Provost’s Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program Frequently Asked Questions
Which students and faculty are eligible?
All undergraduate freshmen at Penn are eligible. They can be from any school and in any discipline. Students do not need to be US citizens nor do they need to be eligible to work in the US.
Prospective faculty mentors can be from the standing faculty or can be adjunct faculty, from any school. Because a long-term mentoring relationship is a desired outcome, visiting faculty at Penn are not appropriate mentors.
What is the timing?
Each January, faculty members provide up to three project descriptions, which are made available to students who submit applications by February 18. Decisions are made and announced by the end of March.
All projects take place in the summer and are expected to extend for 10 weeks. Students and faculty mentors negotiate the precise logistics between themselves, taking into account the needs of the project.
Which students and projects do or don’t get selected, and why?
Projects which have no student applicants will not be selected. Prospective faculty mentors are therefore encouraged to make clear in their description why/how their project is interesting, how it is do-able, and what it might lead to. Students with low GPAs (under 3.0 average) are unlikely to be selected.
Again, because the goal of PURM is to create new mentor relationships, students already working with a particular faculty mentor are less likely to be chosen. Students already working with faculty should consider applying for funding from the College Alumni Society Research Grant or the Class of 1971 Robert J. Holtz Endowed Fund for Undergraduate Research.
How are students paid?
Disbursement of funds is handled by each faculty mentor’s business administrator (BA). The BAs will be asked to attend a meeting so they will understand the program and their role within it. The student’s stipend is intended for each student’s expenses. For projects that take place strictly on Penn’s campus, this will normally be paid as a regular weekly or monthly paycheck. For projects not on Penn’s campus, lodging and food for the student will normally be paid on a reimbursement for receipt basis, with the remainder of the stipend going to the student as payroll.
Note: The payroll portion of the stipends will be subject to federal, state and city withholding taxes. Most undergraduates will be able to receive the federal wage tax portion back as a tax refund after filing the appropriate tax returns the following spring.
Additional costs for the project – such as transportation, supplies, and other miscellaneous costs – should be paid from the faculty mentor’s stipend.
What about housing for the summer?
Not all PURM projects are on campus and those that are on campus are not occurring simultaneously. Therefore, students will need to arrange housing that meets their needs. One of the high-rise residence halls will be open for the 12 weeks of the two Penn summer sessions. Their costs tend to be much higher than renting a furnished room or a furnished sublet near campus and can be much less flexible. Penn’s Office of Off-Campus Housing has extensive and clear web information that can demystify the process of apartment/room/sublet renting to make it a safe, affordable, and positive option for students.
What else is expected?
Students whose projects keep them on campus will be invited to several gatherings. This will allow students to meet each other and share progress, problems, ideas, and concerns with each other. The meetings will be arranged by CURF within broad disciplinary areas.
In the fall, students and faculty will be asked for a brief evaluation of their experience as well as their assessment of the program and its processes. A lunch with the Provost to talk about benefits of the program will be held mid-semester.
Our hope is that many of these summer research experiences will develop into long-term faculty-student mentoring relationships, but this is not an obligation.