The Five-Year BS/MS integrated program enables highly motivated students with strong academic records to earn a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a Master of Science in Computer Science (BS CS/MS CS) within a five-year period. The integrated program prepares students for competitive Ph.D. programs and provides strong leadership skills and technical depth to students entering professional positions.

Talented, high achieving juniors may apply to the BS CS/MS CS Integrated Program. The BS CS Option IV degree requires a total of 120 hours. The MS CS degree associated with this program requires a total of 30 hours. Combined, the degrees total 150 hours, spread out over five years. Students may only be admitted for fall semesters. Applications are open only to current, degree-seeking computer science majors at the University of Texas at Austin.

During the senior year (Stage One), students admitted to the program will continue to be undergraduates in the College of Natural Sciences. They will apply to the Graduate School during the senior year, for admission as full-fledged graduate students in the fifth year (Stage Two). The BS CS and MS CS degrees will be simultaneously awarded upon completion of the MS CS degree requirements.

Upcoming 5-Year Information Session:

TBD

Applying to the Program

The CS Advising Center offers information sessions for students who are interested in this program. Contact them for more information.

Applications for the program are accepted in mid-April each year (for students entering the following Fall semester). The application deadline is normally April 15th, but if that deadline falls on a weekend or a holiday, the deadline will be the next business day.

Reference letters are required and may be submitted as a PDF to under-info [at] cs [dot] utexas [dot] edu or in hard copy to the CS Advising Center.

The application requires the submission of a statement of purpose. Students are strongly advised to take advantage of the free Personal Statement Critiques process offered by the Sanger Learning Center, which has a professional staff that can give you constructive feedback regarding the content, structure, tone, and length of your essay.

Eligibility for applying to the program

We recommend that students be withing 12 hours of finishing their undergrad courses when applying for the Integrated program. Students are advised to complete background courses* with a C+ or greater. In order to apply, students must have a minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA and in order to be competitive, applicants should have a minimu 3.3 CS GPA.  Students must have completed all core courses when entering stage one of the program.  Core courses include:  313K or 313H, 314 or 314H, 429 or 429H and 439 or 439H.

Eligibility for moving forward into stage two of the 5-year master's program

1) At the end of stage one, a student will be admitted to stage two if they have a 3.0 GPA in their undergrad and grad CS courses and no grade below a B- in a graduate course.
2) A student must have taken a minimum of 12 graduate hours to move into stage two.
3) Students who do not meet these requirements may submit a petition to the graduate office for re-consideration.

*Background courses include:  Architecture (CS 429), Operating Systems (CS 439), Programming Languages (CS 345) or Compilers (CS 375) and Theory of Computation (CS 353) or Algorithms and Complexity (CS 378 or 331).  

Related Documents

• Application for the BS/MS CS Integrated Program (PDF) - Please save the application, fill it out on your computer and email your completed form to under-info [at] cs [dot] utexas [dot] edu.
• BS/MS Degree Plans