Master of Science

The MS in Engineering is available to current School of Engineering graduate students who develop specialized, interdisciplinary objectives that cannot conform to any graduate program offered at Stanford. In these rare cases, the student and an advising department within Engineering can propose a structured curriculum that will provide master’s level breadth and depth related to that objective.

Each student’s program is administered by a specific Engineering department in which it is located and must meet the standard of quality of that department. Transfer into this program is possible from any School of Engineering graduate program by application through the proposed advising department; the advising department reviews the application and submits it to the Office of Student Affairs in the School of Engineering with their recommendations.

The application should be submitted before completing 18 units of the proposed program. It should include a statement describing the program’s objectives, the coherence of the proposed coursework, and why this course of study cannot conform to existing graduate programs. Usually, it would include the approval of at least one faculty member willing to serve as an advisor. (A co-advising team may be appropriate for interdisciplinary programs.) The actual transfer is accomplished through the Graduate Authorization Petition process.

There are three school requirements for the MS degree in Engineering:

1. The student’s program must be coherent with a well-defined objective. It must be approved by a department within the school with experience with graduate-level teaching and advising in the program area.

2. The student’s program must include at least 21 units of courses within the School of Engineering with catalog numbers of 200 or above, in which the student receives letter grades.

3. The program must include a total of at least 45 units.

Departments may have additional requirements or expectations for programs of study that they would recommend for this degree; further information may be found in departmental listings or handbooks.

The MS in Engineering is rarely pursued as a coterminal program, and potential coterms are encouraged to explore the range of master’s options in the departments and interdisciplinary programs. In the unusual circumstance of a coterminal application to the MS in Engineering, the application process should be the same as described above, using either the Graduate Authorization Petition in Axess. The policy for transferring courses taken as an undergraduate before coterm admission to the MS in Engineering corresponds to the policy of the particular department where the student’s program is lodged and administered. A clear statement of the department’s coterminal policy and how it applies to the applicant within the Master of Science in Engineering program should be added to the application materials.