phd in computer science from stanford university

CS-PHD - Computer Science (PhD)

Program overview.

Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science

The PhD degree is intended primarily for students who desire a career in research, advanced development, or teaching. For this type of work, a broad background in computer science and the engineering sciences and intensive study and research experience in a specialized area are the necessary requisites.

The degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) is conferred on candidates who have demonstrated to the satisfaction of our department:

High attainment in a particular field of knowledge

Ability to do independent investigation and present the results of research.

They must satisfy the general requirements for advanced degrees, the program requirements specified, and the doctoral requirements for candidacy, as outlined in our department.

Guidelines for Reasonable Progress

By the end of the first academic year, you should align with a permanent advisor. Students are welcome to switch advisors, but a student should not have significant periods (after the first year) with no advisor.

A student must make satisfactory progress in their research, as determined by their advisor.

Three foundation/breadth requirements must be completed by spring quarter of the second year.

A student should meet the eligibility requirements and file for candidacy by the end of the second year in their program.

All courses need to be completed by the end of year three. Any deviation from this timeline must be approved in advance by the student advisor and the director of the PhD program.

By spring quarter of the third year, a student should pass a Qualifying Examination in the area of their intended dissertation.

Within one year of passing the Qualifying Examination, a student should form a Reading Committee and submit a signed  Reading Committee Form  to the PhD Student Services office at [email protected] .

By spring quarter of the fourth year, a student should schedule a Thesis Proposal with the reading committee members and submit the  Thesis Proposal Form  to the PhD student services office at [email protected] .

Admissions Information

PhD | Stanford Computer Science Admissions/Application Information

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The Computer Science Department PhD program is a top-ranked research-oriented program, typically completed in 5-6 years. There are very few course requirements and the emphasis is on preparation for a career in Computer Science research. 

Eligibility

To be eligible for admission in a Stanford graduate program, applicants must meet:

• Applicants from institutions outside of the United States must hold the equivalent of a United States Bachelor's degree from a college or University of recognized good standing. See detailed information by region on  Stanford Graduate Admissions website. 
• Area of undergraduate study . While we do not require a specific undergraduate coursework, it is important that applicants have strong quantitative and analytical skills; a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science is not required.

Any questions about the admissions eligibility should be directed to  [email protected] .

Application Checklist

An completed online application must be submitted by the CS Department application deadline and can be found  here .

Application Deadlines

The online application can be found here  and we will only one admissions cycle for the PhD program per respective academic term.

Computer Science

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The computer science department continues to lead the world in computer science research and education.

Throughout the past four decades, the department has influenced society at levels that remain without parallel among academic institutions. Its spin-offs are among the most successful corporate ventures in the world, and many of the leaders in the academic and corporate research world are our graduates.

What are we researching?

Strong research groups exist in areas of artificial intelligence, robotics, foundations of computer science, scientific computing and systems. 

What is it like for undergraduate students?

The CS curriculum provides knowledge that is applicable across many fields, including many areas of engineering, science, and medicine. Students receive a strong foundation in computer science as well as specialized knowledge through the student’s choice of track.

What is it like for graduate students?

With faculty and resources that are among the strongest in the world, students have the opportunity to participate in leading-edge academic research carried out at Stanford. The main educational goal is to prepare students for research and teaching careers either in universities or in industry

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This is the old Stanford Computer Science website for archival purposes, information found on this page maybe outdated and inaccurate. Please visit the New Stanford Computer Science web site for up-to-date information

Applicants to graduate studies in Computer Science must apply either to the MS program or to the Ph.D. program, and not to both.

The MS program is excellent preparation for a career as a computer professional, or for future entry into a Ph.D. program at Stanford or elsewhere. Individual programs can be structured to consist entirely of coursework or to involve some research. For students more interested in research, an option for an "MS degree with distinction in research" has recently been added (see Degree Requirements tab on  https://bulletin.stanford.edu/programs/CS-MS ).

The Ph.D. program is a top-ranked research-oriented program, usually completed in 4-6 years. There are very few course requirements, and the emphasis is on preparation for a career in Computer Science research.

Admission to the Ph.D. program is much more competitive than to the MS program, so students interested primarily in a Masters degree should apply to the MS program.

