Information for Prospective Students

The CMB program is not a degree-granting program. Instead, all students in the CMB program must be enrolled in the Ph.D. program of one of the participating departments and must satisfy the Ph.D. admissions and graduation requirements of that department. Prospective students must apply directly to their chosen participating department(s), and specify their desire to join the CMB program in the cover letter to that department.

APPLICATION

A complete Ph.D. application should be submitted to one or more of the participating University of Washington departments. Consult the website of your chosen participating departments for application deadlines and instructions, addresses, applicant qualifications, financial aid, etc., as these vary from department to department. Note that some of these departments have application deadlines as early as December 15 for admission the following Autumn, and for international students there are deadlines as early as November 1. The application should include a cover letter that indicates clearly that you wish to be considered for the CMB program in addition to your preferred host department(s), and indicates which of the prerequisites for the CMB program you will have satisfied prior to admission.

Applications will be considered by the Ph.D. admissions committee of the participating department. If accepted into that Ph.D. program, the department will forward a copy of the application to the CMB program admissions committee. This committee will determine whether the student is accepted to the CMB program and advise the participating department of its decision.

(Students interested in joining the CMB program who are already enrolled in the Ph.D. program of one of the participating departments should contact the CMB Director for CMB application instructions.)

PREREQUISITES

The following minimal preparatory coursework requirements, which are essential for a thorough understanding of the material covered in the CMB core courses, should have been satisfied by every CMB student either prior to admission, or during the first year of graduate study:

  • 1 quarter of probability & statistics (the equivalent of STAT 390, STAT 391 or STAT 394)
  • 1 quarter of computer programming, preferably including the writing of programs for data analysis (the equivalent of CSE 142 / CSE 143)
  • 1 quarter of algorithms and data structures (the equivalent of CSE 373)
  • 2 quarters of molecular biology, biochemistry, and/or genetics (the equivalent of GENOME 371/372, and/or BIOC 440/441)

These should be at the advanced undergraduate level or higher, and at least two of them should have been satisfied prior to admission. The host department in general will have additional prerequisites. For better preparation and to increase the competitiveness of your application, it is recommended that all of the above prerequisites be satisfied prior to admission.