Admission Policies

1. The Admissions Committee and the Graduate School require a GRE score. The test should not be more than three years old. In addition, the applicant should have a grade point average (GPA) for advanced undergraduate work equivalent to a 3.2 or better based on a 4.0 scale. Students who feel that their GRE scores and their grades do not reflect their ability to do high quality graduate work should write a statement indicating why they believe this is so. More information about the GRE can be obtained from http://www.gre.org.

2. Both the MS and PhD are designed for full-time study, but part-time students are accepted. From the time of entry until completion, students are expected to show evidence of commitment to the program and progress toward the degree.

3. As a general policy, students should begin the program only during the fall semester due to scheduling of basic graduate courses in the program.

4. Students who do not have an undergraduate degree in engineering, mathematics, or the sciences may be required to remove deficiencies when they begin the program.

See Prosective Student Information for more answers concerning admissions. Online applications can now be submitted. Please direct all Operations Research and Industrial Engineering admissions inquiries to ccsimon@mail.utexas.edu. E-mail sent to individual faculty will not be answered.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do you offer full financial support?
A:

• Entering international students should not plan to receive on- or off-campus employment, unless they are graduate students who have been offered a specific departmental award. There is considerable competition for on-campus jobs, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service strictly regulates off-campus employment.
• Most of the first-year students who receive financial support do so via highly competitive teaching assistantships or a university fellowship. Sending mass mailings to the entire faculty is strongly discouraged. It is very rare for a first-year student to be supported on a research assistantship.

Q: I sent my application but I haven’t heard anything yet. When should I expect any feedback?
A: Applications first go to Graduate and International Admissions Center (GIAC) who forwards them to us only after they have received and processed transcripts, GRE scores, TOEFL scores, etc. The OR/IE admissions committee typically doesn't start getting completed applications until early March (for Fall admissions). After we have a significant fraction of applications and have some idea of the total pool of candidates we have to consider, we'll be in a position to begin making admissions decisions. After the decision is made, you will be notified promptly. If you need to contact GIAC directly see http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/email.html.

Q: Is the MS degree a prerequisite for a PhD?
A: An MS is not a prerequisite for starting the PhD program. However, you can obtain an MS degree in the course of the PhD program (and many students choose to fill out the paperwork to do so). The coursework for the MS degree usually takes 1.5 or 2 years to complete. The written PhD qualifying exam is typically taken after 1.5 years. The oral PhD qualifying exam is taken in the semester following the written exam. You become a "Ph.D. candidate" after you've found a research adviser, formed a committee, and written and defended a proposal on your dissertation research. You don't have to wait until after the MS degree to take the PhD qualifying exams, write the proposal, etc.

Q: What are the prerequisite courses that I need to have before starting the OR/IE program?
A: Most of the first-year students take Linear Programming, Applied Probability, and one more course in the Fall semester. The primary background materials that will help you get off to a good start are:

Linear Algebra (e.g., at the level of Strang)
Probability (a calculus-based course)
Real Analysis (e.g., Rudin or Royden)

Secondary courses that would help (but aren't required) include:
Stochastic Processes
Discrete Mathematics
Introduction to OR (e.g., Jensen/Bard, Hillier/Lieberman or Winston)
Linear Programming

It's pretty much assumed that entering students know some programming language (preferably you will have a working capability in either C/C++ or JAVA).

Q: Why was I rejected?
A: Usually, we have a very large pool of well-qualified applicants and we simply aren't in a position to admit everyone who would succeed in our program.