IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pcbi00/1014420.html

Ten simple rules for turning your qualifying exam into an NIH-style fellowship proposal: A guide for graduate students

Author

Listed:
  • Courtney Peña-Lima
  • Cameron S Bader
  • Brendan K Ball
  • Troy C Dildine
  • Mekhala V Dissanayake
  • Iris van ‘t Erve
  • Albina Ibrayeva
  • Amy Nippert
  • MK Quinn
  • Chelse Spinner
  • Samuel Thompson
  • Antonio Tomasso
  • Crystal M Botham

Abstract

Qualifying exams, often referred to as “quals” or candidacy exams, are an important milestone in doctoral programs. Although the style of quals varies greatly by program and institution, it is usually a proposal that requires students to develop research ideas as well as their scientific writing skills. Many quals are modeled after funding mechanisms that graduate students can apply to and on a topic that the student will pursue in their dissertation. This paper offers graduate students a step-by-step guide on how to turn their quals into a fellowship-style research proposal, using National Institutes of Health (NIH) mechanisms as a benchmark, as this is the norm within US research institutions. This paper will be most useful for students who have completed or are in the process of completing proposal-based qualifying exams, usually in the second year of a doctoral program.

Suggested Citation

  • Courtney Peña-Lima & Cameron S Bader & Brendan K Ball & Troy C Dildine & Mekhala V Dissanayake & Iris van ‘t Erve & Albina Ibrayeva & Amy Nippert & MK Quinn & Chelse Spinner & Samuel Thompson & Antoni, 2026. "Ten simple rules for turning your qualifying exam into an NIH-style fellowship proposal: A guide for graduate students," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 22(6), pages 1-10, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pcbi00:1014420
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014420
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014420
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014420&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014420?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pcbi00:1014420. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ploscompbiol (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.