How to Apply | MS in Physiology

• Link to Online Application Portal (new window)
• For program of study, please select:
  “Physiology & Biophysics – Regular Program (MS)”
• If you are a recent or soon-to-be graduate of the G² ABS Certificate program, please select:
  “Physiology & Biophysics – Regular Program (MS) GeorgeSquared”
• Religious Affiliation: In 2021, Georgetown has added a question on Religious Affiliation to the applications for all programs at the university. We DO NOT consider religious affiliation in our admissions decisions, and your selection will not advantage or disadvantage your application in any way. As such, applicants are very welcomed to select “Choose not to provide” for this question.
• If you are currently enrolled in a degree program, please be sure to list that institution first in your academic history and include your expected graduation date.
• The option “no degree awarded or expected” should only be used for institutions where you only took a few courses as a non-degree student (ie, summer courses at a local college) or colleges you attended without earning a degree (ie, you started college at a four-year institution and transferred to a different four-year institution).
• For those who attended community college prior to transferring to a four-year college, please use the date when your Associate’s Degree was conferred as the graduation date. If you did not meet the requirements for an Associates Degree before transferring to a four-year institution, please use the “no degree awarded or expected” option.

• Approximately 500-1000 words; normally one page but not to exceed two pages (please be succinct). Similar in length to a professional school application essay (ie, AMCAS limit is 5300 characters = ~750 words; AADSAS limit is 4500 characters = ~675 words).
• For those who have previously applied to professional school, you are welcome to submit the same or a similar essay that you previously submitted to AMCAS/AADSAS/AACOMAS/CASPA/etc.
• The majority of your statement should address your motivations and preparation to pursue your chosen profession (ie, Why medicine? Why dentistry? Why a PhD?) and then briefly address your motivations and goals for our program.

• Georgetown has added an opportunity for applicants across all of its programs to submit an Optional Statement that addresses diversity, personal background, and contributions to community. As indicated by its name, the Optional Statement is optional and is not required for the application to our program.
• One of the scholarships available to our program’s applicants through Biomedical Graduate Education, the Hoyas for Science Scholarship, has a similar prompt to this new Optional Statement, and most importantly, you are not allowed to submit the same (or a similar) essay for this scholarship application that you submit for any part of your program application, including for the new Optional Statement.
• We would therefore like to advise applicants to our program to be mindful of this restriction for the scholarship and compose/submit their application essays accordingly.
• Again, the Optional Statement is optional and is not required for the application to our program.

Full CV/resumé including all of the following at a minimum:

1. all work (clinical and non-clinical), research, volunteer, intern, shadowing, and observing experiences with dates (month and year), name of the company/organization, and responsibilities and/or descriptions clearly noted.
2. all shadowing and observing experiences should additionally have number of hours and practitioner names clearly noted
3. cumulative GPA for each educational institution listed
   • cumulative GPA calculation listed on the resume should include all coursework, not just coursework in your major field of study
   • The required minimum cumulative undergraduate GPA for our program is 3.0. The recommended minimum cumulative GPA is 3.3. We calculate cumulative GPA from all coursework completed across all undergraduate institutions attended.
4. Minimum acceptable font size is 11pt.  If necessary, please allow your CV/resumé to span more than one page in order to include all requested details while maintaining font sizes and spacing that facilitate readability.
5. Each section of the resumé should have the most recent experiences listed first, which is the most common way to organize a resume (chronologically, with experiences listed from most recent to oldest). You can find examples of resume organization and formatting here.

Two (2) letters of recommendation or a committee letter packet.  

