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Application Directions

Please read the following application directions before submitting Part-A and Part-B forms for admission consideration into the Institutional Partnerships. You will be able to make any necessary adjustments in Part-A and Part-B until the application deadline. If you must make a modification after the deadline, contact the GPP at gpp@nih.gov or complete the Ask A Question box within the Application Interface.

Eligibility - Applicants for admission into Institutional Partnerships must be United States of America citizens or United States of America permanent residents. No exceptions.

Application Components - The GPP application consists of two components: Part-A and Part-B. Both components must be completed and submitted by midnight on the specified deadline.

Part-A - Collects details about your contact information, educational history, partnership selection, names of references, standardized examination scores, and optional statistics. You should submit this form as soon as possible to ensure a timely arrival of supplemental material, like letters of recommendation.

Part-B - Collects details about your research interests, research experience, publications, presentations, awards and honors, extracurricular activities, and a personal statement. Each applicant must complete this form by the Application Deadline. Submission of Part-B requires a password generated during the Part-A submission. Please note: Some partnerships require program-specific information to be entered as "Additional Information' in Part-B. Check with the NIH-University partnerships descriptions for details.

Login Page - New students must select "Apply for Institutional Partnership" to complete Part-A. Students with an approved account should use the "Returning Applicants" to access their application record.   For security purposes, the application system is designed to automatically logout or not capture data after 15-minutes of inactivity.


PART-A OF APPLICATION

Part-A WebPage - Complete Part-A of the application by entering the request data from Step-One through Step-Seven, use the 'Save & Continue' [] button to advance to the next step.

Contact Information - The information requested in this section is used to establish methods for contacting you throughout the application and admission process. Please make sure all information submitted is correct, especially email and phone numbers.

Personal Information - This information is used to determine your eligibility for a partnership. Applicants for admission into Institutional Partnerships must be United States of America citizens or United States of America permanent residents. No exceptions.

Academic Profile - This section is broken down into two sections: Educational History and Standardized Examinations (GRE, MCAT, TOEFL).

Educational History - Submit complete and truthful information about each university / college attended during undergraduate and graduate school, even if you did not obtain a degree from that institution. Enter educational information in chronological order with the most recent enrollment first. You will be able to add as many records as needed to accurately represent your educational history.

Standardized Examination Scores - You will need to enter both the scores and percentiles for any standardized examination score completed: GRE, GRE Subject, MCAT, or TOEFL. If you are taking the examination in the coming months include the estimated date of the exam in your application so the admission committee knows results are pending.

Partnership Selection - The OITE/GPP application lists many NIH-University Institutional Partnerships for admission consideration.  You may select 1, 2, or 3 partnerships for admission consideration.  Once you have completed this step, you will no longer have the ability to make a modification in the partnership selection.  Contact the GPP if you wish to change the partnership selection in your application.

References - Three letters of recommendation from three different individuals are needed to complete the GPP application. Choose references that are familiar with your educational training and especially your prior research experience. After you complete and submit information about your references, email messages requesting letters of recommendation are automatically sent on your behalf. Do not use a career service center for the submission of your letters of recommendation.  The email message contains directions about completing the evaluation form and submitting a recommendation letter electronically. Periodically contact each of your references to ensure receipt of the request. If a recommendation request needs to be resent, login to your record and click the letter icon next to the reference's name.  This feature should be used sparingly because each new request will reset the reference's password to access the online recommendation form.  Hardcopies of recommendation letters will not be processed by the GPP.

Although not required, you are allowed to submit a fourth reference in Part-A. As the application season proceeds if you find that you must make a substitution on one or more of your references you are able to do so by completing additional fields for new references within Part-B of the application; select edit view within the Reference step.

Under the Privacy Act of 1974, you have the right to access the information contained within a recommendation unless you have waived such access. For each reference, your response about waiving access to each letter of recommendation is required. Your references will be given your response to waiving access to the letter of recommendation.

Optional Statistics - Questions asked in this section are accessed by the GPP only and used only for statistical purposes on large populations. The admission committee does not have access to this section.

Account - You will need to create a password to access your application, specifically to complete Part-B. We strongly encourage you to use create a password that contains a minimum of eight (8) characters and has a combination of the following: capital letters, lower case letters, numeric characters, and special characters.

 

PART-B OF APPLICATION

In Part-B you will be able to review all information submitted in Part-A and provide additional information to complete your application for admission consideration. To access, enter your login name (email account) and password set in Part-A in the "Returning Applicants" area of the login page after your Part-A form has been approved by the GPP staff.


