Biological Sciences M.S. - Basic Preparation | Applications Requirements
Applicants seeking admission to the Biology Master's Degree program should have a bachelor's degree in Biology. However, those with other degrees may apply if their preparation includes a significant number of foundation courses (see below) in the Biological Sciences, as well as appropriate chemistry, physics and mathematics courses.
Applicants should have completed the basic requirements of the bachelor's of science degree in Biological Sciences at UHCL or the following courses (including prerequisites or equivalents) before applying for admission to the master's program:
A maximum of six credit hours of the 4000 level courses listed above may be applied toward the MS degree.
As a condition of admittance to the graduate program, students who fail to meet School GRE and/or GPA standards will be required to meet additional performance criteria, such as past performance in critical courses, withdrawal and drop history, letters of recommendation, personal knowledge of past performance, improvement on repeated courses, work and/or life experiences and individual faculty support as a mentor in the research laboratory.
All graduate students in the Biology program must complete a Candidate Plan of Study (CPS) with their assigned faculty advisor before they complete 9 hours of graduate credit. Courses completed past the initial 9 hours that are not on the approved CPS may not be counted toward the degree.
Graduate students who are pursuing the master's thesis option are advised to take BIOL 5530, Research Methods in Biology, in consultation with their faculty adviser early in their studies as preparation for beginning the thesis. The remaining graduate hours may be taken in related areas and will be arranged with the faculty adviser during the preparation of the CPS. At minimum, 24 of the 36 hours must be in the Biological Sciences. Students who select the non-thesis option are required to complete BIOL 6838, the capstone project and seminar course, during their last 12 hours.
