A doctoral degree is vital to obtaining a job as a researcher. The position of a postdoctoral researcher, by definition, assumes that you have a doctoral degree, and qualifications for faculty positions also often include holding a doctoral degree as a prerequisite. Once you obtain a doctoral degree, society will accept you as a "professional researcher"; they will expect you to have gained the professional knowledge and experimental techniques necessary to conduct research ---- to discover things that no one has found out before. However, graduate school is not just for obtaining knowledge or techniques. All that can be done later; in fact, researchers need to be constantly acquiring new knowledge and techniques to stay at the forefront of their field of research. What you should do in graduate school, and what can only be done in graduate school, is to acquire "the spirit and attitude of research". Learning how to improve the quality of your data, how to turn "data" into "results", and how to write and publish papers that announce how your research advances the field ---these are the most important things that you should aim to accomplish as a graduate student.

Therefore, our goal for graduate education in the Department of Genetics, SOKENDAI is "to develop the ability to become an independent researcher". In our entrance exam for our graduate program, we make an attempt to select those who seem to "have the aptitude to develop as researchers". Below, we will describe how our admissions process is conducted.

There are two enrollment periods per year: April and October. The admissions process starts with submission of an application package, including your CV, transcripts, a summary of your past research, and an outline of your proposed research at NIG. Then the Department of Genetics conducts an entrance examination. The examinations for those entering in October are held in September. Those entering in April have two opportunities to take the exam: September or February.

Admission Decision
The results of your examinations are determined by joint consultation of the faculty members who attended the examination. First, each faculty member evaluates your aptitude as a researcher based on the application forms, written test, and the interview. All faculty members get together and discuss "whether or not the applicant is likely to develop into a researcher who can successfully carry out a research project and write a doctoral thesis in the time frame of the doctoral course". This is an absolute evaluation, rather than a relative one; therefore we usually admit more students than the official quota. While those entering in April have two application opportunities, the criteria for both exams are the same.

All faculty members participate in the admissions process because the Department of Genetics has a policy that "all faculty should be involved in the education of each student". While you will likely interact most frequently with your thesis advisor on your research project, a research curriculum at NIG called "Progress Report System" allows you to receive guidance from other faculty members as well. Based on your nomination, a committee will be formed that consists of faculty outside your research group. Every year you will have an opportunity to present your research progress to the committee, and to receive advice on problems encountered and discuss future directions. As this process enables students to hear opinions from experts from various fields, it has proven quite useful for broadening students' perspectives and for developing their own research programs.

Professional researcher is a job that requires not only broad knowledge and excellent skills at the lab bench, but also qualities such as curiosity, thoughtfulness, and enthusiasm. Since it is extremely difficult to accurately assess all these characteristics, our examination system attempts to judge "aptitude as a researcher", and is not perfect. In fact, we have seen some students who failed our entrance examination grow into excellent researchers. We are thus making a continuous effort to improve our entrance examination system, and welcome any opinions you may have on it.

If you have any questions on the entrance exams, please feel free to contact the NIG administration office .