Every year a number of students from the CS Masters program apply to enter the Ph.D. program, and a small fraction of those students are accepted. Entering the MS program is by no means a guaranteed path to a Ph.D. at Stanford, and subsequent admission into the Ph.D. program is far from assured. However, very strong students with insufficient background for Ph.D. admission may choose to enter the MS program to gain additional experience, to demonstrate academic potential at Stanford, and perhaps to align with a faculty member in research. All of these factors, particularly the last, can contribute to a strengthened application to a Ph.D. program at Stanford or elsewhere.

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Stanford University PhD in Computer Science

Computer Science is a concentration offered under the computer science major at Stanford University. Here, you’ll find out more about the major doctor’s degree program in computer science, including such details as the number of graduates, diversity of students, and more.

If there’s something special you’re looking for, you can use one of the links below to find it:

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Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.

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BS in Computer Science - Software Engineering

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How Much Does a Doctorate in Computer Science from Stanford Cost?

Stanford graduate tuition and fees.

In 2019-2020, the average part-time graduate tuition at Stanford was $1,207 per credit hour for both in-state and out-of-state students. The following table shows the average full-time tuition and fees for graduate student.

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MS in Information Technology - Software Application Development

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Does Stanford Offer an Online PhD in Computer Science?

Online degrees for the Stanford computer science doctor’s degree program are not available at this time. To see if the school offers distance learning options in other areas, visit the Stanford Online Learning page.

Stanford Doctorate Student Diversity for Computer Science

Male-to-female ratio.

About 6.3% of the students who received their PhD in computer science in 2019-2020 were women. This is less than the nationwide number of 19.1%.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

Of those graduates who received a doctor’s degree in computer science at Stanford in 2019-2020, 25.0% were racial-ethnic minorities*. This is higher than the nationwide number of 10%.

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

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Application requirements for all doctoral programs (phd).

All of our doctoral programs are designed to develop outstanding educational researchers who have a deep understanding of the scientific, practical and policy issues they study. All require full-time study, and we promise five years of full-time financial support for every student we admit. Our doctoral programs are small, typically ranging from about 25 to 35 new students a year. The small size of our doctoral cohorts creates big educational advantages for students: the classes are almost always small, students receive individualized attention from their advisors, and they have many opportunities to develop close collegial relationships with fellow students.

It is extremely important to demonstrate in your statement of purpose that your interests converge closely with the current research of faculty who work in the program to which you are applying. Other doctoral applicants will certainly do this, and if you don't, you will forfeit an important competitive advantage to them. 

If you wish to contact faculty, please read our Which Degree Which Program article, by Professor Eamonn Callan, which outlines the appropriate process for contacting faculty with whom you share research interests. 

• Program website:  Degrees and Programs/PhD
• Length of Program:  5 years (average length)
• Tuition: fellowship/assistantship salary and tuition guaranteed for first five years of the program (autumn, winter and spring quarters) for all students, including international students. Funding includes two summers.

Application Requirements:

Application form.

Complete and submit Stanford's graduate online application .

Application Fee

The application fee is $125 , is non-refundable, and must be received by the application deadline.

Application Fee Waivers

Stanford offers three types of application fee waivers for which GSE applicants may apply and be considered:

• GRE Fee Reduction Certificate-Based Waiver
• Diversity Program Participation-Based Waiver
• School-Based Waiver

Please visit the Stanford Graduate Diversity website for instructions, deadlines, and the fee waiver application form.

Statement of Purpose

A Statement of Purpose is required. Your statement should be typed, single-spaced and should be between one to two pages . Describe succinctly your reasons for applying to the proposed program, your preparation for this field of study, and why our program is a good fit for you, your future career plans, and other aspects of your background as well as interests which may aid the admissions committee in evaluating your aptitude and motivation for graduate study. You may indicate potential faculty mentors as part of your study and research interests. Be sure to keep a copy for your records. What's a Good Statement of Purpose?

A resume or CV  is required of all applicants, depending on which document is most appropriate for your background. There is no page limit for resumes or CVs, though we typically see resumes of one page in length. Please upload your resume or CV in the online application.

Three (3) Letters of Recommendation

Applicants are required to submit three letters of recommendation . In the online application, you will be asked to identify your recommenders and their email addresses. Please notify your recommenders that they will receive an email prompt to submit their recommendation online. You can submit your request for letters of recommendation through the system without submitting the entire online application.  Stanford GSE only accepts online recommendations through the application system ; Stanford GSE cannot accept mailed, emailed or faxed recommendations.

