The Office of Merit Awards has developed a process to help Fulbright applicants get started, find direction, and gain traction.

First, we ask you to complete a Proposal Development Exercise (PDE), which is bibliography assignment tailored to the task of developing a good Fulbright research topic. We start from the assumption that all applicants will benefit from this exercise, and that a foundation of research is the necessary basis of any credible application for a Fulbright Study/Research Grant.

Upon completion of the exercise, in addition to sharing your work with us, we ask you to ask a professor with relevant expertise to review your plans and complete the Faculty Early Assessment. This gives us a snapshot from a faculty perspective of whether the road ahead looks smooth or bumpy.

Our deadline for completion of these steps is June 10, 2024. It is to your advantage to have a solid bibliographic foundation for your proposal, and to receive constructive guidance from faculty early in the Fulbright process.

It is much more realistic to seek guidance from faculty in the spring than to wait until summer—or worse, fall.

We may specifically require applicants getting a late start—roughly speaking, anyone who turns up after our July 15, 2024 deadline for first drafts—to complete a Proposal Development Exercise in order to clarify whether it is realistic to prepare a competitive application in the time remaining.

Full instructions for Proposal Development Exercise.