This program falls under the pre-requisites category. Here, you can take a number of pre-reqs for graduate school. Although they say that it is intended for those who want to enter the health sciences, I don't see why it wouldn't work for anyone else. They recommend checking with programs you want to apply to beforehand to make sure the courses will be accepted, although many health programs will accept them. So you should probably check with any non-health graduate program you're interested in too. The biggest pluses for me are Organic Chemistry I & II and Microbiology.
All courses are designed to be completed in 16 weeks. And they do have labs! The labs are virtual, using a software program, so you don't have to live anywhere near Maine in order to take the lab part, and you don't have to work with anyone else (including the instructor!) to do your labs! Each course is pretty expensive, but if you were to attend a regular school, you'd have to take filler courses just to get financial aid in order to be a full-time student. These other schools would also charge more than base tuition and fees so that you'd be looking at $11,000 and up just to get your pre-reqs for grad school. (And of course, that's only for one year.) That's the other great thing about these courses--they are completely self-paced, so you can take up to a year to complete them. Total costs for each course comes out to around $1340.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Illinois Institute of Technology: Biology (Online)
This program doesn't sound too bad, but without on-campus labs or a thesis project, I don't see how it could be all that useful, especially at the high cost of attendance.
Application Deadline: Dec. 15 , May 10, Aug. 1
Application Cost: $40
Degrees Offered: PSM (Professional Science Masters)
Min. GPA: 3.0
Min. GRE: required of international students, students with GPA between 2.5 and 3.0, or at request of admissions committee; in any of the aforementioned cases a min. score of 1100 combined is required.
Subject GRE: Not required
Pre-requisites:
Bachelor's in Biology
Recommendend courses: genetics, cell biology, and biochemistry
Interesting Courses: Medical Microbiology, Virology, Toxicology, Advanced Microbiology
Areas of Emphasis: Microbiology, Biochemistry, Biotechnology, Cell and Molecular Biology
Total Cost of Attendance: $32,013 (This is for full-time, on-campus; I couldn't find anything about the cost of just the online program, but maybe it's the same.)
Comprehensive exam required at the end, which may mean having to go to Chicago to do it. There is no thesis option available.
Required to take some stupid business, communication, etc. ("professional" courses--a major drawback of the program.)
Application Deadline: Dec. 15 , May 10, Aug. 1
Application Cost: $40
Degrees Offered: PSM (Professional Science Masters)
Min. GPA: 3.0
Min. GRE: required of international students, students with GPA between 2.5 and 3.0, or at request of admissions committee; in any of the aforementioned cases a min. score of 1100 combined is required.
Subject GRE: Not required
Pre-requisites:
Bachelor's in Biology
Recommendend courses: genetics, cell biology, and biochemistry
Interesting Courses: Medical Microbiology, Virology, Toxicology, Advanced Microbiology
Areas of Emphasis: Microbiology, Biochemistry, Biotechnology, Cell and Molecular Biology
Total Cost of Attendance: $32,013 (This is for full-time, on-campus; I couldn't find anything about the cost of just the online program, but maybe it's the same.)
Comprehensive exam required at the end, which may mean having to go to Chicago to do it. There is no thesis option available.
Required to take some stupid business, communication, etc. ("professional" courses--a major drawback of the program.)
Monday, December 13, 2010
California State University-Chico: Environmental Science
Potential Advisors: None! All but one of these people is not a geologist (and he's an ornithologist). Sounds like the program must be geology based since it is combined with geology and has so many geologists on staff.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Prescott College-Environmental Studies
Note: This is an online program that is also available on campus.
Deadlines: April 15; Sept. 15 (but begins awarding aid in March, but these are the financial deadlines for fellowships)
Application Fee: $40
Min. GRE: Not required to submit GRE.
Subject GRE: Not required.
