Careers in Biology

By emphasizing biology and the related basic sciences, the Biology curriculum provides students with a strong, fundamental preparation for many careers as well as for advanced study. Fantastic opportunities for meaningful work await our graduates both in biology and related professional careers.

Franklin and Marshall's biology program provides students with a firm scientific foundation as well as with sufficient flexibility to accommodate individual interests. The range of these interests is reflected in the paths biology majors follow after graduation. There is a vast and expanding array of careers open to biology graduates, with or without further education, and employment prospects in these areas are very good.

About 85 percent of biology majors pursue further study, either directly after graduation or following a brief period of employment. Many go on to advanced training in health-related fields including medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, health care administration, nutrition and scientific research.

A number of students pursue master's and doctoral degrees in biology and related fields. Recent graduates have been admitted to universities such as aMichigan, Yale, Cornell, Harvard, and Duke for study in fields as diverse as molecular genetics, marine biology, reproductive physiology, biophysics, and plant ecology. Although such study often leads to a career in university teaching and research, there are opportunities for biologists in other occupations as well. These include industry (molecular biology, agricultural technology, pharmaceutical research, environmental consulting) and government (departments of health, agriculture, conservation, and environmental resources; also state parks and museums).

In any year about one-third of our graduates enter medical school or other professional school for the healing arts, about one-third enter graduate school, and about one-third enter employment immediately.

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Career Services

Career Services, 619 College Avenue, helps students to make career choices. It has a counseling staff and special advisors for students interested in graduate or professional school. It houses a career information library. You may make an appointment to see a counselor there. Also see the College Life Manual for more information.

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Graduate School

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL APPLICATION PROCESS

Why go to graduate school?

Most students who go to graduate school do so because they want to become a professional biologist and do research. Others do so to become a professional in an allied health field or to improve their academic record before applying to medical or veterinary school.

Preparing for graduate school

If you're majoring in Biology, you're already preparing for graduate school and your background will be more than adequate to enter any school in the country. Discussions with your adviser and other members of the department may offer suggestions for specific course work or reading that may make your application even more attractive to graduate schools in your area of intended of specialization. Remember, the fields of graduate study open to you are tremendously diverse: anatomy, biochemistry, marine biology, malacology, molecular genetics, neuroscience, mathematical biology, physiology, entomology, ethology, etc.

Advice from Faculty

The business of developing a list of appropriate schools should be worked out in detail with your adviser, but some points of general information will be covered here.   While compiling your list of graduate schools, we recommend that you consult with the faculty member whose specialty is closest to your career goals. If you're conducting a Bio 490 research project, your project adviser is probably the most appropriate person to talk with. Otherwise, the Department Chair or your academic adviser will direct you to the most appropriate faculty adviser for the application process.

Graduate School Brochures, Etc.

Many schools send us letters, brochures, and posters advertising their programs. These provide another, particularly helpful source of information because they often list their faculties and their areas of interest. We keep these for your use on the bulletin board outside F-110.

The most comprehensive source of information about each school is of course its catalog. You should write for catalogs and application forms from all the schools in which you have an interest. We have some catalogs in F-108, the Biology Seminar Room.

There be may more than one department at a school that interests you, especially at big research universities. For example, you may find that the departments of molecular biology, biochemistry, biophysics, botany, zoology, physiology, and microbiology all have faculty doing research of interest to you. In addition, seemingly closely related programs may be associated with unexpectedly very different departments. For instance, 'Behavioral Biology' may be in the Ecology and Evolution Department, and 'Biopsychology' in the Psychology Department.

Developing a List of Schools

Rule number one for selecting schools is to pick only those that have programs in your area of interest and for which you meet the minimum admission criteria, as defined in their catalog. (You wouldn't believe the number of times mistakes are made on these.) The next critical rule is to select schools representing a range of probabilities of your being admitted, i.e., from the "longshots" to the "safety schools." It's also probably a good idea to include schools from the widest possible geographical area & institutions of different sizes. These things help to put you in a number of different pools of competing applicants. Don't automatically ignore schools that offer only a Master's Degree. Success in an M.A. program can lead to your being admitted to a better Ph.D.program than you could be admitted to directly from undergraduate school. Note, however, that many large research universities DO NOT accept students seeking only an MS (or MA) but accept only students who are seeking the Ph.D.     As a rough guide, a reasonable number of schools to which to apply is probably somewhere around 10-12. This is based on the assumption that you will have schools all along the continuum from longshots to safety schools. It also takes into account the fact that it takes time (yours and ours) and money (yours and ours) to complete each application.

Financial Aid

Many of you will need to apply for financial aid and there is a reasonable expectation that if you are accepted to a graduate program it will be with some form of aid, but the probability of this has been decreasing somewhat in recent years. Some schools require a separate application for financial aid, and it is not uncommon for this application to have an earlier due date than the application for admission.   The most common types of aid are fellowships (where you don't have to work for the money), teaching and research assistantships (both of these are especially widely used at public universities), and loans. As a very rough guide, you can probably expect financial aid of somewhere around $7,000 that you can use to support yourself. An award this low would also probably entail an exemption from the cost of the school's tuition. If the award is much larger than this, the chances are that you must pay tuition out of it. In the final analysis, there usually isn't much difference between schools in terms of the amount of money they actually give you to live on. If you don't receive financial aid and you can afford to attend a school for a year on your own, the chances are usually quite good that you will receive aid beginning in the second year.   You can also apply for support on your own, for example for fellowships from the National Science Foundation or the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The graduate program(s) to which you are applying are the best sources of information regarding the types of fellowships that support their students.

