The first thing to know is that graduate school in the sciences is generally free. The second thing to know is that graduate school is significantly harder than undergraduate, mainly because it requires independent research, which has no preset goal or path forward. The answers are not in the back of the book!
While many grad school application deadlines are in March, some are months earlier. It pays to start investigating your future research interests and potential graduate schools no later than the summer between your junior and senior years.
Getting Into Graduate School
You generally need a solid academic record, good GRE scores, and 3 letters of recommendation to get into grad school. Pitt, for example, requires a GPA of at least 3.0; other programs may be higher or lower. Go to the Getting Into Graduate School section for information on the general information needed. Additional information is available on how to apply to the Geology and Environmental Science graduate program at Pitt.
It is worth knowing that although your application will go to the university as a whole (as with undergraduate applications), admission will in fact be determined by the individual faculty in the department. Before you apply to a graduate school, determine which faculty you potentially want to work with and reach out to them. Send them a polite, formal email that specifies what about their research you find interesting, share your basic qualifications (major, GPA), and ask if they are accepting graduate students for the upcoming year. This will start a conversation, and their response or lack of response may help you to decide if they would be a good research advisor for you. Do NOT send a one-size-fits-all generic email; these are obvious and tend to just get deleted. You want the faculty to know that you are indeed interested in their research. Now, how do you figure out which graduate schools and faculty to contact? Read on!
Picking a Graduate School
There are three huge decisions to make when picking a graduate school:
- Which area do you find interesting enough for research?
- Which schools feature faculty that do this research?
- Where in the country/world would you like to do graduate school?
For more advice on each of these issues, please visit the Picking a Graduate School page.
Funding Your Graduate School Education
Although graduate school in the sciences is generally free, a few caveats apply, and outstanding students can apply for scholarships. Please visit our Funding Your Graduate page to learn more about funding your graduate school education.