Min. GPA: N/A
Interesting Courses: Watershed Restoration, Advanced Readings in Conservation Biology, Advanced Readings in Carnivore Conservation and Management,
Areas of Emphasis: Conservation Ecology and Planning, Environmental Education, Sustainability Science and Practice, Social Ecology
Total Cost of Attendance: $20,946
Pre-requisites: None specified, but you should have a background in natural sciences, environmental advocacy, environmental education, alternative energies, sustainability studies, conservation biology, or resource management. Deficiencies can be made up.
Financial Aid: Graduate Fellowships awarded to students by faculty from the pool of applicants. Generous and renewable, provided you have good academic standing. TA'ing is an option if you plan to attend on campus. Pay is $6,000 per semester if teaching 20 hours/week. Otherwise, you're stuck with loans.
Drawbacks: Must attend 2 colloquia, lasting 3 days, per term (about eveyr 3 mos.)
Deadlines: April 15; Sept. 15 (but begins awarding aid in March, but these are the financial deadlines for fellowships)
Application Fee: $40
Min. GRE: Not required to submit GRE.
Subject GRE: Not required.
Min. GPA: N/A
Interesting Courses: Watershed Restoration, Advanced Readings in Conservation Biology, Advanced Readings in Carnivore Conservation and Management,
Areas of Emphasis: Conservation Ecology and Planning, Environmental Education, Sustainability Science and Practice, Social Ecology
Total Cost of Attendance: $20,946
Pre-requisites: None specified, but you should have a background in natural sciences, environmental advocacy, environmental education, alternative energies, sustainability studies, conservation biology, or resource management. Deficiencies can be made up.
Financial Aid: Graduate Fellowships awarded to students by faculty from the pool of applicants. Generous and renewable, provided you have good academic standing. TA'ing is an option if you plan to attend on campus. Pay is $6,000 per semester if teaching 20 hours/week. Otherwise, you're stuck with loans.
Drawbacks: Must attend 2 colloquia, lasting 3 days, per term (about eveyr 3 mos.)
Monday, November 1, 2010
Colorado State University-Biology (Botany and Zoology)
Application Deadlines: Jan 15, Nov 1
Degrees Offered: MS, PhD
Min. GPA (Generally): 3.0
GRE (Generally): above 70th percentile
Subject GRE: Not mentioned, so probably not required.
TA'ing: Not required, pays tuition (but only out-of-state for the first year); fill out form when applying
RA'ing: Generally follows the same guidelines as TA'ing; not much information about it; fill out form when applying
Both TA'ing and RA'ing come with a small health benefit IF you get on the school's health insurance. You must work a minimum of 10 hours per week and be a full-time student (at least 6 credits). Support assistantships are also available; these are in administrative offices.
Interesting Sounding Courses: Plant Identification, Poisonous Plants, Aquatic Vascular Plants, Introductory Phycology, Introductory Mycology, Comparative Morphology of Vascular Plants, Global Change Ecology: Impacts and Mitigation, Molecular Ecology, Parasitology and Vector Biology, Ecological Plant Morphology, Topics in Mycology, Presenting Research in Biology, Reproductive Biology of Higher Plants, Molecular Aspects of Plant Development, Phytoremediation, Plant Metabolism, Global Environmental Change: Challenges for Ecology and Economies
Total Cost of Attendance, In-state: $22,316 ($9,164 tuition)
Total Cost of Attendance, Out-of-state: $34,604 ($20,752 tuition)
Potential Advisors: Dr. von Fischer's Webpage (interesting, but really into biogeochem and things that I don't have a background in; microbial ecology and plants affecting each other), see ecology,
No information on pre-requisites.
Degrees Offered: MS, PhD
Min. GPA (Generally): 3.0
GRE (Generally): above 70th percentile
Subject GRE: Not mentioned, so probably not required.
TA'ing: Not required, pays tuition (but only out-of-state for the first year); fill out form when applying
RA'ing: Generally follows the same guidelines as TA'ing; not much information about it; fill out form when applying
Both TA'ing and RA'ing come with a small health benefit IF you get on the school's health insurance. You must work a minimum of 10 hours per week and be a full-time student (at least 6 credits). Support assistantships are also available; these are in administrative offices.