Test Scores

Almost all schools require the Graduate Record Exam aptitude tests in Verbal and Quantitative. Most schools also require the achievement test in Biology. Applications for this exam are available in the Career Services. The deadlines for registration and the testing dates are posted on the Departmental bulletin board. These scores are important in selecting your list of schools, so you should plan, if you did not take the test over the summer, to meet the mid-September registration date and take the test in mid-October. There are two subsequent testing dates, but the scores from these will be returned here too late for you to be able to meet many of the graduate school application dates. The GRE registration form allows you to list several schools to which the results will be sent automatically, so you might confer with your adviser about a few hunches as to where it would be good to send them. Your adviser can also suggest a few good books for you to consider in reviewing for the achievement test in biology. Report your scores to your adviser as soon as you receive them.

Letters of Reference

In making application, you will have to ask two or three faculty members to write letters of reference in your behalf. Normally, at least some of them should be faculty from the Biology Department (or other science faculty who are familiar with your work, for example a chemistry professor if you're applying to a biochemistry program), since they should be able to estimate your potential for graduate work in Biology more accurately than faculty members in other disciplines. When selecting faculty members to write for you, be sure to choose people who know you well. The faculty member must state how well he or she knows you; the weight given to the letter will be based upon that. You should approach faculty members individually and obtain their permission to use their names as references.   One common point of misunderstanding is what a faculty member has committed herself or himself to in agreeing to write a letter for you. The commitment should be understood as the agreement to positively support your application, but it is not an agreement to say only good things. You can expect some balanced evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses. Letters which offer only glowing praise are regarded with skepticism. You shouldn't be overly concerned about this. If you have been successful in our program and want to go to graduate school, you presumably don't have large numbers of glaring weaknesses. Thus, a faculty member may be able to say, for example, that your greatest weaknesses are a tendency to be a bit too ambitious in undertaking a project and that you have difficulty meeting deadlines. Or, if it must be said that you had some trouble expressing yourself in writing, it may also be possible to cite some evidence of improvement. If a faculty member cannot provide basically positive support for your application, he or she will, no doubt, tell you that and suggest that you might want to seek a letter from someone else.   At the time you ask faculty members to write a letter for you, you should tell them whether you will or will not sign a waiver of your rights to see the contents of the letter in your folder at the graduate school. There will then be a waiver form which you will have to sign for each letter sent by each writer to each school. The content of the letter as well as the weight placed upon it by the recipients may depend upon whether or not it is known to be confidential. It would, therefore, seem to be to your advantage to sign the waiver, but it is your right to decline to do so. It is unlikely that anyone would refuse to write a letter that was not confidential, but it would probably be a different letter and of less value to your application.   As an aid in preparing complete and accurate letters, you should provide each of your writers with a copy of your transcript and a description of your research activities, extracurricular activities, work experience and future goals. Your writers will also need to know, for each of the places to which you are asking them to write, the deadline for the letter, the exact program to which you are applying, and whether you are applying for financial aid. If this information is not called for on a form supplied by the graduate school, make a note of it on a 3 x 5 card. Put the form or the card inside a departmental envelope which you have stamped and addressed correctly. Give the envelopes to the faculty member. (Multiply the number of students applying to graduate school x approximately a dozen schools x three letters, and you will have some idea of why it is important to provide the relevant information with each letter, and why you have to allow ample time for us to get one of your letters out.)

Responding to Acceptances

Notifications of acceptance are normally given before April 1, especially if there is also an award of financial assistance. We suggest the following outline for your decision process:   o As soon as you have two offers, decide which is the better one for you and politely refuse the other.   o Repeat this comparison and decision as you receive each new offer.   o Terminate the process as soon as you get a satisfactory offer from your most preferred school. Accept that offer and advise the other schools of your decision. This will open the way for students lower on the list (and you may be such a person on somebody's waiting list).   To protect the applicant from a premature decision, most schools will allow you until April 15 for a final decision about an offer involving financial assistance.   The acceptance process may go on throughout the summer (especially for the less than top choice positions) as schools work down through their waiting lists and discover that they still have openings, or new government grants are received, etc.

The Graduate Program Application Process

  The process

(October) Take GREs and MAT

(Oct-Nov) Select Schools. This process could begin earlier in the senior year or even in the junior year.

(Oct-Nov) Narrow/expand/polish list with faculty assistance

(Dec-Feb) Complete applications

(Jan-April) Wait

(April-May) Select schools pairwise and notify loser of each pair

  Choosing schools (At some point, and for some persons, choosing a graduate adviser is more important than choosing a school.)
Posters on bulletin board outside F-110

 

Graduate school booklets in F108 (Biology Seminar Room)

Letters from graduate departments in ring binder in department office

Talk to faculty

• If you're doing senior research, start with your adviser
• Otherwise, start with someone close to your area of interest
• Check faculty degrees in The Catalog. Did anyone in our department go to a school that you're interested in?

