Admissions and Aid

GRE scores must be received for each applicant, and cannot be waived. Applicants should have a quantitative score preferably in the 90 percentiles but not lower than the 80th percentile. Verbal scores should be above the 50th percentile. Please refer to www.ets.org/gre/concordance for converting scores between old and new grading formats. (Students with lower scores may be, under special circumstances, considered for admission.)

Admission to the Program should be considered only by those individuals who have done exceptionally well in their previous university studies in Computer Science, Mathematics or related sciences. A Masters degree is not a 'formal' prerequisite for admission but is strongly recommended. Applicants who do not have an MS or MA degree in Computer Science (or a related field) should demonstrate exceptional promise and sufficient background for entrance in their applications. Specifically, entering students are expected to have a background (minimally at an undergraduate level) in the following areas: Operating Systems, Fundamental Algorithms, Object-Oriented Programming, Databases, Discrete Mathematics, Computer Architecture, Theoretical Computation, Programming Languages, Probability, etc.

On rare occasion, students may be admitted with deficiencies in their backgrounds and will be required to take certain graduate or undergraduate courses to compensate. Graduate courses required to fulfill deficiencies may be included in the first thirty credits for the degree – if approved by the Program's Executive Officer – and the student achieves a minimum grade of B in the course.

Every applicant to The Graduate Center’s doctoral programs will automatically be considered for five-year institutional funding packages. The aid we offer — including fellowships, tuition awards, and assistantships — is based on merit. 

Learn more about institutional aid for doctoral students »

Federal aid for doctoral students includes:

• Need-based Federal Aid
• Federal Work-Study
• Non-need-based Federal Direct Loans.

New York State also provides the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) for eligible graduate students who are New York State residents.

Additional funding may be available to incoming students from underrepresented populations through offerings from the Office of Educational Opportunity and Diversity, including several fellowships and the CUNY Pipeline Program for undergraduate CUNY students.

Learn more about funding opportunities from OEOD »

Each student will be billed for a Graduate School student activities fee, a University student senate fee, a University consolidated services fee and a technology fee. These fees are not refundable.