Interesting Sounding Courses: Plant Identification, Poisonous Plants, Aquatic Vascular Plants, Introductory Phycology, Introductory Mycology, Comparative Morphology of Vascular Plants, Global Change Ecology: Impacts and Mitigation, Molecular Ecology, Parasitology and Vector Biology, Ecological Plant Morphology, Topics in Mycology, Presenting Research in Biology, Reproductive Biology of Higher Plants, Molecular Aspects of Plant Development, Phytoremediation, Plant Metabolism, Global Environmental Change: Challenges for Ecology and Economies
Total Cost of Attendance, In-state: $22,316 ($9,164 tuition)
Total Cost of Attendance, Out-of-state: $34,604 ($20,752 tuition)
Potential Advisors: Dr. von Fischer's Webpage (interesting, but really into biogeochem and things that I don't have a background in; microbial ecology and plants affecting each other), see ecology,
No information on pre-requisites.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Colorado School of Mines-Environmental Science and Engineering
It sounds like you don't have to be an engineer to get into this program. The acceptance rate is very high, despite the fact that it is one of the top engineering schools in the country. However, the price tag is very high--$33,000 for in-state alone--and remission of all of those fees is not guaranteed. It sounds like an interesting program, so it may be worth checking out.
Application Deadline: January 15 for Fall Semester; Oct. 1 for Spring Semester
Degrees Offered: MS (thesis and non-thesis options), PhD (does not require a Master's, but one is preferred)
Min GPA: Admitted students have an average GPA of 3.42
GRE score: Admitted students have a combined score of ~1200 (Avg: 679 Quantitative; 515 Verbal) Undergraduates who attended the school and had a GPA greater than 3.25 can have the GRE waived.
GRE subject: Not required
Areas of Emphasis: Water Treatment, Reclamation, and Reuse; Contaminant Hydrology and Water Resources; Applied Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology; Environmental Characterization and Risk Analysis; Site Remediation and Environmental Restoration; PhD students are not required to specialize in one of these areas.
Courses: Environmental Pollution: Sources, Characteristics, Transport, and Fate; Scientific Basis of Environmental Regulation; Solid Waste Minimization and Recycling; Environmental Water Chemistry; Environmental Risk Assessment; Experimental Design and Environmental Data Analysis; Environmental Radiochemistry; Chemistry of Soil/Water Interface; Microbial Process Analysis and Modeling; Aquatic Toxicology; Reclamation of Disturbed Lands; Mining and the Environment; Molecular Microbial Ecology and the Environment
Pre-requisites:
Total Cost of Attendance: In-state: $33,338; Out-of-state: $47, 504
TA'ing: Not required. Highly competitive to get.
Assistantships: Include a stipend depending on how many hours are worked. Also eligible for tuition, fees, and health insurance remission. But these latter are not guaranteed.
Acceptance: 82% of applicants are accepted.
Application Deadline: January 15 for Fall Semester; Oct. 1 for Spring Semester
Degrees Offered: MS (thesis and non-thesis options), PhD (does not require a Master's, but one is preferred)
Min GPA: Admitted students have an average GPA of 3.42
GRE score: Admitted students have a combined score of ~1200 (Avg: 679 Quantitative; 515 Verbal) Undergraduates who attended the school and had a GPA greater than 3.25 can have the GRE waived.
GRE subject: Not required
Areas of Emphasis: Water Treatment, Reclamation, and Reuse; Contaminant Hydrology and Water Resources; Applied Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology; Environmental Characterization and Risk Analysis; Site Remediation and Environmental Restoration; PhD students are not required to specialize in one of these areas.
