Yes. Graduate programs in biology and other sciences are not simply an extension of an undergraduate education, they are designed to train students in how to do hands-on research. This means that you will be completing a very specific project for your thesis or dissertation in the laboratory of your advisor or in the field, no matter how broad your interests may be. Although non-thesis students do not complete their own project, they spend a significant amount of time in a research laboratory doing hands-on work on a specific project.

The faculty members in the department are engaged in a wide variety of research projects, and your research will be related to that of your advisor. In general, the department's research is divided into three areas: 1) Systematics and Evolution, 2) Environmental Biology, and 3) Cell, Molecular, and Developmental Biology. The research of several faculty members falls into more than one of these categories. To find out what projects are going on, consult the individual web pages of faculty members and the graduate student research web pages, accessible from the Faculty, Staff & Student web page; below is a list of faculty and their areas of research. Any of the faculty will be happy to talk to or email you about research in the department. If you are not sure what kind of research you are interested in, or are interested in an interdisciplinary program, feel free to contact the admissions director to talk about what possibilities there are for you in our program.

Allard — mammals, molecular systematics

Burns — fishes and reproductive biology

Church — speciation and molecular evolution

Clark — fossil reptiles and amphibians

Herendeen — fossil and recent flowering plants, biogeography

Hernandez — vertebrate developmental biology and evolution

Hormiga — spiders, comparative biology

Johnson - population genetics, speciation

Knowlton — crustaceans, marine biology

Lipscomb — protists, systematic theory

Smith — evolution of immune systems

Wells - plant systematics

For general inquiries about systematics and evolution — Clark

Also: any curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History may co-advise a student — see the Systematics and Evolution web page for details.

Knowlton — marine ecology

Lill — plant-insect interactions

Merchant — terrestrial animal ecology

Wells — plant ecology, alien species, wetland floristics

For general inquiries about ecology — Merchant, Wells

Allard — molecular evolution, genomics

Brown — developmental biology and toxicology

Church — bioinformatics

Donaldson — plant molecular biology, cell membranes

Hernandez — vertebrate developmental biology and evolution

Johnson — Drosophila, genetic variation

Knowlton — developmental endocrinology

Morris — molecular genetics, bacteriology

Packer — physiology, kidney function

Turano — plant stress responses and signal transduction

Smith — cell and molecular immunology

For general inquiries about Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology — Donaldson

Are there "fields" within the Biological Sciences graduate major?

There are no formal fields in the graduate program, so leave this question blank on the application form. The threefold division outlined in the answer to the previous question is informal, allowing a student and her or his advisor great flexibility in selecting courses.

Ask them! We strongly encourage prospective students to contact a faculty member doing research in their area of interest before they apply. Email addresses for all faculty members are available as links from the list above, and on the Faculty, Staff, & Student web page.

The courses you take will depend upon your interests and background. Early in the first semester of graduate studies a student meets with their advisor and plans the courses they will take, based upon the student’s research interests and needs. Ph.D. students who already have a Masters degree may transfer credit for the graduate courses relevant to their Ph.D. program, up to 24 credits. Graduate courses are described in the Graduate Bulletin.

Student programs of study vary widely, but students in each area often take a few popular courses. For students in systematics there is a core curriculum of required courses. For students in environmental biology, courses commonly taken by graduate students are listed HERE. Graduate students in cell, molecular, and developmental biology often take courses such as Biochemistry, Gene Regulation and Genetic Engineering, Recombinant DNA Techniques, and courses that are offered in cooperation with the GW Institute for Biomedical Sciences such as Macromolecular Interactions:Proteins, Nucleic Acids, Cell Biology, Immunology, and Developmental Genetics.

Yes. Other programs at GWU offer a wide variety of courses that complement those offered by our Department, and in consultation with their advisor students may take graduate level courses relevant to their research. Students may also take courses at the other universities that belong to the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, up to 9 credits for Masters students and up to 12 for Ph.D. students. Courses at universities outside the DC area, such as through the Organization for Tropical Studies, can also be taken with the approval of the student's committee and the CCAS Dean of Graduate Studies.

Your application for admittance to the graduate program includes an application for funding. By checking "yes" to question 20 you automatically apply for funding. Your chances depend upon the quality of your application and how many other applications are received, as well as the recommendation of your potential advisor. Masters students are generally not funded. Currently there is funding for 20 students from Teaching Assistantships and Research Fellowships.