• In the application system, you must waive your right to view your letters of recommendation in order for our committee to accept them for your application to this program.
• All applicants have the option to submit up to three letters of recommendation, but only two are required.  Applicants submitting a committee letter can optionally submit up to two additional letters; we do not require additional letters from applicants submitting committee letters.
• Your first letter must be from a science professor who had you as a student in a science course (excluding independent research), unless you are submitting a committee letter packet.
  • For GeorgeSquared ABS Alumni and Current Students: Your first letter must be from your assigned letter writer from the ABS program.
• For second letters, we prefer the writers to be:
  • Additional science professor who had you as a student in a science class
  • Practitioner who supervised you in a clinical setting
  • Practitioner whom you have shadowed/observed
  • Research mentor/supervisor (faculty member) for wet lab or clinical research
• Acceptable, but not preferred, second/third letter writers can be:
  • Non-practitioner supervisor from clinical setting (ie, hospital volunteer coordinator)
  • Research mentor/supervisor for “dry lab” or non-science research
  • Professor from a non-science course
  • Academic advisor/faculty mentor who has not had you as a student in a class
  • Supervisor from non-clinical employment or volunteer work

• Recommendation writers should not have any familial ties or conflicts of interest in relation to the applicant (ie, should not be a family member and should not be an employee, business associate, or other professional or personal affiliate of the applicant’s family members).
• For any questions or concerns about recommendation writers or possible conflicts of interest, please contact us.

Transcripts are required from every institution you have earned credits and grades, including both degree and non-degree coursework. This differs from the general Graduate School guidelines in the application portal, so please be sure to upload transcripts for all institutions attended, including:

• Institutions where you earned fewer than 15 credits
• Institutions where you earned any amount of credits, even if those courses and grades are reflected on the transcript of your bachelors degree

This allows the admissions committee to have a more complete picture of your academic preparation for graduate study. You must upload electronic or scanned copies of your transcripts (as detailed below) into the application portal for review by the admissions committee; do not order official transcripts to be sent directly to us from your institution(s) until you receive an official offer of admission.

An acceptable transcript upload is a copy of an official transcript produced by the institution. This includes:

• Scanned copies of paper transcripts issued by the institution.
• Electronic transcripts issued by the institution (not a download from your institution’s web portal).

Transcript formats we do not accept include the following:

• We do not accept screenshots or photos.
• We do not accept downloads of the “student’s view” from your institution’s website.

Samples of Acceptable vs. Unacceptable Transcripts for Applications Submission:

Acceptable Transcript (below)

Unacceptable Transcript (below)

NOTE: Applicants who are offered admission will be required at that time to submit official transcripts for verification prior to enrolling.

For Transcripts from Outside the US:
We require course-by-course WES evaluations at the time of application for all degrees earned at institutions outside the US.

Note: If you took courses at an institution outside the US but did not earn a degree from that institution (ie, short-term study abroad programs), you do not need to submit a transcript evaluation.

If you have a pre-existing WES evaluation for your non-US degree, you can upload an unofficial copy to your application. If you have a course-by-course transcript evaluation from another NACES-member company, we may be able to accept this in place of a WES evaluation, but it is not guaranteed.

For additional questions, please visit Admissions FAQ.

TOEFL: Georgetown University Code is 5244. The minimum TOEFL score for admission is 80 (Internet-based test) and 550 (paper test).

IELTS: Select “Georgetown University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.” The minimum IELTS score for admission is 7.0.

All applicants are required to demonstrate a level of proficiency in the English language sufficient to meet the admission requirement of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Proficiency can be demonstrated by the receipt of a bachelor’s or advanced degree from an accredited institution of higher education in the United States or from a university where English is the primary language of instruction (please note that applicants receiving degrees at universities in U.S. territories, such as Puerto Rico, are required to submit the TOEFL or IELTS unless the primary language of instruction at the institution is English).

MCAT, GRE, and DAT are not required, however, we strongly encourage students to report these scores if they are available. Unofficial MCAT, GRE, and DAT score reports should be emailed directly to the program (contact us) as a PDF attachment of the score report from the exam website (showing date of exam, total score, breakdown of score, and percentile rankings). Please do not enter your score or upload your score report into the application portal as this will trigger an official score report to be required in order to make your application complete.