There are four options in the Student Interface of the GPP application system:

  • Home - main page of application system
  • NIH Faculty - NIH investigators looking for trainees for the next one-two years; not a complete listing
  • My Application - link to updating your application
  • My Profile - update your password to access your account


Select 'My Application' to access your record. In the Action column click the view icon [] to review your application or edit icon [] to modify your application.


In the edit view, you are able to review and modify what was submitted in Part-A by clicking on the various STEPS located in the left vertical column and using the 'Cancel-Edit-Next' [] buttons. You will not be able to edit the reference information submitted in Part-A but you can add new references, if needed.

Resume Components - This step of the application contains several elements to assess your strength as a candidate for admission. Details on what is expected from each of these sections are provided below. To ensure all special characters are displayed correctly in these fields you must use the Paste As Plain Text icon in the edit tools provided to copy/paste your text.

= Paste as Plain Text

Scientific Discipline / Research Interests - Please select at least one area of interest from the drop-down list provided. If you wish to provide a more in depth, but very brief, description of your preferred research please use the available text box (able to accept approximately 100 characters).

Research Experience - List your research experience in chronological order, most recent first, providing a brief description (1-3 sentences). The admission committee should easily see from the information contained in your application the timeline of events in your education history and research experience fields. Text should not exceed 1000 words.

Please use the following format:
Start Date - Stop Date (month and year only)
Employment Institution
Advisor/boss
List of Activities/Experiences

Publications & Presentations - Provide the following information about each publication/presentation:

Publications: Authors, Title, Journal, Volume, and Pages
Presentations: Authors, Title, Conference/Seminar, and Year

Text should not exceed 500 words.

Awards / Honors - List all awards and honors received during undergraduate and/or graduate school. Do not include awards and honors received during high school. Text should not exceed 500 words.

Extracurricular Activities - List your major extracurricular and leadership activities during undergraduate and/or graduate education. Text should not exceed 1000 words.

Personal Statement - Provide details about your motivation for pursuing an advanced degree and your future career goals. Describe important educational, research, and teaching experiences as well as how the GPP benefits your goals. In addition, if you are applying to more than one NIH-University partnerships you should provided detailed reasons for selecting each one of the partnerships. Text should not exceed 1500 words.  You do not need to provide a different personal statement for the university application.

Additional Information - This section of the application is available for applicants that wish to provide additional information, such as lapses in education or explanations of academic blemishes. Some partnerships strongly recommend or require a list of NIH investigators with similar research interests to be included in this section, read the descriptions of the NIH-University partnerships for details. Text should not exceed 250 words.

Required Uploads - You must upload PDF files of your transcripts and examination scores. You are welcome to, but are not require to, upload PDF files of any additional material you feel will enhance your application for admission consideration that is not already included elsewhere in your application.

Transcripts ­- You must upload a PDF file containing an unofficial copy of your transcript for each university listed in your application; one PDF file per university listed. If you attended or are attending an international university and can not obtain a transcripts, have the department chair or registrar write a letter stating you are enrolled at the university, indicating which program and your academic standing.  Official transcripts are not needed unless you matriculate.

Examination Scores ­- You must upload a PDF file of test scores (unofficial scanned images of the results are OK) for each standardized examination taken. Matriculants should have ETS submit an official copy of your results for your appointment paperwork.

We prefer PDF files to be less than 500kB for ease of upload by you and downloading for review by the admission committees. However, we understand some transcripts are multi-paged or contain very small font sizes that require a higher resolution to ensure clarity. With that in mind, please use the following guidelines when constructing your PDF files:

  • Resolution - 200dpi
  • Mode - scan your transcript as line-art, black-white, or grey scale
  • Size - be sure to use 'letter size' for the paper size of the PDF file; larger paper sizes will not be visible by the admission committee
  • Security Elements - do not include any of these elements because they are not compatible with our application evaluation features

If you have any difficulties creating or uploading the PDF files please contact the GPP for assistance at gpp@nih.gov or complete the 'Ask A Question' box within the Application Interface.

How To Submit - Once you have completed all the required steps and have used the ‘review' step to look at the contents of your application, click the [submit application] button to officially submit your application for review by the admission committee(s). Once you submit your application you may still make changes though we cannot guarantee the admission committee(s) will see your modifications.

APPLICATION FEE
There is no application fee for the GPP application. University partners may have an application fee.

CORRESPONDENCE
Questions about the overall GPP and technical issues about the application system should be directed to gpp@nih.gov or use the "Ask a Question" feature within the application software.  Questions about the specific partnerships application requirements should be directed to the associated partnership directors.