Ph.D. Degrees in Basic Sciences

Apply Now Deadline is December 1

Other Important Dates

Applicants must complete and submit the online application and all supporting material by December 1. The admissions committee will begin reviewing completed applications in October and extends interview offers to U.S. applicants on a rolling basis. The interview slots and entering class are filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

  • December 1: Deadline
  • January–March: Interviews and offers made
  • April 15: Applicants must inform graduate school of decision
  • Mid–August: Courses and rotations begin

Application Process

Prospective Ph.D. students in the following 10 programs apply online. A complete application includes successful completion of the online application; transcripts from all post-high school institutions attended; general GRE exam scores; TOEFL exam scores (international applicants only); and three letters of recommendation.

  • Biological Chemistry (including the Chemistry Track)
  • Biomedical Engineering*
  • Cancer Biology
  • Cell Regulation
  • Genetics and Development
  • Immunology
  • Integrative Biology
  • Molecular Biophysics
  • Molecular Microbiology
  • Neuroscience

* Special note for Biomedical Engineering applicants: Although students will be enrolled at multiple institutions, application should be made only to one primary home campus. This institution will be the applicant’s base institution.

Apply online to one of the following institutions:

Applicant Evaluation

Please visit the general requirements for application to UT Southwestern’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

Admissions Evaluation

Applicants must have, or be in the process of completing, a bachelor's degree. While there are no specific course requirements for admission, experience has shown that undergraduates entering our interdisciplinary graduate programs benefit from having completed upper level courses in biochemistry, genetics, and cell or molecular biology.

UT Southwestern's Graduate School has no minimum GPA or GRE, but incoming students for Fall 2013 had an average GPA of 3.6 and GRE scores of 157V, 161Q, 4.0W. A small number of applicants took the former version of the GRE and their averages were 594V, 752Q, 4.0W.

Cost

No fee is required to apply.

Research Assistanship

All students studying for a Ph.D. in the 10 basic science programs receive a nationally competitive research assistanship of $28,000 per year throughout the course of their Ph.D. studies. Additional funds provided to the student cover the full cost of tuition, a comprehensive health insurance package, and student service fees.

This support during the first year of graduate school is provided by the graduate school. This support allows students to choose freely among the graduate programs and their participating faculty mentors. In subsequent years, students receive stipend support from research grants awarded to their dissertation mentors, from one of the institutional National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grants associated with various areas of research training, or through successful competition for individual pre-doctoral fellowships.