Courses: Environmental Pollution: Sources, Characteristics, Transport, and Fate; Scientific Basis of Environmental Regulation; Solid Waste Minimization and Recycling; Environmental Water Chemistry; Environmental Risk Assessment; Experimental Design and Environmental Data Analysis; Environmental Radiochemistry; Chemistry of Soil/Water Interface; Microbial Process Analysis and Modeling; Aquatic Toxicology; Reclamation of Disturbed Lands; Mining and the Environment; Molecular Microbial Ecology and the Environment
Pre-requisites:
- 1 year Chemistry
- 1 semester Physics
- 1 year Calculus
- 1 semester Statistics
Total Cost of Attendance: In-state: $33,338; Out-of-state: $47, 504
TA'ing: Not required. Highly competitive to get.
Assistantships: Include a stipend depending on how many hours are worked. Also eligible for tuition, fees, and health insurance remission. But these latter are not guaranteed.
Acceptance: 82% of applicants are accepted.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
University of Chicago-Ecology & Evolution
The Ecology & Evolution department does not have a FAQ posted yet, so when that gets posted I should be able to update this with more relevant information. Reading the Biology Department's FAQ, I came across the obnoxious statement that they do not disclose statistics of how many applicants they receive, average scores, GPAs, etc. of accepted students, and so on. Although this is a top-ranking school, I didn't much care for it. The price is so high, for one, though theoretically this is all taken care of by assitantships. Information is hard to find because the website is so difficult to navigate, the ecology and evolutionary biology department's website is spare, and they aren't willing to give you all the info. you want and need. They seem rather unfriendly.
Application Deadline: Dec. 1.
Degrees Offered: PhD only, but you don't need a Master's to apply.
Min. GPA: None specified.
GRE scores: None specified, but you do have to take the test.
GRE subject: Not required, unless you apply for an NSF grant.
Total Cost of Attendance: $48,920 (not specified if this is in or out of state or both)
Financial Aid: The following comes directly from the biology FAQ: "The financial aid package provides you with a stipend of $26,500 per year. Your tuition costs (approximately $48,920 in 2008-2009) and health insurance fees (approximately $2,600) are also covered in the financial aid package. You will also be provided with a one time $500 supplement to aid you in relocating to attend the Division of Biological Sciences Graduate Program at the University of Chicago." Aid comes in the form of, "Predoctoral training grant appointments or research assistantships."
TA'ing: Required to TA twice! They offer a training course as well as a TA'ing handbook to help out. Areas of Emphasis: None specified.
Courses: Environmental Ecology, Natural History of North American Deserts, Prairie Ecosystems: Lessons of Sustainability in the Past, Present, and Future, Tropical Ecology: Biodiversity and Human Impacts, Biological Poisons and Toxins, Ecological Applications to Conservation Biology, Mammalian Ecology, Plant Development and Molecular Genetics, Intro. to Virology, Image Processing in Biology, Ecology and Evolution in the Southwest, Marine Ecology (Note: These are all undergrad courses. They don't seem to have a listing of grad. courses.)
Pre-requisites: While none are listed, the biology website states, "Evidence of a sound background in the candidate's intended field of study is important, as well as academic credentials suggesting that the applicant has the ability to pursue advanced study and research successfully."
US News & World Report Ranking: For all graduate ecology programs, it is ranked Number 1, as of 2007.
Application Deadline: Dec. 1.
Degrees Offered: PhD only, but you don't need a Master's to apply.
Min. GPA: None specified.
GRE scores: None specified, but you do have to take the test.
GRE subject: Not required, unless you apply for an NSF grant.
Total Cost of Attendance: $48,920 (not specified if this is in or out of state or both)
Financial Aid: The following comes directly from the biology FAQ: "The financial aid package provides you with a stipend of $26,500 per year. Your tuition costs (approximately $48,920 in 2008-2009) and health insurance fees (approximately $2,600) are also covered in the financial aid package. You will also be provided with a one time $500 supplement to aid you in relocating to attend the Division of Biological Sciences Graduate Program at the University of Chicago." Aid comes in the form of, "Predoctoral training grant appointments or research assistantships."
