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5 Year: BS/MS IEOR

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Departmental Application:
Thursday, October 19, 2023 by 4 PM PST

Graduate Division Application:
Monday, December 11, 2023 at 8:59 PM PST

What is IEOR?

In this award-winning video, IEOR students explain what industrial engineering & operations research is, how their skills can improve the world, and discuss exciting careers in IEOR.

  • IEOR is the process of inventing and designing ways to analyze and improve complex systems.
  • IEOR improves processes to create a better world.
  • IEOR utilizes math and statistics to understand and quantify the world around us.
  • IEOR leverages computing to better manage the massive amounts of information available today.
  • IEOR informs business strategy and operations to help leaders of industry and government make better decisions that save time and resources.

Program Overview

The Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) offers a five-year combined Bachelor’s-Master's program for current IEOR and Operations Research and Management Science (ORMS) undergraduates to broaden their educational experiences at Berkeley. Admission to this program may be more selective than the standard admission to the MS program. The master’s degree portion typically takes two semesters to complete beyond the completion of undergraduate requirements.

The five-year combined Bachelor’s-Master's program will allow well-prepared students to start taking graduate-level courses early. Approved courses taken during the last semester of the undergraduate program that are not needed for the bachelor’s degree or honors program at Berkeley or any other institution may be eligible to be counted toward the MS degree. All other requirements for the IEOR MS degree and all other College of Engineering and Graduate Division rules must be satisfied.
For questions about the application and program requirements, contact faculty advisor Professor Yano.

Admissions 

The admission process for the five-year combined Bachelor’s-Master's program has three steps and two deadlines. To apply you must be a current ORMS/IEOR undergraduate student at Berkeley.

Admission process:

  1. Deadline #1: Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 4 PM PST: Applicants who plan to finish their Bachelor’s requirements in May 2024, August 2024 or December 2024 must complete the Departmental Application (including Statement of Purpose, Draft Course of Study Plan, current transcript, and two Letters of Recommendation) by this deadline. See Application Requirements below for more information.
  2. The Department Graduate Admissions committee selects a subset of applicants for interviews. Not all students who are interviewed will necessarily be admitted to the program.
  3. Deadline #2: Monday, December 11, 2023 at 8:59 PM PST: Students admitted by the Department are required to submit a regular application to the Graduate Division (including three letters of recommendation) for the MS degree by the advertised deadline in December for entry in the fall semester of the following academic year (for May or August bachelor’s graduates). Students who are planning to complete their bachelor’s requirements in December should apply to the Five-Year program 14 months prior to graduation. Such applicants will be screened at that time, but will need to go through a special process to arrange for Spring (January) admission to the graduate program. The Graduate Division will make the final offer of admission if all minimum requirements have been met. Admission is contingent on maintaining good progress (including a minimum GPA of 3.0, successful receipt of a bachelor’s degree, and incurring no disciplinary actions). Students selected for the program are required to meet all of the normal requirements for applying for an MS degree during the remainder of their bachelor’s program, with the understanding that as long as they maintain good performance in their courses and have incurred no disciplinary actions, their admission recommendation to the Graduate Division should be pro forma. The student must remain in good academic standing through the senior year.

Admission to this program is highly competitive.

Application Requirements:

  1. Departmental Application 
  2. Unofficial Transcripts (Note: If admitted to this program, official transcripts will be required when applying to the Graduate Division)
  3. At least 90 semester units by the end of the junior year and outstanding performance in the current program (preferred cumulative GPA of 3.5 or better in upper division technical courses; please note that an upper division GPA of 3.5 or better does not guarantee admission)
  4. Statement of Purpose: A well-written and compelling personal essay explaining the student's rationale for entering the program
  5. Two letters of recommendation from faculty members who know the applicant well and can provide both an evaluation of the student’s technical skills and evidence that they can benefit significantly from the program. (Three letters of recommendation are required for the official MS application. Students may ask the recommenders who wrote the two initial letters to submit their recommendations as part of the online application process.)
  6. A non-binding Draft Course of Study Plan, demonstrating that the applicant has carefully considered the area of concentration that they wish to pursue
  7. A successful interview in which faculty will assess the student's technical background, experience, and ability to communicate orally.

Required forms and supporting documents for the application are to be submitted as a single PDF file to the IEOR department. Incomplete and late applications will be automatically rejected.

NOTE: For Berkeley students admitted to the five-year combined Bachelor’s-Master's program, the normal departmental requirement of the GRE is waived when applying for the master's program.

Course Requirements

Requirements for the MS Degree within the 5-Year Program

The combined Bachelor’s-Master’s program has two features that distinguish itself from the standard MS program:

  1. As part of their curriculum that satisfies the basic rules for an MS degree, students must complete three courses in their area of concentration. One course may be an upper-division or graduate course from outside the department that is aligned with the student’s concentration. Applicants may find it helpful to consider the following areas of concentration when preparing their course of study plan. Potential IEOR courses in each area are listed below. Students should consult their faculty advisors for potential courses in other departments.
    a. Operations Research: INDENG 231, 242, 261, 262A, 262B, 263A, 263B, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269
    b. Production, Logistics and Service Operations: INDENG 215, 230, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 258
    c. Financial Engineering: INDENG 215, 221, 222, 223, 224
  2. Plan II (Comprehensive Exam or Master’s Project): Each Plan II student must choose one of the following options:
    a. Complete an individual project via 2 units of graduate-level independent study units (INDENG 299 and/or 599); students who choose this option are not required to pass the Comprehensive Exam
    b. Complete a small-group project via at least 2 units of a graduate-level project-based course to gain experience in applying IEOR methodology to real-world problems; students who choose this option are required to pass the Comprehensive Exam.
  3. Students can fulfill either of these requirements without taking courses or units beyond those required for the master’s degree by carefully planning their course of study.

Procedure to request backdating of graduate standing:

Berkeley undergraduates who take undergraduate and graduate coursework during their last undergraduate semester that is not needed for the bachelor’s degree or honors program at Berkeley or any other institution may petition to backdate graduate standing in order to receive graduate credit for that coursework. Graduate standing may be backdated for only one semester (the final undergraduate semester).
The request must be submitted to the Head Graduate Adviser in a memo. It can be submitted either before or when a student applies for advancement to candidacy. The memo must specify the units and courses taken in the FINAL undergraduate semester to be applied to the master’s degree and must be accompanied by a written statement from the student’s undergraduate college confirming that the coursework was not utilized to fulfill an undergraduate degree requirement. No course may be used to satisfy both an undergraduate and a graduate degree requirement. Courses in the 300, 400, or 600 series do not count toward the unit requirements for the master’s degree. No undergraduate independent study can count toward the unit requirements for the master’s degree.
No single course may be used to satisfy more than one category.

Academic Residence Requirement for a Master's Degree

A master’s degree requires a minimum of two semesters of academic residence. Academic residence is defined as payment of registration fees and enrollment in at least 4 units in 100 or 200 series courses each semester of academic residence.

Advancement to Candidacy

A student who has been advanced to candidacy has been officially recognized by the university as a candidate for the degree. In order to be advanced to candidacy a student must have an approved Course of Study Plan on file, completed a minimum number of units, and have a minimum GPA of 3.0. Students are required to submit their Advancement to Candidacy form before the third week of their second semester. If approved for advancement to candidacy, the student becomes eligible to complete the comprehensive exam or master’s project (a project report and oral examination by a committee of two faculty members – Plan B).

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have more questions beyond the scope of these frequently asked questions, contact Ginnie Sadil (gsadil@berkeley.edu).