Washington State University-Botany

Areas of Emphasis: Ecology & Evolution, Physiology, Molecular Biology, and Systematics

Washington State University doesn't offer much about their program on their website. They claim to have excellent research facilities, but I couldn't find anything that really made them stand out. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this school for botany. Their ranking is relatively low in US News & World Report, and they don't offer that many unique plant classes, except, maybe in physiology. However, they could be a good choice for students concerned about costs because they claim to provide all their grad students with complete funding, including waiving out-of-state fees for the first year.

The school offers both masters and doctoral programs.

Interesting-sounding courses: Experimental Plant Ecology, Plant Ecophysiology, Molecular Ecology and Phylogeography, Angiosperm Families of the World, Plant Metabolism, Special Projects in Electron Microscopy
They offer lots of physiology courses.

Tuition & Fees In-State: $22,708
Tuition & Fees Out-of-State: $34, 316

Although these expenses are rather high, especially for out-of-state students, the school offers waivers of out-of-state costs. However, these are only available for the first year, and are limited, so they encourage and expect students to establish residency within their first year, implying that the process is relatively easy. Also, they claim that, "All of our graduate students are fully funded." (PhDs.org claims that the average tuition remission is 83%.) However, most students get TAships, but some receive Research Assistantships and fellowships. There are a good number of fellowships and awards available to botany students. Although TAing isn't required, they do require all graduate students to take the following course: Preparation for College Teaching, which doesn't sound so bad or scary.

Pre-requisites:

• Organic Chemistry
• Calculus

They don't really go into very much detail about pre-reqs, only listing these two as examples. However, they do say that deficiencies can be made up.

General GRE: Minimum score not provided.
Subject GRE recommended
Minimum GPA: 3.0
US News and World Report Ranking: 77/152
Percent Undergrads admitted: 76%


Potenial Advisors:  very limited, not very many plant ecologists
Al Black:  Plant Phyisological Ecology (http://sbs.wsu.edu/faculty/?faculty/6)
R. David Evans:  Ecosystem Ecology, response of soil compounds to climate change, including research with microbes (http://www.isotopes.wsu.edu/)
Cheryl Schultz:  Conservation Biology, Restoration Ecology (http://directory.vancouver.wsu.edu/people/cheryl-schultz)