Admissions

All prospective students should consult the Bulletin of the Wake Forest University Graduate School for general policies and procedures related to the graduate program. The application is available online here.  

The following description of admission requirements pertains only to the Molecular Medicine Program. All applicants

• should have a bachelor's degree with training in biology, chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, or physics;
• are required to have taken two semesters of organic chemistry;
• are strongly encouraged to have taken biochemistry, cell biology, physics and mathematics through the calculus level; and
• must submit recent scores from the Graduate Record Examination.

Admission will be based on the student's academic record, Graduate Record Examination scores, an interview and letters of recommendation. Inquiries regarding admissions will be referred to the Office of the Graduate Program in Molecular Medicine.  A printable Application Checklist for the admissions process to the Molecular Medicine program is available.

Applications for the fall of 2008 will be accepted until January 15, 2008.

The student's plan of study must include the core curriculum outlined on the Curriculum page of this website; all course requirements are expected to be completed by the end of the second academic year. In the fall semester of the third year, students will prepare and defend an original research proposal on the topic of the student's dissertation project and be tested on any course work in an oral examination.

We anticipate that candidates for a PhD degree in Molecular Medicine then would require two to three additional years in the research laboratory of their thesis advisor to complete their research projects. Finally, the student must present a dissertation which embodies the results of the student's research and pass an oral examination defending these results. Although formal teaching will not be a requirement for students, there will be many such opportunities in formal and informal settings. Students will be expected to complete the Program in Molecular Medicine in about five years.