Graduate School Application Checklist
To Apply to Graduate School, You’ll Need:
At least 3 letters of recommendation
We recommend reaching out to people who know you well, like work supervisors, faculty mentors, internship directors, or anyone else who has known you in a professional setting and can vouch for your character, work ethic, attitude, and ideally your research experience (if you are applying to our doctorate or thesis-option masters programs). We recommend reaching out to your letter writers early, and make sure they are aware of the deadlines for the program you are applying to well in advance of when your application is due.
An up-to-date resume/CV
Make sure that you include experiences that are relevant to the program you are applying to, both in terms of employment and volunteering/shadowing. We recommend making your resume/CV easy to read by using a white background with black font, and taking advantage of white space to make your document easy for our admissions committee to read quickly and understand the breadth and depth of your experience. For more information about optimizing your resume/CV, check out this guide from the Texas A&M Career Center: https://careercenter.tamu.edu/current-students/resume-documents/resume/.
A statement of purpose
Your statement of purpose serves to provide more context to your application materials. This is an opportunity for you to address portions of your application, if you would like to — maybe you have a story about a semester where your grades dropped, and how you recovered your GPA by the end of your undergraduate degree. Maybe you had an experience when you were young that really convinced you that science was your passion, and that has driven you to take very specific classes in your current program. Maybe you have a personal connection to the type of science you do, and you had an opportunity to present it recently that drove you to apply to graduate school. Whatever your story – your statement of purpose is an opportunity to tell it. Don’t be afraid to brag about yourself, too – if there are things you have accomplished and are proud of, talk about them in your statement of purpose! This document allows the admissions committee to get to know you better prior to meeting or interviewing you.
Unofficial transcripts
For your application to the Department of Nutrition, we do not require official transcripts – unofficial ones work just fine. When you are admitted, the Office of Admissions will reach out to you with guidance for submitting your official transcripts to the university.
Test scores
Graduate programs managed by the Department of Nutrition do not require GRE scores. However, if you are an international student, you must meet minimum English language proficiency standards for admission and registration (and for doctoral students, teaching) by submitting official test scores with your application materials. We accept IELTS and TOEFL test scores to meet ELP requirements. To learn more about ELP requirements at Texas A&M, please see this guide created by the Graduate & Professional School: https://grad.tamu.edu/information/elp/index.html#elp-requirements.