All Masters students must pass a comprehensive examination at the end of their second year. For students writing a Masters thesis, this involves a brief presentation of their thesis work followed by oral questions; for non-thesis Masters it involves a written exam followed by oral questioning. Ph.D. students must pass a written and oral general examination in three fields of biology related to their research before they are advanced to candidacy, and once they finish their dissertation they defend it orally before an examining committee.

The purpose of each of these exams is to make sure that students are integrating the knowledge they are accumulating in their course work and research. If a student fails the exam they may petition to take it one more time.

Theses and dissertations are organized and created by the student based upon their original scientific research. However, each student receives careful attention from their advisor as they formulate their research proposal and write their thesis or dissertation. Furthermore, courses in the graduate curriculum are designed to teach students how to write scientific papers and proposals in their discipline. The George Washington University Writing Center offers assistance to students in writing theses, resumes, and other texts

1) All applicants must submit scores from the general GRE exams, but results from the Biology examination are not required. 2) Letters of recommendation from three people are required for Ph.D. applicants, and a single letter is needed for M.S. applicants. 3) Official transcripts are needed for all undergraduate courses and degrees. 4) TOEFL scores are required for foreign students from non-English speaking countries unless they have a degree from an accredited American college or university. 5) All applicants are asked to submit a 250 to 500 word statement of purpose explaining your research interests and how they developed. Please consult the CCAS Graduate Admissions web page for details.

If your Grade Point Average (GPA) is 3.0 or above, your GRE scores need to be in the 30th percentile or above. If your GPA is between 2.6 and 3.0, your GRE scores need to be in the 80th percentile or above. You may be conditionally admitted (pending acceptable grades in your first year of classes) if your GPA is between 2.6 and 3.0 and your GRE is between the 60th and 80th percentiles, or if your GPA is above 3.0 but your GRE scores are below the 30th percentile. These are the minimum standards. Many factors in addition to the GRE scores are used to make admission and funding decisions, but low GRE scores will make you less competitive for funding.

TOEFL scores should be at least 550 (paper test) or 213 (computer test), and to be funded as a TA you must score 600 or 250 (+55), respectively.

Yes, if you send a request in writing to the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences that this be done. You will not be charged again for the application fee.

Yes, but your chances of receiving funding are low. The department allocates student funding for the entire academic year during the preceding spring semester, so funding during the spring semester is available only if a student scheduled to receive it does not use the award.

We begin contacting students within one month of the application deadline. However, because not all applicants accept our offers, we continue making offers until as late as June as we hear back from students who have received our initial offer. If you have not heard from us by March, please contact the Admissions Director to find out the status of your application.

The department requires only that you have an undergraduate degree "in an appropriate field." Generally this should be in the biological sciences, but we encourage applicants with non-traditional backgrounds who have had sufficient biology to provide the necessary background for graduate work. The Department also expects applicants to have at least a "B" average for their undergraduate grades, but high scores on the GRE or other evidence of scholarly potential are taken into account.

Yes! We strongly encourage prospective students to visit the department before they apply or while their application is pending. Some funding is available to defray travel costs, please contact the admissions director or any faculty member for more information about visiting.

You can be a part-time student (i.e., taking 6 credit hours), but if you are receiving funding you must be full time (9 hours). However, many courses have laboratories that meet only during the day, and students working full time during the day may not be able to schedule all the courses they need — see the Schedule of Classes for details.

Job opportunities vary greatly depending on the area of biology in which you specialize. For example, if your work involves molecular biology techniques there are many opportunities in the biotechnology industry, and several of our recent graduates now have jobs in the rapidly growing field of biotechnology patents. Graduates of our systematics program have been successful in obtaining jobs as curators of natural history museums throughout the world (e.g., the Field Museum, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County). Many of our Ph.D. graduates are now professors at colleges and universities (e.g., the University of Minnesota, Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, Howard University), while others are researchers at government laboratories or non-profit organizations (e.g., the Environmental Protection Agency). Our Masters graduates often go on to Ph.D. programs at other universities or to medical schools.

FURTHER QUESTIONS? Ask the Admissions Director.