Early-Entry Bioinformatics M.S. and Graduate Certificate

Exceptional undergraduate students at UNC Charlotte may be accepted into the Bioinformatics Graduate Program and begin work toward a graduate degree before completion of the baccalaureate degree. Bioinformatics Department accepts early-entry students into the Bioinformatics M.S. and Bioinformatics Technology Graduate Certificate. An applicant may be accepted at any time after completion of 75 or more hours of undergraduate course work, although it is expected that close to 90 hours of undergraduate course work will have been earned by the time the first graduate course is taken. These students will have provisional acceptance status in the graduate program, pending the award of the baccalaureate degree. To be accepted in this program, the student must complete an application for the given graduate program and be accepted into that graduate program. Once admitted, prior to registering for graduate courses, the student must submit a Academic Petition for Early Entry and have it approved by the Graduate Program coordinator, undergraduate advisor, and the Graduate School. More information is provided on the Graduate School website.

Benefits of Early-Entry

• Up to 12 hours of graduate level credits may be “double-counted” toward both the baccalaureate and graduate degrees.
• Early-entry students can complete the Bioinformatics Technology Certificate during their Senior year in their undergraduate degree.
• Students admitted into an Early-Entry program pay only undergraduate tuition and fees for all courses (graduate and undergraduate) for which they register while they are still a bachelor’s degree student. *Upon graduating from the bachelor’s program, the remaining courses in the graduate degree are charged at the graduate tuition and fee rates.

Early-Entry Application Requirements

What is Bioinformatics?

Bioinformatics is a field of study that focuses on turning biological data into knowledge to help solve real-world issues. This unique interdisciplinary field is at the intersection of Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Statistics, Computing, and Engineering. As technologies have allowed scientists to generate extremely large datasets, the need for computational tools and methods to analyze and interpret this data has led to the development of Bioinformatics. Through the analysis and interpretation of large-scale biological datasets, Bioinformatics has become a critical factor in making major advances in many fields of life science and medical areas. The Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics at UNC Charlotte is made up of a faculty that works with students to develop and apply the appropriate methods to solve important problems in biological sciences.

Why pursue early-entry Bioinformatics programs?

Students seeking a degree in Bioinformatics want to be involved at the forefront of 21st century biological sciences. UNC Charlotte students with undergraduate majors in either the life sciences or computing fields are encouraged to apply. The Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics instills research, writing and critical thinking skills by teaching scholarly inquiry and research methods at a high level. Students will take courses from both computational and biological fields to develop their skills in the development, application and interpretation of bioinformatics.

Important Notes

• A Early Entry Academic Petition must be submitted and approved by the Graduate School before the student begins the Early-Entry graduate course work. Failure to obtain prior Graduate School approval negates the ability to “double-count” courses in an accelerated early-entry program.
• If an Early-Entry student has not met the normal admission requirements of a 3.0 GPA at the end of his/her baccalaureate degree, she/he will be dismissed from the graduate program.
• Students accepted into an early-entry program will be subject to the same policies that pertain to other matriculated graduate students.
• No courses taken before admission to the graduate program may be applied to a graduate degree.

Approved BINF substitute courses for CS Bioinformatics concentration (BA or BS)

Early Entry undergraduate students are eligible to register for up to four (4) graduate-level courses that will fulfill undergraduate degree requirements as well as requirements for their Master’s program. The following table outlines which courses in the Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics (BINF) can be double-counted for the Bioinformatics MS degree and the Computer Science BA or BS concentration Bioinformatics degree.