How to Apply

Students apply to the Biological Sciences Program (BISI) by completing an application to the University of Maryland’s Graduate School. Students should:

• Investigate BISI faculty members and their research interests.
• Indicate the BISI Concentration Area that most interests you in Area of Interest 1 within the Educational Intent section of the application.
  • Concentration areas are BEES, CBBG, MOCB, and PSYS.
• Apply by December 2, 2025 for Fall admission. The BISI program does not accept applications for the spring semester. 

Refer to the application guide for more information. 

When submitting your application, an unofficial transcript is sufficient. An official transcript is only needed if you are admitted and choose to attend, and it must be submitted by the end of your first semester.

Applications must be completed by the December 2, 2025 deadline (for both domestic and international students) to be considered for admission in the fall. We do not accept applications for spring admissions. 

While we always encourage applicants to have a principal investigator or advisor in mind that they might be interested in working with, you are not required to have been in touch with any faculty members prior to applying. For accepted students, matching will happen during our recruitment events (BEES/PSYS) or during laboratory rotations (CBBG/MOCB).

Absolutely apply! We accept students directly into the Ph.D. program, whether or not they have already earned a master’s degree.

Yes, but not routinely. Students who choose to leave the Ph.D. program before completing their dissertation may be awarded a terminal master's degree if appropriate requirements have been completed. Please consult with the BISI Assistant Director and refer to the BISI handbook for more information. BISI does not allow students in the Ph.D. program to earn an M.S. degree “on the way” to a Ph.D.

The GRE is no longer required. If you believe your GRE scores contribute to an understanding of your academic profile, you can include score information in your personal essay. However, the program does not require this information for admission.

The Biological Sciences program welcomes applications from qualified international students.  The application process is the same as for U.S. citizens: all applications are submitted through the University of Maryland’s Graduate School. International applicants must pay the same application fee. The application deadline for international applicants is the same as for domestic applicants - December 2, 2025.

• Not all international applicants are required to submit TOEFL or IELTS scores. You can find a full list of English-speaking countries exempted from this requirement on the Graduate School’s English Proficiency Requirements page.
• Fluency in spoken and written English is evaluated in several ways, including scores on the TOEFL or IELTS exams.
• Students must submit either TOEFL or IELTS scores if English is a second language and the student has not received a degree from an English-speaking institution. The University of Maryland code is 5814; no department code is needed.
• The TOEFL and IELTS exams must have been taken within the past two years. Maryland’s Graduate School guidelines require specific TOEFL scores. Minimum sectional scores must be achieved on the TOEFL or IELTS exams.

Because we fully support all of our admitted students for 5 years (including stipend, tuition remission, and benefits), international students do not have to complete a Certification of Finances form. 

All Biological Sciences Ph.D. students receive financial assistance for at least five years (assuming satisfactory progress). This support is in the form of fellowships and/or assistantships. Students also receive tuition remission and access to benefits. Students are expected to complete their Ph.D. within five years. In some cases, financial support is extended to the sixth year.

If you submit your application by the deadline, you are automatically considered for college and university fellowships.

Absolutely! It is a mutual advantage that you find the right intellectual and personal fit with your Ph.D. advisor, faculty mentors, and their lab groups and colleagues. 

Professors expect and appreciate contacts from strong potential students, so email faculty whose research questions and interests match yours. It’s usually best to send a relatively short message (2-3 paragraphs) briefly describing your interests, background, and goals, and attach your resume or CV.

It is perfectly appropriate to ask if the professor is interested in taking new students for the coming year.  Sometimes a faculty member is about to go on sabbatical or already has a full lab so cannot take another student. Don’t take that personally – just look for other good fits and explore those people as well. 

Networking and building collegial, collaborative professional relationships is part of being a scientist, and initiating these steps to find faculty mentors who will be good matches for you is a great way to start.

We’d be delighted to have you visit campus at any time you’re in the Washington D.C. area. Campus tours can be arranged through the admissions office. We recommend that you contact potential faculty mentors in advance to arrange to talk with them, meet their lab groups, etc.  

BISI also hosts visit days for select candidates in February to provide opportunities to hear more details about the program, meet faculty and current students and hear about their research, get a feel for the beautiful University of Maryland campus and lively metropolitan area, tour facilities, and connect with other strong applicants. 

We also invite international students to attend our BISI recruitment events. For international students who live close enough (i.e., Canada and Mexico), we invite them to attend in person. For individuals living in countries farther away, we invite them to participate via Zoom.

Most admissions decisions and funding packages will be released by early March; matriculation decisions are due by April 15th.  If we recommend admission, you will receive an email letter from the program.

You can check the status of your application at any time via the application dashboard. It can take 24 to 48 hours for updates to your application to register in the system, so don’t worry if your application still says incomplete after your last recommendation or score has been added.

Unofficial transcripts should be uploaded directly into your application. During the application process, all transcripts should be uploaded directly into the application portal; none should be sent to the office.

If you are offered admission and decide to matriculate, a copy of your transcripts showing your conferred degree must be sent directly to the university from your previous institution(s). The address is:

Enrollment Services Office - Graduate Admissions
0130 Mitchell Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

You can also hand-carry a sealed copy directly to the Mitchell Building once you arrive on campus. 

You can find the most updated stipend information on the assistantships page. These are the minimum amounts a BISI graduate student can be paid. Remember, students on assistantships (teaching or research) earn a stipend, tuition remission up to 10 credits, and access to the employee benefits program (insurance).

We suggest you visit The Graduate School's website for information on fee waivers. UMD waives the application fee for some eligible domestic students. Unfortunately, we cannot provide a fee waiver directly to international applicants. However, international students are encouraged to identify a likely mentor in our program, as this is generally important for helping us identify students who will thrive in the BISI program. If you can find one, perhaps they would be willing to help you cover the application fee.