Recommendations should be written by people who have supervised you in an academic, employment, or community service setting. We very strongly recommend that at least one of these letters be from a university professor familiar with your academic work. Your recommendations should directly address your suitability for admission to a graduate program at Stanford GSE.

It is the applicant's responsibility to ensure that all three letters of recommendation are submitted through the system by the application deadline , so please work closely with your recommenders to remind them of the deadline.

College and University Transcripts

Transcripts are required from every college and university you have attended for at least one academic year as a full-time student. When submitting your online application, transcripts should be uploaded to the application as a scanned copy or PDF ; this is sufficient for the application review process. Please refrain from sending a secured PDF/transcript with a digital signature as our system cannot upload these properly. The best way to ensure we receive an upload-able document is for you to print out the secured transcript, scan it, and upload the scanned copy (not to exceed 10MB) as a PDF. 

If you earned a degree at the institution from which you are submitting a transcript, please ensure that the degree conferral date and the degree conferred is clearly visible on the document. If you are currently enrolled in a degree program and will not have earned the respective degree by the time of submitting your GSE application, you should submit your most recent in-progress transcript from your institution.

Only if admitted will we contact you with instructions on sending two copies of your official transcripts to our office. We cannot accept mailed, emailed or faxed copies of your transcripts during the application process. Please note: the instructions for sending transcripts on the online application and on the general Stanford Graduate Admissions Office website differ from this Stanford GSE requirement.

Concerning course work completed in a study abroad program

If the coursework and grades are reflected on the transcript of your home institution, you do not need to submit original transcripts from the study abroad institution.

Concerning foreign institutions

If your institution provides a transcript in a language other than English, we require that you submit a translation of the transcript that is either provided by the institution or a certified translator. Translations must be literal and complete versions of the original records.

If your transcript does not include your degree conferral date and the degree conferred , please submit a scanned copy of your diploma, a conferral statement, or a conferral document in addition to your transcript . If you are currently enrolled in a degree program and will not have earned the respective degree by the time of submitting your GSE application, you should submit your most recent in-progress transcript from your institution.

Stanford University requires the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) from all applicants whose native language is not English. The GSE requires a minimum TOEFL score of 250 for the computer-based test, 600 for the paper-based test or 100 for the internet-based test in order to be considered for admission. The Test of Written English (TWE) portion of the TOEFL is not required. Applicants who have completed a four-year bachelor's degree or a two-year master's program (or its equivalent) in the U.S. or at an institution where English is the main language of instruction are not required to take the TOEFL. For more information on TOEFL requirements, please refer to the Required Exams  page on the main Stanford Graduate Admissions website. You may register for the TOEFL test directly at the ETS website .

TOEFL Dates and Deadlines

PhD applicants who are required to take the TOEFL should plan to take the internet-based TOEFL test and have official TOEFL scores sent electronically to Stanford at institution code 4704 (department code does not matter) no later than November 1 . This will give your official TOEFL scores time to be sent from ETS and be received by our system in time for the December 1 deadline. PhD applicants to Knight-Hennessy Scholars should plan to take the internet-based TOEFL test no later than October 16 so your scores can be received by our system in time for the November 16 KHS GSE deadline. Please note that the TOEFL may be taken no earlier than 18 months prior to the application deadline.

Does Stanford accept tests other than TOEFL?

No. We accept only TOEFL scores; we do not accept IELTS or other test scores.

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PhD | Program Requirements

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On average, the program is completed in five to six years, depending on the student’s research and progress. First-year students have the opportunity to rotate in three different labs before selecting their advisor. 

The Computer Science Department also believes that teaching is an integral and important part of graduate-level education in Computer Science. In pursuing the PhD degree, students have clear and defined milestones that help guide them to the successful completion of their dissertation and oral defense. This includes a cumulative list of requirements to be completed in order for students to confer their PhD degree in Computer Science.

For any questions related to CS PhD milestone requirements, please email  [email protected] .

• CS300 Seminar       
• First-Year Research Rotation Program       
• Courses       
• Foundation & Breadth Requirements       
• Candidacy Requirement       
• Qualifying Examination       
• Teaching Requirements       
• Reading Committee       

Thesis Proposal       

Note : A student may go to TGR status after all the Ph.D. requirements above have been completed, and just their orals and dissertation submission remain, see Special Registration Statuses page.

