The MS degree requires at least 30 credit hours of graduate courses which must be 400-level or higher courses and with 16 of these credit hours being in electrical and computer engineering (ECE) course work. Twelve of these 16 credits should be within the selected Area of Concentration. Research and reading courses cannot be counted towards the required 16 ECE credit hours.
Each MS candidate must choose one of the following options :
Plan A, Thesis Option (requires 6-10 research credits)
All thesis students must successfully defend a thesis. RThe defense must be conducted by a committee of no less than two ECE faculty members and one outside faculty member. The thesis defense must be completed by mid-December for fall graduation or by mid-April for spring graduation.
Plan B, Exam Option (0-6 research credits allowed)
All part-time and non-thesis option students must pass a MS exam, which can be a term project, an essay or an oral exam. The exam must be conducted by a committee of no less than two ECE faculty members. The MS exam must be completed by mid-December for fall graduation or by mid-April for spring graduation.
This program requires a strong background in mathematics. The majority of our Master’s students have an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or Physics, which are all well suited to starting an EE MS program.
Application checklist:
1. University of Rochester Graduate Program Application Form
2. Personal Statement (upload to the application database)
3. Three letters of recommendation (upload to the application database)
4. Official transcripts (upload to the application database)
5. Official copy of English proficiency test (TOEFL or IELTS) results. If you take the TOEFL, we recommend that your score be a minimum of 95. For the IELTS, we recommend a minimum score of 7.0.
6. Any supplemental material you want to provide (upload to the application database)
7. GRE reporting is optional (if GRE score is self-reported, an official score report from ETS is required for score verification)
*Documents that are uploaded to the application database do NOT need to be mailed to the department.