Plant Biology Frequently Asked Questions

The deadline for priority consideration is January 15. It is important to have a COMPLETE application (all parts submitted, including all of your letters of recommendation) by that date because we begin our considerations immediately and work to identify our short list before the end of January. We do consider applications after that deadline and sometimes support opportunities arise late in the admissions cycle.

The university application will show additional deadlines for spring and summer admission. However, we rarely admit students in the spring and summer and even then it has only been when a student has been encouraged to apply by a professor because they are a good fit for an available research position in that professor’s laboratory.

Nearly all of our students enter the program in the fall semester. It is possible to enter at other times, but that is very rare and involves a situation where a specific professor has identified a specific student for an available RA.

We do not require any test scores. Submitting GRE scores is optional, but not submitting them has no adverse effect upon an application.

The minimum scores for the IELTS is an overall band score of at least 6.5. Minimum test scores for each section are listed below:

Listening 6.5

Reading 6.5

Writing 6.5

Speaking 6.5 – for admission, 7.0 – for TA appointment

Official TOEFL test scores must be sent electronically from the Education Testing Service (ETS). The NC State University Institution Code for Test Score Distribution is: 5496. A department code does not need to be selected.

When submitting your IELTS scores, you can either submit them electronically through your testing center, or you can scan your TRF scorecard, save it as a PDF, and attach it to an email addressed to graduate_applications@ncsu.edu.

Make sure that in the body of the email you list the following information:

·        your full name,

·        the date of your IELTS exam,

·        the TRF number at the bottom right hand corner of the scorecard,

·        and your NCSU Application Reference Number.

As long as the TRF number on the scorecard is visible, we can verify the scores and post them to your application.

Submitting GRE scores is optional. They play a minimal role, if any, in the admissions process.  The Graduate School does have TOEFL minima that must be met for full admission, which is required for a student holding an assistantship. There are many rules, which you can review here (see section 2.4.B).

An unofficial transcript is OK for application purposes although, of course, an official transcript would have to be submitted for final admission. Test scores require official reports, but submitting a GRE is optional and  a TOEFL may not be required if you satisfy one of the exceptions (see 2.4.B.4-5). If you do not satisfy one of the exceptions, then we would need to have the official test report.

You would not require a TOEFL score for the reasons you state.

You only have to submit unofficial transcripts with your initial application. Eventually, of course, you would need to provide official transcripts to finalize an actual admission. We do not deal with the transcripts–so the evaluation question should be directed to the NC State Graduate School.

The NC State Graduate School does accept three year degrees from certain institutions: Three-year Bachelors Degrees | The Graduate School.

The University Cashier provides this information here. Note that the tuition is paid through the Graduate Student Support Plan for students with fellowships and assistantships. Fees are the responsibility of the student.

We only admit students to whom we can offer support. That necessarily limits the size of our entering class. Available support includes departmental teaching assistantships, research assistantships funded by specific grants, and some university fellowships (most for just the first year). There are some training grants, some of which target entering students and others students in their 2nd or 3rd year.

There is not a separate application process for support consideration. University fellowships may require an additional statement, but students do not apply directly for those fellowships. Instead, the Plant Biology Graduate Program identifies students to nominate and we will contact those students for the additional information needed.

Other programs, such as the Genetics & Genomics Scholars, have an application that is integral to the overall application. You have the opportunity to indicate that you would like your application to be considered by that program and will be asked to provide additional information within the university application.

All of our students with fellowships and assistantships (teaching and/or research) have their tuition paid through the Graduate Student Support Plan (GSSP). This includes out-of-state tuition, although it is important to note that students who are able to establish North Carolina residency are required to do so after their first year in North Carolina. Those who fail to do so will not have their out-of-state tuition paid through the GSSP. Most international students are not able to establish NC residency and their out-of-state tuition will be paid after the first year.

There are time limits to GSSP support. Masters students have 4 semesters of support. PhD students have 8 semesters of support if they have a prior Masters degree and 10 semesters if they do not. The time limits don’t really matter if a student with in-state tuition status is supported by a grant-funded research assistantship, since the grant is paying the tuition.