• University Oral Examination       
• Dissertation

Kostis Kaffes

• Teaching & Service

I am an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Columbia University. I got my Ph.D. at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University advised by Christos Kozyrakis . My research has been supported by the Stanford EE Departmental fellowship, A.G. Leventis Foundation, a Gerondelis Foundation Graduate Study Scholarship, and a Facebook Research Award .

I am broadly interested in computer systems, cloud computing, and scheduling. I have worked on end-host, rack-scale, and cluster-scale scheduling for microsecond-scale tail latency. Recently, I am looking for ways to make it easier to implement and deploy custom scheduling policies across different layers of the stack.

I hold a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Before coming to Stanford, I worked for a year on distributed storage for the cloud at Arrikto . I received my undergraduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from National Technical University of Athens in Greece, where I was advised by Nectarios Koziris . In Summer 2017, Summer 2018, Summer 2019, and Fall 2019, I worked as a PhD intern at Google for the NetInfra and Borg teams in Sunnyvale, CA. After my Ph.D., I spent a year at Google SRG .

[CV] [Research Statement] [Teaching Statement]

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Universities Have a Computer-Science Problem

The case for teaching coders to speak French

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Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Updated at 5:37 p.m. ET on March 22, 2024

Last year, 18 percent of Stanford University seniors graduated with a degree in computer science, more than double the proportion of just a decade earlier. Over the same period at MIT, that rate went up from 23 percent to 42 percent . These increases are common everywhere: The average number of undergraduate CS majors at universities in the U.S. and Canada tripled in the decade after 2005, and it keeps growing . Students’ interest in CS is intellectual—culture moves through computation these days—but it is also professional. Young people hope to access the wealth, power, and influence of the technology sector.

That ambition has created both enormous administrative strain and a competition for prestige. At Washington University in St. Louis, where I serve on the faculty of the Computer Science & Engineering department, each semester brings another set of waitlists for enrollment in CS classes. On many campuses, students may choose to study computer science at any of several different academic outposts, strewn throughout various departments. At MIT, for example, they might get a degree in “Urban Studies and Planning With Computer Science” from the School of Architecture, or one in “Mathematics With Computer Science” from the School of Science, or they might choose from among four CS-related fields within the School of Engineering. This seepage of computing throughout the university has helped address students’ booming interest, but it also serves to bolster their demand.

Another approach has gained in popularity. Universities are consolidating the formal study of CS into a new administrative structure: the college of computing. MIT opened one in 2019. Cornell set one up in 2020. And just last year, UC Berkeley announced that its own would be that university’s first new college in more than half a century. The importance of this trend—its significance for the practice of education, and also of technology—must not be overlooked. Universities are conservative institutions, steeped in tradition. When they elevate computing to the status of a college, with departments and a budget, they are declaring it a higher-order domain of knowledge and practice, akin to law or engineering. That decision will inform a fundamental question: whether computing ought to be seen as a superfield that lords over all others, or just a servant of other domains, subordinated to their interests and control. This is, by no happenstance, also the basic question about computing in our society writ large.

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Southern California in the 1990s, students interested in computer science could choose between two different majors: one offered by the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and one from the School of Engineering. The two degrees were similar, but many students picked the latter because it didn’t require three semesters’ worth of study of a (human) language, such as French. I chose the former, because I like French.

An American university is organized like this, into divisions that are sometimes called colleges , and sometimes schools . These typically enjoy a good deal of independence to define their courses of study and requirements as well as research practices for their constituent disciplines. Included in this purview: whether a CS student really needs to learn French.

The positioning of computer science at USC was not uncommon at the time. The first academic departments of CS had arisen in the early 1960s, and they typically evolved in one of two ways: as an offshoot of electrical engineering (where transistors got their start), housed in a college of engineering; or as an offshoot of mathematics (where formal logic lived), housed in a college of the arts and sciences. At some universities, including USC, CS found its way into both places at once.

The contexts in which CS matured had an impact on its nature, values, and aspirations. Engineering schools are traditionally the venue for a family of professional disciplines, regulated with licensure requirements for practice. Civil engineers, mechanical engineers, nuclear engineers, and others are tasked to build infrastructure that humankind relies on, and they are expected to solve problems. The liberal-arts field of mathematics, by contrast, is concerned with theory and abstraction. The relationship between the theoretical computer scientists in mathematics and the applied ones in engineers is a little like the relationship between biologists and doctors, or physicists and bridge builders. Keeping applied and pure versions of a discipline separate allows each to focus on its expertise, but limits the degree to which one can learn from the other.