 

DO NOT limit yourself geographically unless you have a serious reason to do so. This is not a commitment for life, just for a few years!

DO NOT eliminate school (at this stage) for financial reasons. Often the most expensive schools have the most extensive financial aid.

Aim for perhaps 5-10 schools on your final list

The proper balance of schools is essential

• Match program interests with yours
• Match your qualifications with those of each program
  • The bulk of your list should represent a close match between your interests and theirs, and between your qualifications and the characteristics of admitted students as given in their catalog.
  • Include at least one "shooting for the moon" school.
  • Include at least one "safety" school.

 

Application process

• Deadlines-be VERY CAREFUL to meet those dates.
• References
  • ASK REFEREES NOW.
  • Pick people who know you. Make appointments to talk with each of them about your plans.
  • Ask if they know you well enough to write an honest letter
  • Don't expect us to write "the perfect, glowing" letter
    • This department writes balanced, truthful letters. We usually write about both strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes make comparisons to previous students whom we have sent to the same program.
  • A letter giving an honest appraisal of an applicant is much more highly valued by a grad school than is a "uniform praise" letter.
• Waiver of right to see letter
  • Logic of the statement
  • We generally recommend that you sign the waiver.
• You are responsible for distributing your reference requests. GET THESE FORMS TO YOUR REFEREES AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE!
  • CLEARLY note ON EACH REFERENCE REQUEST:
    • Deadline
    • Program applied for
    • Instructions to the referee
      • Is there a specific form, or do they just want a letter? Do we send it in directly? Seal it and return to you? Other?
    • Any other info that the referee needs to know (Do you know someone there? Are you basing research on someone who's there? Is a relative the chair of the department? Etc.)
  • Be sure to include a stamped, addressed envelope for each reference if referee is to mail directly.
• Financial aid applications
• May be separate from admission application
• May even have different deadlines!

 

Increasing your chances for admission

• Get at least one faculty member at the graduate school to know you well. Contact a faculty member at the graduate school whose research interests you (someone you may want to work with). Their interest in your going there could help sway an admissions panel.
  • Be familiar with his/her work.
  • Visit his/her lab.
  • Show him/her your Bio 490 thesis.
• Match your profile to what the school says about itself in its catalog.

The three most significant parameters which will increase your chances of admission are

• GPA
• GRE scores
• Research Experience

Graduate programs have a GPA and GRE cut off that are generally the first two parameters considered during the application process. In selecting your schools be sure to apply to programs whose requirements are compatible with your scores.
DO RESEARCH.

• Research is an important positive component of a successful application, regardless of the kind of program you're applying to or the subject of the research.
• Graduates from this Department are especially competent and experienced in this regard, but you should make sure that you (in a personal statement) or a referee (or both) describes the nature of your research involvement.

 
Good GRE scores

Your Bio courses this semester are important.

• The grades are important, since they're the last grades the grad schools will have before they make their decisions.
• Likewise, your instructors this semester are good candidates for referees, since they know your current level of performance.

 

The GRE

• Take as early as possible (which most of you are planning to do anyway)
• You may have scores reported to schools that you're REALLY SURE you'll be applying to, but generally it's fine to wait until you have a close-to-final list to have the scores sent.
• Plan to take both morning (verbal and quant general ability) and afternoon (Bio advanced) tests.
• Get the GRE study guides and work on them faithfully. You probably won't learn much except how to take the tests, but that alone is very helpful.
• Read your Bio 110, 220, and 230 books again, and review your notes from 110, 220, 230, and 305!

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Pre-Healing Arts Program

Nearly 10% of the College's alumni have careers in the pre-healing arts, and many of them chose to major in Biology. The College's Pre-Healing Arts office, part of Educational Services, provides support for students interested in the pre-healing arts while they are at F & M and during the application process to professional school. Our graduates are universal in the praise for the Biology Department in the preparation it provides for medical, veterinary, and dental school.

Most health professional schools require one year of inorganic chemistry (Chem. 111 and 112), one year of organic chemistry (Chem. 211 and 212), one year of biology (Bio. 110 and 220), one year of physics (Phy. 111 and 112 or Phy. 211 and 212), one year of mathematics (Mat. 109 and either Mat. 110 or Mat. 116), and one year of English.

See the Pre-Healing Arts Adviser for information on scheduling courses, taking the MCAT, and application to professional school. Also, see the College Catalog for additional information.

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Teacher Certification

The demand for science teachers is great and many Biology majors pursue careers teaching in primary or secondary school. Teaching at a private school does not require certification, and many of our graduates have gone immediately into teaching at a private school. Teaching at a public school requires teacher certification. F & M students can receive teacher certification through a cooperative program with Millersville University. See the College Catalog and Dean Barbara John, Educational Services. Many states now have special programs, incentives, and financial awards for students interested in teaching science in public schools. There are also many opportunities to receive certification in special, accelerated graduate programs.