has provided.”
• Thank you for your help and really good feedback and suggestions throughout the process. After two years of attending workshops and planning my project, I really like the final product that I submitted! I know I could not have gotten it to where it was without your help.
• Overwhelmingly, the students described as "awesome," "excellent," or "the best advice I have ever received" the quality of the feedback they received from you.
• You guys are miracle workers!