Read: Programmers, stop calling yourself engineers

By the time I arrived at USC, some universities had already started down a different path. In 1988, Carnegie Mellon University created what it says was one of the first dedicated schools of computer science. Georgia Institute of Technology followed two years later. “Computing was going to be a big deal,” says Charles Isbell, a former dean of Georgia Tech’s college of computing and now the provost at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Emancipating the field from its prior home within the college of engineering gave it room to grow, he told me. Within a decade, Georgia Tech had used this structure to establish new research and teaching efforts in computer graphics, human-computer interaction, and robotics. (I spent 17 years on the faculty there, working for Isbell and his predecessors, and teaching computational media.)

Kavita Bala, Cornell University’s dean of computing, told me that the autonomy and scale of a college allows her to avoid jockeying for influence and resources. MIT’s computing dean, Daniel Huttenlocher, says that the speed at which computing evolves justifies the new structure.

But the computing industry isn’t just fast-moving. It’s also reckless. Technology tycoons say they need space for growth, and warn that too much oversight will stifle innovation. Yet we might all be better off, in certain ways, if their ambitions were held back even just a little. Instead of operating with a deep understanding or respect for law, policy, justice, health, or cohesion, tech firms tend to do whatever they want . Facebook sought growth at all costs, even if its take on connecting people tore society apart . If colleges of computing serve to isolate young, future tech professionals from any classrooms where they might imbibe another school’s culture and values—engineering’s studied prudence, for example, or the humanities’ focus on deliberation—this tendency might only worsen.

Read: The moral failure of computer scientists

When I raised this concern with Isbell, he said that the same reasoning could apply to any influential discipline, including medicine and business. He’s probably right, but that’s cold comfort. The mere fact that universities allow some other powerful fiefdoms to exist doesn’t make computing’s centralization less concerning. Isbell admitted that setting up colleges of computing “absolutely runs the risk” of empowering a generation of professionals who may already be disengaged from consequences to train the next one in their image. Inside a computing college, there may be fewer critics around who can slow down bad ideas. Disengagement might redouble. But he said that dedicated colleges could also have the opposite effect. A traditional CS department in a school of engineering would be populated entirely by computer scientists, while the faculty for a college of computing like the one he led at Georgia Tech might also house lawyers, ethnographers, psychologists, and even philosophers like me. Huttenlocher repeatedly emphasized that the role of the computing college is to foster collaboration between CS and other disciplines across the university. Bala told me that her college was established not to teach CS on its own but to incorporate policy, law, sociology, and other fields into its practice. “I think there are no downsides,” she said.

Mark Guzdial is a former faculty member in Georgia Tech’s computing college, and he now teaches computer science in the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering. At Michigan, CS wasn’t always housed in engineering—Guzdial says it started out inside the philosophy department, as part of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Now that college “wants it back,” as one administrator told Guzdial. Having been asked to start a program that teaches computing to liberal-arts students, Guzdial has a new perspective on these administrative structures. He learned that Michigan’s Computer Science and Engineering program and its faculty are “despised” by their counterparts in the humanities and social sciences. “They’re seen as arrogant, narrowly focused on machines rather than people, and unwilling to meet other programs’ needs,” he told me. “I had faculty refuse to talk to me because I was from CSE.”

In other words, there may be downsides just to placing CS within an engineering school, let alone making it an independent college. Left entirely to themselves, computer scientists can forget that computers are supposed to be tools that help people. Georgia Tech’s College of Computing worked “because the culture was always outward-looking. We sought to use computing to solve others’ problems,” Guzdial said. But that may have been a momentary success. Now, at Michigan, he is trying to rebuild computing education from scratch, for students in fields such as French and sociology. He wants them to understand it as a means of self-expression or achieving justice—and not just a way of making software, or money.

Early in my undergraduate career, I decided to abandon CS as a major. Even as an undergraduate, I already had a side job in what would become the internet industry, and computer science, as an academic field, felt theoretical and unnecessary. Reasoning that I could easily get a job as a computer professional no matter what it said on my degree, I decided to study other things while I had the chance.

