Complete admission and program requirements are found in the University Catalog.
To apply for graduate school you may complete the GRE exam and meet the Department of Biology's minimums (152 or higher for Verbal and 150 or higher for Quantitative). The GRE is not required for the M.A. program. You will also need a minimum GPA from your undergraduate degree of 2.75 or higher.
All prospective students in a thesis program need to find a faculty member within the department willing to be your graduate advisor where you will gain hands-on-experience working on a research project in their lab. We will only accept student for an M.S. degree from whom we have a faculty advisor willing to mentor the student in their lab, so make sure to contact a faculty member before applying.
When contacting a faculty member, it is recommended that you provide the faculty some information about your academic background and career interests. At the minimum, this information should include your undergraduate GPA, GRE scores, relevant work experience, and career goals.
Only after you have made contact with a member of the faculty do we recommend sending your formal graduate application to the university. In your application, it is helpful to indicate the faculty advisor who has agreed to sponsor you on a research project.
Faculty tend to be associated with one emphasis (ecology and natural resources or cell and molecular biology), but it may sometimes be appropriate for a faculty member to advise a student in either emphasis.
Graduate students will develop an individualized program of study with their faculty adviser the first semester enrolled in the program, where permission can be granted to include carefully selected courses within and outside of the principal emphasis.
Our program has a rolling application such that we review applications as we receive them, so we do not have any official application deadline.
However, we must have enough time to process your application before your first semester begins and if you wish to apply for a TA position you will need to be accepted into the program before May 1st (for any open Fall Semester TA positions) and before December 1st (for any open Spring Semester TA positions).
Students can begin their program in either the fall or spring semesters.