Application Info
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The Department of Geological Sciences welcomes applications to its graduate program from students with a keen interest in advancing knowledge in the Earth Sciences. Our goal is to train individuals with a high sense of purpose and critical skills, who can excel and be leaders in any career of their choice.

Therefore, we seek students with strong scientific backgrounds, who are highly motivated and display independence, initiative, and perseverance. We strongly encourage applicants to go through the Research section of the Department web page and contact individual faculty with a clear idea of their research interests and future goals. Applicants should include their research goals for graduate school in their Statement of Purpose.

We consider applicants with undergraduate or Masters degrees from all fields of science and with a genuine focused interest in the Earth Sciences. All students will be considered for direct admission to the PhD program, since our graduate programs are geared towards attainment of the PhD degree. Nonetheless, students may opt to earn a Master's degree while pursuing their PhD.

How to Apply
Applications must be submitted online. Prospective graduate students should follow the instructions on the Rackham School of Graduate Studies web site. Program codes to use in the application may be found in the Geological Sciences section of the Rackham web site. The application fee for U.S. citizens is $60 and $75 for international students.

Deadlines
Applications for Fall admission are due January 5. A completed application form, must be submitted on the Embark website by midnight on January 5. All other required items must be submitted on Embark or received in the Department office by 5pm on January 5, including all 3 letters of recommendation, official transcripts, GRE and TOEFL scores. Applications that fail to meet this deadline will not be considered for Fall Term admission.

The deadline for Winter Term admission is November 1. Students applying for admission in terms other than the Fall Term must include a letter discussing their reasons for this with their application.

GRE and TOEFL
    • The University of Michigan code for the GRE and the TOEFL is 1839.
Applicants must request that their scores be sent to the University of Michigan using the code above. The scores will be downloaded to the University's database and automatically included in the application. Requests can be made on the GRE or TOEFL web site. Official downloaded GRE and TOEFL scores are required. Photocopies are not accepted. The applicant is expected to make his/her own arrangements to pay for these examinations and to see that the results are sent to the Department.

The Graduate Record Examination (GRE, www.GRE.org), prepared and administered by the Educational Testing Service, is required as part of the application for admission. The GRE is administered throughout the United States and many other countries throughout the year. Dates and places to take the examination may be obtained from the Educational Testing Service (P.O. Box 955, Princeton, NJ 08540) or on their web site.

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL, www.ets.org/toefl/) is required of all non-native speakers. The University of Michigan requires a minimum TOEFL score for admission: 84 for the Internet Based TOEFL, and 560 for the Paper Based TOEFL. (For other English test minimum scores, please refer to the Rackham web site.)

Letters of Recommendation
Three (3) letters of recommendation in support of the student's application must be submitted to the Department. These letters should ordinarily be from professors at the student's last degree-granting institution. Recommenders must complete their recommendations online. When the applicant registers the recommenders' names in Embark, an email is automatically sent with a link to enter the recommendation online. Department staff will download the recommendations and add them to the application file.

Applicant Checklist
Submit online or upload to Embark:
    • Application
    • Transcript (scan of official or unofficial transcript for degree-granting schools)
    • Statement of Purpose — include your research goals for graduate school
    • Résumé or CV
    • Personal Statement

Send to Rackham Graduate School Admissions Office:
    • One set of official transcripts to:
        Rackham Graduate School
        Attn: Transcripts/U-M ID# (if known) or Date of Birth (mm/dd/yyy)
        915 E. Washington Street
        Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1070
        USA
Information about Rackham's transcript policy may be found on their web site.

How to Check your Application Status
You should check your application status on the University of Michigan Wolverine Access web site:  https://wolverineaccess.umich.edu/index.jsp. To create a "friend account" for Wolverine Access go to http://www.itd.umich.edu/itcsdocs/s4316/ and follow the directions.

Questions?
Contact the Geological Sciences Graduate Admissions Office.