I have a strong memory of processing the paperwork to drop my computer-science major in college, in favor of philosophy. I walked down a quiet, blue-tiled hallway of the engineering building. All the faculty doors were closed, although the click-click of mechanical keyboards could be heard behind many of them. I knocked on my adviser’s door; she opened it, silently signed my paperwork without inviting me in, and closed the door again. The keyboard tapping resumed.

The whole experience was a product of its time, when computer science was a field composed of oddball characters, working by themselves, and largely disconnected from what was happening in the world at large. Almost 30 years later, their projects have turned into the infrastructure of our daily lives. Want to find a job? That’s LinkedIn. Keep in touch? Gmail, or Instagram. Get news? A website like this one, we hope, but perhaps TikTok. My university uses a software service sold by a tech company to run its courses. Some things have been made easier with computing. Others have been changed to serve another end, like scaling up an online business.

Read: So much for ‘learn to code’

The struggle to figure out the best organizational structure for computing education is, in a way, a microcosm of the struggle under way in the computing sector at large. For decades, computers were tools used to accomplish tasks better and more efficiently. Then computing became the way we work and live. It became our culture, and we began doing what computers made possible, rather than using computers to solve problems defined outside their purview. Tech moguls became famous, wealthy, and powerful. So did CS academics (relatively speaking). The success of the latter—in terms of rising student enrollments, research output, and fundraising dollars—both sustains and justifies their growing influence on campus.

If computing colleges have erred, it may be in failing to exert their power with even greater zeal. For all their talk of growth and expansion within academia, the computing deans’ ambitions seem remarkably modest. Martial Hebert, the dean of Carnegie Mellon’s computing school, almost sounded like he was talking about the liberal arts when he told me that CS is “a rich tapestry of disciplines” that “goes far beyond computers and coding.” But the seven departments in his school correspond to the traditional, core aspects of computing plus computational biology. They do not include history, for example, or finance. Bala and Isbell talked about incorporating law, policy, and psychology into their programs of study, but only in the form of hiring individual professors into more traditional CS divisions. None of the deans I spoke with aspires to launch, say, a department of art within their college of computing, or one of politics, sociology, or film. Their vision does not reflect the idea that computing can or should be a superordinate realm of scholarship, on the order of the arts or engineering. Rather, they are proceeding as though it were a technical school for producing a certain variety of very well-paid professionals. A computing college deserving of the name wouldn’t just provide deeper coursework in CS and its closely adjacent fields; it would expand and reinvent other, seemingly remote disciplines for the age of computation.

Near the end of our conversation, Isbell mentioned the engineering fallacy, which he summarized like this: Someone asks you to solve a problem, and you solve it without asking if it’s a problem worth solving. I used to think computing education might be stuck in a nesting-doll version of the engineer’s fallacy, in which CS departments have been asked to train more software engineers without considering whether more software engineers are really what the world needs. Now I worry that they have a bigger problem to address: how to make computer people care about everything else as much as they care about computers.

This article originally mischaracterized the views of MIT’s computing dean, Daniel Huttenlocher. He did not say that computer science would be held back in an arts-and-science or engineering context, or that it needs to be independent.

Email forwarding for @cs.stanford.edu is changing on Feb 1, 2024. More details here . Looking for your W-2 form?  Read Here . CS Commencement Ceremony June 16, 2024.  Learn More .

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Phd requirements, this is the old stanford computer science website for archival purposes, information found on this page maybe outdated and inaccurate. please visit the new stanford computer science web site for up-to-date information, for any questions related to cs phd milestone requirements, please email [email protected].

• Academic Requirements

Guidelines for Reasonable Progress

• By the end of the first year, you should align with a permanent advisor; students are welcome to switch advisors, but a student should not have significant periods of time (after the first year) with no advisor.
• A student must make satisfactory progress in his or her research, as determined by his or her advisor.
• By Spring Quarter of the second year, a student should complete the foundation/breadth requirements. 
• By Spring Quarter of the third year, a student should pass a Qualifying Examination in the area of his or her intended dissertation.
• Within one year of passing the Qualifying Examination, a student should form a Reading Committee and submit a signed Reading Committee Form to the [email protected] .
• By Spring Quarter of the fourth year, a student should schedule a Thesis Proposal with the reading committee members and submit the Thesis Proposal Form to the [email protected] .