TA'ing: Required to TA twice! They offer a training course as well as a TA'ing handbook to help out. Areas of Emphasis: None specified.
Courses: Environmental Ecology, Natural History of North American Deserts, Prairie Ecosystems: Lessons of Sustainability in the Past, Present, and Future, Tropical Ecology: Biodiversity and Human Impacts, Biological Poisons and Toxins, Ecological Applications to Conservation Biology, Mammalian Ecology, Plant Development and Molecular Genetics, Intro. to Virology, Image Processing in Biology, Ecology and Evolution in the Southwest, Marine Ecology (Note: These are all undergrad courses. They don't seem to have a listing of grad. courses.)
Pre-requisites: While none are listed, the biology website states, "Evidence of a sound background in the candidate's intended field of study is important, as well as academic credentials suggesting that the applicant has the ability to pursue advanced study and research successfully."
US News & World Report Ranking: For all graduate ecology programs, it is ranked Number 1, as of 2007.
University of Michigan-Natural Resources and Environment
This sounds like an excellent program. However, the price is outrageous! $30,000 just for in-state alone.
Degrees Offered: MS, PhD (must have Master's to get into PhD program)
Total Cost of Attendance: In-state: $34,571; Out-of-state: $52,229
Prerequisites: None!
Min. GPA: None that I could see.
GRE scores: Test is required, but no min. scores are listed.
GRE subject: Not required, as far as I can tell.
TA'ing: (Called TI'ing here) Generally, includes full tuition remission, health and dental benefits, and monthly stipend
RA'ing: Tuition remission, health benefits, month stipend
The school also hires Grad Student Staff Assistants, who take care of administrative duties.
Areas of Emphasis (Master's):
Courses: Ecological Restoration, Sustainable Energy Systems, Wetland Ecology, Aquatic Entomology, Geology of the Great Lakes, Psychology of Environmental Stewardship, Soils, Woody Plants, Forest Ecology, Neotropical Plants, Biofuels Bio-Based C-Mitigation, Environmental Microbiology, Soil Ecology, Negotiation Skills in Environmental Disputes Resolutions
Potential Advisors:
Degrees Offered: MS, PhD (must have Master's to get into PhD program)
Total Cost of Attendance: In-state: $34,571; Out-of-state: $52,229
Prerequisites: None!
Min. GPA: None that I could see.
GRE scores: Test is required, but no min. scores are listed.
GRE subject: Not required, as far as I can tell.
TA'ing: (Called TI'ing here) Generally, includes full tuition remission, health and dental benefits, and monthly stipend
RA'ing: Tuition remission, health benefits, month stipend
The school also hires Grad Student Staff Assistants, who take care of administrative duties.
Areas of Emphasis (Master's):
- Aquatic Sciences: Research and Management
- Behavior, Education and Communication
- Conservation Biology
- Environmental Informatics: GIS and Modeling
- Environmental Justice
- Environmental Policy and Planning
- Sustainable Systems
- Terrestrial Ecosystems
Courses: Ecological Restoration, Sustainable Energy Systems, Wetland Ecology, Aquatic Entomology, Geology of the Great Lakes, Psychology of Environmental Stewardship, Soils, Woody Plants, Forest Ecology, Neotropical Plants, Biofuels Bio-Based C-Mitigation, Environmental Microbiology, Soil Ecology, Negotiation Skills in Environmental Disputes Resolutions
Potential Advisors:
Donald R. Zak, Ph.D. (microbial ecology)
Brad Cardinale (restoration ecology; loss of biodiversity; no publications listed)
William S. Currie: (ecosystem ecology, sustainability) Actually takes on new MS students every year, but is going to Sweden soon (for a sabbatical? I don't know.) http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wcurrie/index.html
Even has his own website about financial aid!
Inés Ibáñez, Ph.D. (plant community ecology) (PhD from Duke 2006, not very many publications)
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