Admission Requirements for the Graduate Program in Genetic
Counseling are listed below. You may also visit www.tgs.northwestern.edu/admission/materials/
for general information regarding the Graduate School at Northwestern University.
Applications for Fall 2008 will be accepted after October 7, 2007 via the
Online
application. The university currently requires applications be submitted
online, along with the $75 application fee. Please apply using our department
code, G10MS.
All hard copy materials, including two transcripts, must
be received by the Graduate Program in Genetic Counseling office by January
15, 2008. Please send all materials to our office,
at: 676 North St. Clair Street, Suite 1280, Chicago, Illinois 60611.
Admission Requirements
• Bachelor's degree in biology, chemistry, psychology,
social work, nursing, or a related field.
• The general Graduate Record Examination (verbal, quantitative, and
analytical) must be taken no later than December 2007 for admission
in Fall 2008. Official scores must be sent using 1565 as the
institution code and 0210 as the program code. No subject examination
is required.
• Required undergraduate course work: at least one semester each of
general biology, general and organic chemistry, general and/or human genetics,
biochemistry, psychology, statistics, human developmental psychology and molecular/cell
Biology (or their equivalents). These courses must be completed prior to matriculation.
Official transcripts of all course work must be sent to the Graduate
Program.
• Work or volunteer experience in a counseling/helping environment is
highly recommended. Examples include: crisis hotline, Planned Parenthood,
peer counseling, and internship experience at a genetics center or at a center
for disabled individuals. Exposure to genetic counseling settings is particularly
desirable.
• Two letters of recommendation as required by Northwestern University.
(these may be submitted online, or mailed to our office address above). No
more than 3 letters of reference will be considered in the application process.
• Personal statement, as required by Northwestern University. This should
address your motivation for becoming a genetic counselor, and emphasize your
prior and current experiences and how they will benefit you in the profession.
Please do not submit more than 2 pages (approximately 500 words, or 5,000
characters)
• Nonresident alien applicants whose native language is not English
must submit scores of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The
minimum acceptable paper-based TOEFL score is 600; 250 is the minimum acceptable
computer-based TOEFL score.
• Interview by faculty members of the Graduate Program in Genetic Counseling.
If you have any questions regarding admissions requirements, please contact
the graduate program at geneticcounseling@northwestern.edu
or call 312-926-7467.
Many applicants have questions about what characterizes our previous and
current applicants. It is important to remember that presenting statistics
about a class of applicants does not capture the unique qualities that each
applicant presents. To give you a better picture of our students' strengths,
we have provided some information on the experience of our current
students. In the past several years, Northwestern University's Graduate
Program in Genetic Counseling has received between 65 to 85 applications annually.
For the past two years, we received 60-70 applications and interviewed approximately
40 candidates for the 8-10 student openings. As most programs have found in
recent years, if a qualified candidate interviews at multiple programs, they
have a strong chance of admission into one or more programs in a given admissions
cycle.
While our most competitive applicants have a strong academic record, as reflected
by GPA >3.0 and GRE scores near or above the 50th percentile, and have
experience in a counseling setting, particularly in observing or participating
in a genetics clinic, we encourage applicants with additional, or different,
strengths to apply to our program.