Requirements and Details
Requirements
Complete admission and program requirements are found in the University Catalog.
The GRE is required.
- A strong showing (more than 75th percentile) in the quantitative GRE score is essential.
- A strong score in the verbal section is also important.
Admission is competitive.
Positive letters of recommendation are important, as is a solid undergraduate academic record.
Lack of a computer science background is usually not a major concern, since prerequisite courses are prescribed. However, a background in the sciences and mathematics is essential.
Admission decisions are made at specific times associated with the application deadlines, usually in the week following the deadlines.
A final admission decision may take up to three weeks to receive from the application deadline and up to ten weeks for I-20s to be issued to international students.
Fully-qualified applicants will have taken courses that cover the following topics:
- Non-linear data structures: sorting and searching algorithms.
- Computer architecture: hardware organization, I/O interface, interrupt mechanisms and pipeline processor design.
- File systems; hashed indexed, ISAM files; B-trees; external sorting.
- Programming languages: design and implementation.
- Operating systems: process, memory and file system management, device handlers.
- Finite mathematics and modern algebra.