Skip to main content

Applying to the DEEPS Graduate Program

On this page:

Welcome

The application portal for Fall 2026 closed on Tuesday, December 16th. Please read more about our program and learn more about the application structure for consideration next year.

Our close-knit community of faculty and ~25 graduate students undertakes research of global significance at our lakeside campus on the north shore of Chicago. Our program provides a competitive stipend to all accepted students, in addition to full tuition and medical insurance and support for conference attendance. We are recently invigorated with $10 million analytical labs, all new office and teaching spaces, and use of world-class, high-performance computing clusters.

Qualifications

We welcome students with backgrounds that span the range of STEM disciplines, including physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, computer science, and mathematics, in addition to those whose undergraduate preparation was in geology, earth, environmental or atmospheric sciences. Students with STEM backgrounds who also pursued non-STEM majors as undergraduates (for example, studio art or political science) have also been very successful in our program. We encourage students who did not study geoscience as undergraduates to pay close attention to prerequisites for the department courses they wish to take. All students should familiarize themselves with the foundational course requirements for our program – requirements that may be met in part with coursework at Northwestern before undertaking the qualifying exam. 

In addition to evaluating candidates’ academic preparation, including quantitative aptitude and communication skills, faculty take a holistic view in considering applicant’s preparedness for graduate school. We seek future Ph.D.s who are creative, highly curious, adaptable, self-motivated, organized, professional and able to handle a variety of tasks in parallel. We also value clear communication, collaboration, outreach, and community service. We encourage all applicants to consider how their application package can highlight whatever combination of academic preparation, research experience, work experience, family responsibilities, extracurricular leadership, artistic and cultural expression, or other accomplishments best demonstrates some of these key attributes. 

Contacting potential advisors

Graduate students accepted to the department have usually emailed and/or talked with potential Ph.D. advisors prior to applying. Therefore, it is imperative to familiarize yourself with the research interests of EEPS faculty members and contact a potential advisor whose research aligns with your interests the summer or fall before the application deadline. We recommend sending a short email briefly describing why a faculty member’s research program interests you, and your key qualifications. It can also be helpful to attach a resume or CV in any format, to provide more details about your background and accomplishments. Visit faculty and lab web pages and look through a few faculty publications prior to contacting potential advisors. These steps can help you to articulate what excites you about a faculty member’s research program.  

DEEPS Research

Financial Support for Ph.D. Students

Our program provides all accepted Ph.D. students with at least five years of full support – a competitive stipend, tuition, and student health insurance – provided they maintain satisfactory progress towards the completion of their degrees. We also strongly support our students in applying for competitive external fellowships and research grants during their Ph.D. training to enhance their professional trajectories. 

Graduate Funding

Application Details

The application portal for Fall 2026 entrance is now closed. Visit The Graduate School for more information on our Fall 2026 application season. Our department-specific application guidelines are included below.

Applications require the following materials:

Three Letters of Recommendation

Ideally, one will speak primarily to your academic abilities and aptitude for conducting future independent research.

For most students, two or three letters will come from professors and be academic in nature. However, if you have devoted significant effort to non-academic activities, a letter (or for applicants with extensive experience outside academia, two letters) from a supervisor or mentor who can speak to other professional qualifications (like leadership, self-motivation, communication skills or community-mindedness) is welcome and encouraged.

The Graduate School provides best practices for obtaining letters of recommendation. We strongly recommend sharing our Note to Letter Writers with your recommenders, to help guide their writing.

Unofficial Transcripts

An unofficial copy of your transcript or academic record from each undergraduate and graduate institution attended. Applicants upload pdf versions online, so requesting an official transcript is not necessary (until you accept an offer of admission).

Please include an official English translation to accompany any foreign language transcripts.

Resume/CV

In addition to summarizing academic credentials, also highlight any research, employment, extracurricular and/or other experiences and accomplishments that have most contributed to your preparedness for a PhD program. Your resume/CV has no formatting or length requirements. 

Writing Sample

Please upload a piece of writing of which you are particularly proud. Examples include a paper written for a class, a senior thesis or independent study report, a published journal article if you have written one, a piece of creative writing, a report prepared at work, or anything else that demonstrates your writing capabilities. The Writing Sample may be of any length. Please provide context for this piece in your Cover Statement (see below).

Writing Sample Cover Statement

Briefly (in one page or less) describe:

  1. What your Writing Sample is,
  2. The degree to which it reflects your independent work (faculty feedback is common and fine; just describe the role that anyone else played in writing or editing your piece), and
  3. Why you chose to share this particular piece of writing. (In what way(s) does this piece best reflect your capabilities?)

Academic Statement

This statement of no more than two pages should summarize your professional interests and reasons for wanting to pursue graduate studies in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Northwestern.
In preparing the Academic Statement, example prompts include some of these questions:

Personal Statement

The Personal Statement should not duplicate the Academic Statement.

Personal statements should include any relevant information on one or more of the following topics (125-250 words):

  1. Pivotal experiences, opportunities, and/or challenges that have influenced your educational and professional development.
  2. Leadership experiences, community outreach, service initiatives, or research projects you have participated in or plan to pursue that aim to positively impact others or the broader community
 

Faculty Members of Interest

It is important to indicate the faculty member(s) whose research most aligns with your interests. In particular, list your most likely/preferred primary Ph.D. research adviser as “Faculty Member 1.” If there is more than one faculty member that you are interested in working with, up to three boxes are available for selection. This will ensure your application materials are routed to that faculty member (among others) for review.

Additional Requirements for Foreign Applicants

Foreign applicants from countries in which English is not the native language must certify their English proficiency in one of the following ways: 

Fee Waivers

A limited number of fee waivers may be available for domestic applicants and U.S. citizens directly through The Graduate School (TGS) application process. More information about TGS fee waivers can be found on the TGS website.

Note: As of December 2, 2025, The Graduate School has provided the maximum number of application fee waivers allotted for the 2025-2026 application cycle. As a result, no additional applicants will be able to receive an application fee waiver through The Graduate School. 

Contact Us

After browsing our website, please e-mail us at deeps@northwestern.edu if you need additional information. You may also access the TGS admission overview on their website. We look forward to hearing from you.

A Note to Writers of Recommendation Letters

Thank you for supporting an applicant to our Ph.D. program by writing a letter of recommendation. We have revised our Ph.D. application requirements, and hence provide updated guidance to letter-writers. 

We have removed the GRE requirement, so if you have knowledge of the applicant’s quantitative abilities and/or writing and speaking skills, please prioritize commenting on those. 

We appreciate any perspective you can provide on the applicant’s preparedness for graduate school, especially for conducting independent research. Capacity for growth in these areas is also highly valued, especially for applicants who had limited opportunities to pursue independent research as undergraduates. 

In addition to evaluating traditional academic skills, we also seek future Ph.D.s who are creative, highly curious, adaptable, self-motivated, organized, professional and able to handle a variety of tasks in parallel. Commitment to collaboration, outreach, or community service is also of interest. 

Thank you!