The department primarily offers Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTAs) and departmental fellowships to graduate students. Graduate Research Assistantships (GRAs) are paid for and administered by individual faculty members who manage their own research grants.

February 1 for Fall admission and June 15 for Spring admission. These are firm deadlines. We suggest applicants to apply as early as possible to receive full consideration, ideally 4 to 6 weeks before the deadline.

No. Students with a strong interest in research should consider directly applying for our PhD program. It is sufficient for an applicant to have a four-year undergraduate education with a Bachelor's degree. Our PhD students can receive a Master's degree during the course of their PhD study, if they choose to do so.

Our department significantly favors PhD students when it comes to offering financial support. M.S. students are considered when there are positions remaining open after all PhD students have been considered, although currently M.S. students can and do get financial support from the department. Outside the EECS department, our graduate students can often find assistantships in other departments on campus due to their specialty and job skills.

Personal statement is one of the most important part of your application. We specifically look for indications of your research interests, why you are interested in those areas and evidence of preparedness for a successful graduate study in your proposed areas.

We do not have a minimum requirement by which we automatically deny applicants. But the departmental admissions committee will typically only review applicants with GRE scores of at least: verbal 450, quantitative 700, analytical 3.5, regardless of which field or program you apply to (CS, CE, EE, or PhD and MS program). For international students, we would like to see TOEFL scores above 95 in the new computer-based tests.

We require only GRE general test for all applications to our graduate programs. GRE subject tests are optional, however, strong performances on GRE subject tests in areas such as engineering and computer science would greatly strengthen your application.

Our admissions process is centralized through the Office of Graduate and International Admissions. Consequently all evidential materials, including GRE and/or TOFEL Scores, Transcripts and Financial Statements, should be sent to the Office of Graduate and International Admissions. Besides the university-wide requirements, our department require some additional materials to better evaluate your research potential. Those materials should be submitted via EECS electronic admissions page: http://www.eecs.utk.edu/grad/admissions/main.

No. Your application will appear in the university-wide electronic admissions system only after your application fee is paid in full. We cannot act on your application until then.

Our faculty’s diverse areas of expertise provide many opportunities for specializations throughout the fields of Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering. External support for research and scholarships in EECS exceed $10 million per year, which reflects the high productivity of our faculty. The department has a close relationship with nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), including joint management of a new supercomputer facility. As the largest science and energy laboratory for the Department of Energy, ORNL employs over 1,500 scientists/engineers and 3,000 guest researchers. ORNL offers an extensive well paid internship program for UT EECS students to work in the summer as well as during the academic year. Internship possibilities with other local industry also exist.

If your proposed MS area of concentration is in EECS (i.e. computer science, computer engineering and electrical engineering), the MBA program and the EECS department jointly make the admission decision. MBA program is always the first to evaluate an applicant. EECS will only consider those applicants that have received favorable decisions from Admissions Committee of the MBA program. Students in the dual MBA-MS program do not typically receive financial assistance from the EECS department.

Please start the process by contacting Graduate and International Admissions, and then proceed to fill out EECS online application: http://www.eecs.utk.edu/grad/admissions/main). We will review your application as it becomes ready in the electronic application system. The deadlines of February 1 (Fall admission) and June 15 (Spring admission) should be observed if you would like to receive financial support from our department.

One way to strengthen your background is to enroll at UT as a non-degree student. The application process with Graduate and International Admissions is very straightforward and does not involve EECS. As a non-degree student, you can take up to 15 credit hours of courses to make up any deficiencies needed for your intended graduate study. If you do well in those courses and get admitted into EECS's graduate program, all credit hours that meet our degree requirements can count towards your degree.

Please make a special note here. Registering as a non-degree student does not in any way guarantee that you will be admitted by our graduate program. This option is only advisable if your overall application is competitive (e.g. strong reference letters, high GRE scores, high undergraduate GPA) but lacks a few key courses in your academic background.

No.

Yes. Please submit your financial statement to UT Graduate and International Admissions as early as possible, ideally together with your application materials.

Please do not send that form to our department. EECS aims to offer financial support to as many graduate students of ours as we can. Our admission decisions do not consider your financial ability in any way. Your financial statement should simply reflect the true level of financial resources available to you.

Contact the Office of Graduate and International Admissions or check your application status online. Please do not contact the EECS department directly to inquire about your status.

Please consult the Knoxville Visitors and Tourism Guide, an excellent detailed publication on the Knoxville Area (56 pages). Visitor info of our department is available at http://www.eecs.utk.edu/about/visitor/main.