The teaching requirement may be satisfied at any time. As a matter of policy, a student should satisfy half of the teaching requirement in the first two years. Students are encouraged to complete the teaching requirement early in their stay to eliminate conflicts with later dissertation work. The research requirement is routinely satisfied by participation in research throughout the student's career.

Note: Form/s should be submitted as pdf and emailed to  [email protected] .    Jay Subramanian  , Director of Graduate Admissions and PhD Program, approves these forms on behalf of the department chair.

University policy requires that all doctoral students declare candidacy by the end of the sixth quarter in residence, excluding summers. Once you have a permanent advisor, have completed three foundation/breadth requirements (foundation waivers do not count), and satisfied the three units of graduate-level coursework/research units with four instructors (faculty that are academic council members), you are eligible to file for candidacy.  The Application for Candidacy for Doctoral Degree form can be found at https://drive.google.com/file/d/17Db_0Y2pFRuY42nHY4z0AWYgJyoEVqtL/view . On the form the student must list 135 units of courses (either completed or planned, a total of 10 units of PE/music/performing arts courses can be counted towards this) . The form is reviewed and signed first by the student's permanent advisor. The advisor's signature indicates the academic adequacy of the proposed program of study. The form is then reviewed by the Program Officer to make sure that it accurately reflects the University and departmental requirements.

The candidacy form serves as a "contract" between the department and the student. The department acknowledges that the student is a bona fide candidate for the Ph.D. and agrees that the program submitted by the student is sufficient to warrant granting the Ph.D. upon completion. The department may not change requirements unilaterally. The student may petition the department for modification of his or her program.

Candidacy expires five years from the date of submission of the candidacy form, rounded to the end of the quarter. In special cases, the department may extend a student's candidacy, but is under no obligation to do so. The monthly stipend increases slightly after candidacy is filed. This goes in effect the quarter following submission and approval of the candidacy form.

Petition for MS Degree

After satisfying the Breadth requirement ( Section 4 ), applying for candidacy ( Section 5 ) and the Depth requirement (Qualifying Examination, 6) and a minimum of 45 units with a GPA of 3.0, the student is eligible to petition for a Master's degree. To do so, you need to fill out the "Graduate Program Authorization Petition" which is available via Axess. (From the Academics panel in your Student Center, select "Petitions and Forms" from the drop down menu to submit the Grad Auth electronically.) Note that the form needs to be completed before deadline to apply to graduate, so do not wait until the last minute to complete it. There is a $125 application fee to add a Master's program to your PhD. Do not forget to "Apply to Graduate" for your Master's program as well as your PhD program in Axess when it's time to graduate.

Please note that the university places a limit on the number of transfer units and units that you can ‘double-count’ towards your MS and PhD degrees. You can use up to 45 units of transfer units, or MS units, but not both, towards the 135 units that are required for the PhD degree.

https://registrar.stanford.edu/students/graduate-degree-progress/minimum...

In order to add the MSCS degree, please follow the guidelines:

1. Log onto Axess. 2. Click "Student" tab. 3. Under the "Academics" header, there is a drop-down menu; select "Petitions and Forms". 4. On the next page, select "Graduate Program Authorization Petition". 5. Do not click the box by "I wish to discontinue this program..." 6. Click the quarter that you wish to receive your MS. 7. Click "No" to the question asking if you are enrolling in an official joint program. 8. Under "Requested New Program", indicate "CS". 9. Under "Degree", indicate "CS-MS". 10. Click "Submit".

Your application will be routed to Meredith Hutchin, MSCS Program Administrator. Once she confirms your eligibility, she will contact you.  Once your application is approved by Meredith, you will be able to apply for MS conferral on Axess.

Student Financial Support

The Ph.D. program is a full-time program. Most Computer Science Ph.D. students are supported by a research or teaching assistantship in Computer Science or the School of Engineering (SOE), or by a fellowship, or by an approved assistantship through a collaborating research organization. The Ph.D. program is full-time and requires full tuition, most or all of which is normally covered by such support. Since Ph.D. students have 50% RAships or CAships, full time equals 8-10 units. Students with partial or no support may not register part-time but must make up any tuition shortfall themselves, except as noted (Hertz, NSF, NPSC Fellows may register for 8-10 units also).