We do not have a mandatory rotation system for PhD students, but students can and do elect to rotate. Those who are able to rotate are the students who will be supported on departmental TAs, a departmental fellowship, or one of the university fellowships. Sometimes RAs on specific grants are available to interested entering students and if it is a good match of professor, student, and project, then the student will just go straight to that lab.

A key element of the admissions process is our having a good sense of potential matches for a student. It is important that you give a very clear sense of your research interests and take time to investigate and Identify potential mentors in your application.

Rotations are not practical for MS students, so an MS student will be admitted to work with a specific professor.

This is absolutely necessary for MS students, who need to have an advisor identified in order to be admitted.

An important part of the PhD admissions process is for the admissions committee to develop a sense of the potential matches between an applicant and an adviser. Contacting faculty members is not really necessary. It is certainly not helpful to send generic emails to multiple faculty members. If you do contact a faculty member, be sure to convey in your message that you have learned something about their research and why you are interested in their program. Note that a faculty member cannot and will not make an advance commitment to a student. If they think you are a good prospect for the program, they will let the graduate committee know and we take that into account in our deliberations.

The graduate committee must have a complete application from a student for our review. It is critically important that the applicant conveys a clear sense of their research interests and why they think our program is a good fit for them. The place to do that is in your personal statement. You should identify specific faculty members with whom you would be interested in working in your personal statement. There is also a place on the application page to do so. Note that you can list more than one name in that place.

Whomever you indicate as a possible adviser will be alerted that we have an application from you. If you have given a clear indication of your research interests we may contact additional faculty members that we think might be interested in your application. The admissions committee takes into account the responses of the individual faculty members.

We do have a recruiting event, usually in late February, with invitations extended in late January. The invitees to that event are essentially our short-list applicants. Visits at other times are possible, particularly for students who have been identified as a high-priority applicant by a faculty member.The NC State Graduate School offers “Visit NC State” late in the fall semester for a select group of students. You apply for that through the Graduate School and can find more information here.

It would be highly unlikely that we would offer admission to a student that we had either not met in person or had interviewed via Skype or similar. You could expect a conversation that would have as its goal our developing an understanding of your interests, experiences, motivation, and language skills. There is no set formula.

Many of our students engage in interdisciplinary research. Many of our faculty members have appointments in graduate programs outside of Plant Biology. There are faculty members working with plants in a number of other departments, e.g., Molecular & Structural Biochemistry, Crop & Soil Sciences, Horticultural Sciences, Entomology & Plant Pathology, Applied Ecology, and Forestry & Environmental Resources.

The Plant Sciences Initiative (PSI) is a multi-departmental (and multi-college) endeavor featuring a variety of interdisciplinary research projects. Some of the faculty in our department are involved in the PSI.

The Department of Plant & Microbial Biology (PMB) is the administrative home for two PhD programs: Plant Biology and Microbiology. The Microbiology graduate program is a multi-departmental and multi-college program. There are ongoing collaborations between microbiologists and plant biologists in PMB.

The timeframe for an MS is very tight, so it is necessary that a student has identified their prospective mentor with whom they would work. A very important part of the admissions process will be expressions of faculty interest in having a particular student join their laboratory. If a faculty member has an RA on a research grant, then that becomes very much of an advance match situation. If they do not, then their expression of interest is taken into account as we consider admissions, but the support in that case would be a TA (technically TA/RA, with a TA during the academic terms and an RA during the summer). PhD students have the option to rotate through three prospective laboratories. That is not a practical option for a MS student given their shorter time in the program.

It is very challenging for an international student to pursue a research-based MS degree. This is because there is a strict two-year time-limit for the tuition support that is provided to students holding assistantships. Therefore, we rarely admit international students to the MS program.

Thesis masters students are eligible for departmental support (TA or RA). Non-thesis masters students generally are not eligible for support.

Because we only admit students to whom we can offer support, our entering class is very small, usually just 5-7 students. The number we can admit depends upon available TA and RA positions.

We do not expect applicants to have publications, although we do require that they have had substantial research experience. Two papers in review and a manuscript in preparation would be a positive factor.

We cannot waive the application fee. The Plant Biology Graduate program can pay the application fee for an applicant if a professor tells us that they are very interested in a particular student. In that case, the student would still need to submit a complete application without paying the application fee. We can do a preliminary review of the application to determine if it is competitive before proceeding.