College of Veterinary Medicine > Education > Graduate > PhD in Neuroscience > Neuroscience Apply to our Program

Apply to our Neuroscience Program

Required materials, application timeline, and frequently asked questions.

Application deadline: December 1 (applications cycle opens in July each year)

Admission requirements

  • Cumulative GPA (all courses) minimum 3.0

Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores are no longer required and will not be evaluated.

How to apply

Required materials

  • WSU graduate school application
    • Application directions from the WSU graduate school application page.
      • Select General Graduate Applications on the WSU Graduate School Apply Page
      • Select the term year to go to GradCAS, the Centralized Application Service (CAS™) for graduate programs
      • Filter by Washington State University.  To filter use the blue filter button, click on “see all” and scroll to Washington State University
      • In the search bar, search by degree name: neuroscience
  • College transcripts (unofficial acceptable for initial review–upon admittance official transcripts are required by the WSU Graduate School)
  • Three (3) letters of reference submitted directly by the reference writer
  • Resume or curriculum vitae
  • TOEFL, IELTS, and Duolingo scores or language waiver for all international applicants from a country whose primary language is not English.
  • The Personal Statement. This is one of the most important and informative aspects of the application. This statement is read carefully by the Admissions Committee and by other faculty members who are interested in recruiting a student in any given year. These readers are looking to understand your motivation for pursuing a PhD in Neuroscience and to ensure that your interests are a good match for the current research interests of Neuroscience faculty at WSU (you can find details of faculty interests on the Neuroscience Program website). In your statement, you can identify specific faculty (minimum of three) that you might want to do lab rotations with and note how their research fits with your previous experience and/or interests. You can also use this statement to provide evidence that you understand the demands of graduate school and can handle such demands. Please limit this statement to 500 words.

**Submitting a document over the maximum word length may result in your application’s disqualification from consideration

We encourage applicants to contact faculty members who they may be interested in working with prior to review of admissions documents. 

Frequently Asked Questions

No, we accept students from all disciplines. However, we look heavily at the science and math background of any students who are accepted.

No, a MS degree is not necessary to apply for the PhD program.

Applicants generally will be expected to have completed courses in inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, calculus, physics, statistics, and a minimum of three (3) courses in different areas of the biological sciences. 

Completed applications will be reviewed until all spots in the program have been filled for the upcoming year.

The faculty you list give the Graduate Studies Committee a better idea of whom you would like to work with and the potential lab rotations if admitted.

Students in the neuroscience PhD program do not have to have a mentor when they begin their program. They can do three laboratory rotations before deciding on their mentor by the end of their first semester.

MS students need to have an identified and agreed upon mentor when they are admitted to the MS program.

We encourage you to email neuroscience faculty directly to express your interest in potentially joining their lab.

Students must remain at the same campus location as their research mentor. If a student needs to be in a specific location, they should find a mentor on that campus (Pullman, Vancouver, or Spokane).

The Program does not provide application fee waivers.

The neuroscience program invites selected students to interview in Pullman during the month of February. The program will cover necessary travel and lodging expenses for this trip.

PhD students who are accepted into the neuroscience program will normally receive a graduate assistantship with a tuition waiver and health insurance as long as they maintain a 3.0 GPA and perform satisfactorily in the research laboratory.

No funding is available for MS students, however, there is a possibility the student’s mentor may have funding for a research assistantship or there may be TA opportunities in other programs.

Questions? Contact the graduate neuroscience program or see Graduate School FAQs.