- Fall 2025 Priority Deadline: April 3, 2025
- Fall 2025 Regular Deadline: May 22, 2025
Please note there is no application fee for graduate applications submitted by the Priority Deadline.
The MS in Data Science online degree program helps students earn the credentials and acquire the skills needed to enter or advance in the fast-growing field of data science. Ranked by Fortune magazine as one of the best online master's programs in the nation, the MS in Data Science offers foundational knowledge and hands-on programming competencies, resulting in project-based work samples that are in great market demand.
The program’s learning objectives and demanding, hands-on courses are designed around employer needs. Throughout their time in the program, students build portfolios of increasingly complex projects using popular programming languages such as R and Python, which mirror the current experience and demands of the workplace. Students build predictive and prescriptive models, practice giving presentations, and review each other’s work in a convenient online setting, ensuring that they are equipped with the expertise most valued in today’s marketplace. The MS in Data Science program culminates with a capstone project that represents highly sophisticated, but practical, solutions to address real world problems.
The program covers a broad range of disciplines:
- Probability and statistics: descriptive statistics, sampling techniques, discrete probability models, sampling, statistical distributions, correlation, and null hypothesis testing
- Applied math: matrix manipulation, linear equations, and loss functions
- Programming: creating, testing and optimizing regression, classification, and Bayesian models using R and Python
- Data acquisition and management: acquiring/importing data frames; cleaning, normalizing, and manipulating data via SQL
- Critical thinking and communication: framing real-world phenomena as quantitative representations and explaining results in simple, clear, and cogent language
Additionally, the program’s faculty comprises committed and engaged technology practitioners who are experts in their fields. They invest time in building courses on the use of open source best-practice tools that satisfy high employer demands for quality programming and the use of advanced techniques.
Career Prospects
The MS in Data Science program prepares graduates for a variety of technical and managerial positions in such fields as machine learning, artificial intelligence, business intelligence, data governance, and market research.
Admissions Criteria
Applicants must possess a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution, with a preferred GPA of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale. Applicants are required to write a personal statement, upload a resume, and provide two letters of recommendation. Letters of recommendation may be submitted before or after submitting an application.
As an interdisciplinary field, we welcome applicants from diverse professional backgrounds. In terms of qualifications, we look for candidates with either strong technical (programming) and quantitative (applied math) backgrounds, or those individuals with a keen interest and ability/willingness to learn.
Bridge Tutorial
All applicants are required to take the Bridge Tutorial, a free, self-paced, online mini-course to assess applicants’ skills required to succeed in the program.
The course is designed so that qualified/experienced applicants can quickly/easily demonstrate their competencies by answering a set of multi-choice questions. However, those applicants who don’t pass on the first try are given a second chance, receiving feedback on their responses as well as instructional aides and tutorials on the covered subject matter. Given that tutorials on the subject matter are provided, and the assessment is not timed, it’s essentially an “open book” test.
For questions, please email datascience@sps.cuny.edu.
Application Deadlines
- Fall 2025 Priority Deadline: April 3, 2025
- Fall 2025 Regular Deadline: May 22, 2025