University Graduation-TGR Requirements

A student may go TGR after all the Ph.D. requirements have been completed and just their orals and submission of the dissertation remain, see CS Ph.D. Program Milestone Checklist for reference. Students are strongly encouraged to apply for TGR status as soon as they are eligible as the TGR fee is 40% of regular tuition. The School of Engineering and the University expects students making reasonable progress to be TGR for only one year.To advance to TGR status, you need to fill out and submit the TGR form which is now housed in the eForms portal.

Unit-Based Requirements

These requirements are:

• 135 course/research credit units are required to graduate with the Ph.D.
• Once you have completed the 135 units of course/research credit and all program requirements up to your Orals and Dissertation, then you are eligible to apply for TGR status.
• Up to 45 units completed at Stanford (or accepted as transfer credit) toward a Masters degree may be used toward the 135 units of residency requirement for the doctoral degree. (Application for transfer of credit may be requested after at least one quarter of enrollment.)

Additional Information on Enrollment:

• Students who are on most fellowships register for at least 8 or 10 units. Certain outside fellowships require 12 units a quarter so if you have a question concerning this, contact the Ph.D. Program Officer.
• Students who are on 50% research or course assistantships register for at least 8 units and should register for 10 as the tuition is the same for 8 to 10 units.
• Students who are on 25% research or course assistantships should register for a minimum of 8 and maximum of 10 units. The assistantship covers 5 units and the student must make up the difference. It is recommended that Ph.D. students seek a 50% assistantship (or two 25% assistantships.)
• Students who are on a 90% research assistantship in the summer register for 3 units of CS499. If the student is TGR, then they register for 0 units of CS802. For students on 50% CAships, RAships or fellowships during the summer, the above rules apply.

*TGR fees only provide for maintenance of matriculation; they do not represent tuition. If a TGR student wishes to take a course for credit, then the student will pay tuition on a unit basis, at a special tuition rate.

Distinction in Teaching

A graduating Ph.D. student will be awarded a certificate of Distinction in Teaching if the following conditions are met:

• The student is nominated for this distinction by at least one CS faculty member who has supervised the student as a Course Assistant. This nomination is e-mailed to the Ph.D. Program Officer.
• The student has completed 10 units of CA or TF-ship where each unit counts as one 25% CA or TF-ship i.e. five 50% CAships.
• The units must include at least one course at the 100-course level; and at least one course at either the 200 or 300-plus course levels.
• The student has taught at least one course as a Teaching Fellow with primary responsibility for organizing and teaching a course (tutored video does not qualify.)

The department will check with the advisor annually to ensure that the student is making satisfactory progress towards the completion of their degree. The Computer Science PhD student services sends each Ph.D. student an e-mail with updates on the student's milestone and research progress. Individualized evaluations are sent to each student via e-mail throughout the summer. This evaluation is based on information available to the Ph.D. Program Officer at the time of the evaluation meeting. Please be sure to e-mail [email protected] , whenever you complete a breadth requirement or milestone throughout the year in order to keep you records current. As per the Honor Code, it is the student's responsibility to contact the Program Officer with regard to any error or correction to their records.

If a student is not making reasonable progress and further action needs to be taken:

• The student's advisor, Director of Graduate Studies, and the Department Chair will meet to evaluate the next step that should be taken.
• By University Policy, the student has the right and can request to meet with the Director of Graduate Studies.
• The student can submit a request for an ombudsman.
• Failure to schedule the meeting constitutes a waiver of the university-mandated right to a hearing and can lead to dismissal without further warning.

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Undergraduate Research

Main navigation, stanford data science undergraduate research pathways (dsurp).

The Stanford Data Science Undergraduate Research Pathways program is an 8-week full-time research experience designed to provide students at institutions without access to research opportunities the chance to conduct a research project under the supervision of both a mentor and faculty member. This is an in-person experience held at Stanford from June 24 to August 16, 2024.

• The program is held during the Stanford summer quarter from June 24–August 16 (8 weeks).
• Participants will receive a stipend of $6000, but the program is not otherwise able to provide housing support.
• Available slots are limited and selection is competitive. Priority is given first to students from non-R1 universities, and also to those from backgrounds underrepresented in data science research.
• The program is not open to Stanford students.

How to apply

Applicants will need to provide the following by 11:59pm PST on March 3, 2024:

• Personal and demographic information.
• Resume and unofficial transcript.
• Demonstration of data science reasoning ability.

 Apply Now

Any questions should be directed by email to Daniel LeJeune, dlejeune @ stanford.edu.