How to apply

Please Note: All Penn State offices will be closed from Dec 23, 2008 12pm EST until Jan 5, 2009 8am EST in observance of the holidays. Any e-mails sent during that time will not receive a response until after Jan 5, 2009.

Faculty in most programs begin to consider applicants for Fall admission in December of the preceding year (e.g. December 2008 for admission in Fall 2009). Programs only accept applications for fall admission.

1. Review the "Admission Requirements" page for any program specific information

• Check for any program-specific deadlines or requirements.
• If the program you are interested in is available at more than one campus, be sure you know which campus you want to attend as it the first question on the Graduate School application.

2. Submit a Penn State Graduate School application and pay the associated application fee

• Complete the online Penn State Graduate School application form at http://gradsch.psu.edu/portal/ (you may want to open this link in a new window).
  • If you are applying to a graduate program that is offered at both University Park and Hershey campuses, you will need to select just one of these to complete the application form.
  • Please select the campus where courses and faculty are likely to be of most interest to you.
  • All students are admitted to one campus; however, if your program is offered on two campuses, you will be able to participate in laboratory rotations on the other campus
  • You may be able to switch campuses should it turn out your advisor of choice is located on a different campus than you.
• The following documents will be collected electronically as part of the Graduate School application process:
  • Three letters of recommendation
  • Personal Statement of Motivations and Goals
  • Curriculum Vitae / Resume
• Make sure you pay the application fee. Applications without fee payment cannot be processed.

3. Test scores

• Official GRE (Graduate Record Exam) scores for the General Test
  • Institution code: R2660
  • Department code: see table below
• For international applicants, Official notification of TOEFL or IELTS score. With some exceptions, international candidates are required to take the TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language) or the IELTS (International English Language Testing System).
  • Department code: see table below
• Department codes for GRE and TOEFL:

  Department	GRE Dept Code	TOEFL Dept Code
  Cell and Developmental Biology	5199	30
  Ecology	0207	30
  Genetics	0210	06
  IBIOS: Bioinformatics and Genomics	5199	30
  IBIOS: Chemical Biology	5199	30
  Immunology and Infectious Diseases	5199	30
  Molecular Toxicology	5199	30
  Molecular Medicine	5199	30
  Neuroscience	0213	30
  Physiology	0217	49
  Plant Biology	5199	30
  Master of Biotechnology	5199	99

4. Mail us the following:

• Two official transcripts from each higher education institution you have attended.
• International students. If you are not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, please include a completed Application for Visa Document (pdf download) and any associated documentation. To fill out the financial certification:
• Please specify any support from your own funds (#1) and family funds (#2).
• If you are applying for a PhD program and do not have your own funding, a scholarship, government funding or other sponsorship:
  • At #4 write "Anticipate funding from Penn State [insert name of program] Program"; please leave the amount blank.
  • For the section entitled "Anticipated source and amount of support for the subsequent years of study", you may write "Anticipate funding from Penn State [insert name of program] Program"; please leave the amount blank.

Mailing Address

Admissions Committee, [insert name of program] Program

Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences

The Pennsylvania State University

101 Life Sciences Building

University Park, PA 16802-5807

USA

Please do not send unsolicited materials, e.g. copies of publications, with your application packet

Please note

The graduate programs and Penn State Graduate School are committed to verification of application materials. Therefore please ensure that all of your documents can be readily verified as being accurate and authentic. Admission is granted jointly by the Penn State Graduate School and the relevant program.