Benefits of an NRSA?

[zigazowohnow]

Can anyone explain the benefits of a predoctoral NRSA (beyond the financial of course)?

The department I may attend offers a National Research Service Award that comes in the form of an Institutional Research Training Grant from NIH...but is it just something extra to take up space on your C.V. or are these viewed as a good thing in academia?

[LeNea]

Are you talking about Individual Pre-doctoral NRSA's or NIH Institutional training grants?

[zigazowohnow]

Both...is there a big difference between the two???

[LeNea]

The Institutional Predoctoral Training Grant is something that your institution applies for and administrates. Your institution will pick students to fund via this way. My (very big) program has several training grants, and they try to stick students into the one that most mirrors their interests. On the student's end, some of the training grants are required to hold seminars a few times a year, and they often have a couple hundred dollars per year per student for travel funds, and chatting with people at renewal visits. The student personally isn't on the line for renewal, it's the overall training grant.

An individual predoctoral NRSA is something that YOU apply for directly to NIH. It's a much bigger deal to have one of those, IMO, as it reflects your planning, your ideas (in consultation with your advisor), and your grantsmanship. It's considered a nationally competitive individual fellowship.

[zigazowohnow]

Thanks you guys!

I think I will end up applying for an individual NRSA if all goes well.

[LeNea]

If they offer the institutional one, by all means, take it! You can then get a personal one later that would supplant it.

[zigazowohnow]

If they offer the institutional one, by all means, take it! You can then get a personal one later that would supplant it.

Oh I definitely will take it, it's for two years so when that one is up I will have had plenty of time to prepare my application for an Individual NRSA, as a matter of fact I'm going to start looking at all of the fellowships and what I need to do for them this summer. I guess you can never begin to prepare early enough!