Your application to conduct your graduate studies at CU Boulder will be considered after all application materials have been received. Please allow plenty of time to complete this process prior to the application deadlines. These deadlines are when all materials, including your letters of reference, should be received. Please note all deadlines are 10:00pm MST (midnight EST). We recommend beginning the application process early and allowing plenty of time to complete the process.

Graduate Application

Minimum Admissions Requirements

The Graduate School at CU Boulder has established minimum standards for admission.

Qualified students may be recommended for admission to regular degree status by approved programs of the Graduate School provided they meet the following criteria. Individual graduate departments may have additional or more restrictive standards by which they evaluate graduate applicants. Be sure to visit the admissions pages of the programs that you are interested in for a full list of program specific application requirements.  

Applicants must:

  • Hold a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university, or have done work equivalent to that required for such a degree.
  • Show promise of ability to pursue advanced study and research, as judged by the student’s scholastic record.
  • Have adequate preparation to enter graduate study in the chosen field. Have at least a 2.75 (2.00=C) undergraduate grade point average.
  • Applicants to programs in the College of Engineering and Applied Science must have a 3.00 (3.00=B) undergraduate grade point average. Note: applicants who cannot meet this undergraduate standard may still secure regular admission if they have completed 9 semester hours of relevant graduate course work with at least a 3.25 grade point average.

Required Application Materials

While you may complete your online application in multiple sessions, we recommend that you gather as much of these materials as possible prior to beginning your application.

Prepare your "Personal Statement" as a .doc or .pdf file, and upload it with your application. Questions may vary by department and are available within the application.

The online application asks for such basic information as:

  • Your full legal name, as it appears on your birth certificate or passport
  • Home address and contact information
  • Post-secondary education
  • Applicable honors, awards, and affiliations
  • Resume (to be uploaded as a .doc or .pdf file)
  • Other pertinent background information

For review and decision purposes you are required to upload an unofficial copy of your transcript(s) in the application. We require one copy of the scanned transcript from each undergraduate and graduate institution that you attended. This includes community colleges, summer sessions, and extension programs. While credits from one institution may appear on the transcript of a second institution, unofficial transcripts must be submitted from each institution, regardless of the length of attendance, and whether or not courses were completed. For all international academic work, you must provide the original, native language version of both the transcript and, separately, the degree document, as well as a certified English translation of those documents. Failure to list and submit transcripts from all institutions previously attended is considered to be a violation of academic ethics and may result in the cancellation of your admission or dismissal from the university. ONLY after you are recommended for admission will you need to provide official transcripts.

Instructions for Uploading Unofficial Transcripts to Your Application

The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is required for admission to many graduate programs and is considered valuable for all others. Please check program pages to determine specific test requirements. The GRE college code for CU Boulder is 4841. Direct any inquiries regarding these examinations to the program in which you intend to study. If you are applying to the Leeds School of Business, you are required to present scores from the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). The GMAT college code is 4841.

Each program requires letters of recommendation but vary in the number of letters required. Review the prospective students' page of the program to which you are applying for the required number. You will be asked to supply the names of your recommenders as well as their email addresses within the application.

Transfer credits from accredited institutions are accepted by CU Boulder only after approval by the department chair/program director and under the special conditions outlined below. Transfer credit is defined as any credit earned at another accredited institution, credits earned on another campus of the CU system, or credits earned as a nondegree student within the CU system. Students seeking a degree from the University of Colorado Boulder must complete the majority of their course work while enrolled in a graduate program as a degree-seeking student.

The following rules apply to transferring credit to CU Boulder graduate programs:

  • The maximum amount of work that may be transferred to CU Boulder depends upon the graduate degree sought (individual departments may have more restrictive limits). Work already applied toward a graduate degree received from CU Boulder or another institution cannot be accepted for transfer toward another graduate degree of the same level at CU Boulder. In addition, work completed for a doctoral degree may not be applied toward a subsequent master’s degree. Extension work completed at another institution cannot be transferred and correspondence work, except to make up deficiencies, is not recognized.
  • All courses accepted for transfer must be graduate-level courses.
  • A course in which a grade of B- or lower was received will not be accepted for transfer.
  • Transfer course work that is to be applied to a graduate degree at CU Boulder and was completed more than five years prior to being accepted to the program shall be evaluated by the major department as to current relevance and applicability to the degree requirements.
  • At the discretion of the department, a student may be asked to validate transfer credits prior to approval. Credit may not be transferred until the student has completed 6 credits of graduate level course work as a degree-seeking student on the CU Boulder campus with a 3.0 GPA.
  • Transferred credits do not reduce the minimum registration requirement but may reduce the amount of work to be done in formal courses.
  • Excess undergraduate credits from another institution may not be transferred to the CU Boulder Graduate School.
  • With the exception of students enrolled in the concurrent bachelor’s/master’s degree, seniors at CU Boulder may transfer a limited amount of graduate level work (up to 9 semester hours) provided such work
 is: completed with a grade of B or above at CU Boulder,
 comes within the five year course time limit,
 has not been applied toward another degree, is recommended for transfer by the department concerned, and such transfer is approved by the dean of the Graduate School

To determine whether you are eligible to apply for in-state tuition classification, visit the Tuition Classification page on the Registrar's site.

$60 Domestic Application Fee

The application fee can be paid online when you submit your application via Credit card or Electronic check.