What do I need before I enroll?

Programming and linear algebra before enrollment. If you do not have them yet, write to the program and we will help you plan for them.

Master of Science · Applied Data Science · Sarasota, Florida

Knowledge is built in community.

Q: How long does the program take?

Thirty-six credits in one designed sequence. Three semesters of coursework on campus plus a full-time industry practicum. Most students take the practicum the summer after their first year and finish in three semesters and a summer; it can also be taken in the spring of a fourth semester.

Q: What does it cost?

For 2026-27, first-year tuition and fees are $11,384 for a Florida resident and $30,570 for an out-of-state or international student.

Q: Is there an online option?

No. The program is taught in person in Sarasota, Florida, with one small cohort entering each September.

Q: When are the application deadlines?

Applications open September 22. Early action closes December 1, regular decision February 1, and the final deadline is June 15, or April 1 for international applicants. Students are admitted on a rolling, space-available basis.

An in-person program on Sarasota Bay, with one cohort entering each fall.

Ready to apply Request information

No. 8

Fortune’s best data science master’s, 2025

3 + 1

Semesters, plus a full-time practicum

8:1

College student-faculty ratio

About the program

At New College, graduate students study applied data science in small, in-person classes. Students progress through the curriculum together, developing working relationships through shared coursework and collaborative projects. Close faculty interaction supports their progression from technical foundations to advanced methods and applications in data science.

Projects with external organizations provide opportunities to apply that training throughout the program. A required, paid, full-time industry practicum extends the work into a professional setting, making industry experience part of the degree.

01 · Community

You join a cohort

One small cohort takes every course together.

02 · Knowledge

You train hard

Statistics, data engineering, machine learning and AI in one deliberate progression, with a project in every course.

03 · Practicum

You do real work

The required Industry Practicum fills the summer after your first year, inside a real organization.

04 · Ending

You go far

Our people include a planetary scientist at NASA, an AI scientist at Argonne, a Berkeley Lab researcher, and a quantum photonics scientist at Quantinuum.

Curriculum

One cohort, all the way through.

Everyone admitted in September takes the same courses at the same time, for the whole degree. Programming and databases come first, because the machine learning courses use them.

Semester 1 · Fall

Foundations

Databases
Programming for data science
Applied Statistics 1
Data munging
January: industry workshops

Semester 2 · Spring

Modeling and systems

Applied Statistics 2
Machine learning
Data visualization and communication
Distributed computing

Summer · after year one

Industry Practicum

Full-time placement in a real organization
A supervisor on site, a professor checking in
Or the spring of a fourth semester

Semester 3 · Fall

Depth

Statistical modeling
Deep learning and AI
Practical data science

Timing the practicum

The coursework is the same three semesters either way. Only the practicum moves. Most students take it the summer after their first year, which finishes the degree a semester sooner. The other option is a fourth semester in the spring, for anyone who wants more time before graduating. Either way it is the same three credits, and your cohort takes every class together.

"Yes, I can process terabytes of data because I know Spark. I can train models and evaluate their results; and the list goes on. The program is rigorous, and the cohort taught me how to work in a team."

Kyle Rodriguez · Class of 2023 · Data Scientist, Elutions

Practicum

A practicum for real-world experience.

Every student completes the Industry Practicum: a full-time placement inside a real organization, working on its own data-related projects, with a supervisor there setting the work and a professor from the program checking in. It is a three-credit course, and most students take it the summer after their first year.

Which term fits you is a conversation with the faculty, who will have watched you work for a year by the time it matters.

Students have worked in environmental science, medicine, finance, insurance, and national defense.

Recent corporate and research partners

Allen Institute for Brain Science · LexisNexis Risk Solutions · USDA Agricultural Research Service · HPCC Systems · Riff Analytics · Azuria · United Nations · Duke University Athletics

A seminar circle on the bayfront lawn at New College of Florida

Applying

Where to go next.

Applications open September 22 for the following fall. Early action closes December 1, regular decision February 1, and the final deadline is June 15, or April 1 for international applicants. Students are admitted on a rolling, space-available basis.

Start an applicationThe graduate application portal. Graduate AdmissionsRequirements, deadlines, and who to ask. Official curriculumEvery course, term by term. Tuition and fees$11,384 first year for Florida residents; full budgets for every residency. Request informationHave the program send you the details. Visit Sarasota BayCampus tours, events, maps, and directions.

Request information

Not ready to apply? This form goes directly to the admissions team.

Loading the form connects to NCF's admissions service, which may use cookies. Information you submit, including your email address, may be subject to Florida public-records disclosure unless exempt. Please leave out confidential records. Read the privacy notice.

Open the request form on apply.ncf.edu, or call (941) 487-5000.

Before you enroll

You need an introductory programming course and linear algebra, with calculus behind it. If you do not have them yet, these two will get you there: Programming for Everybody (Coursera) and Linear Algebra for Data Science in R (DataCamp). Provisional admission is available; write to graduateDS@ncf.edu early and we will help you plan.

Program highlights

Cost and admission at a glance.

Tuition and fees	$11,384 for a Florida resident’s first year; $30,570 for an out-of-state or international student, 2026–27.
Estimated total budget	$31,760 Florida resident; $50,946 out of state; $54,237 international, including estimated non-billable expenses.
GRE	Not required. GRE, GRE Subject, and GMAT scores are optional.
Preparation	Complete introductory programming and linear algebra before enrollment; provisional admission may be available.

Before you apply

Questions we get.

Do I need the GRE?

No. GRE, GRE Subject, and GMAT scores are optional.

Do I need a data science undergraduate degree?

No. Your major can be in another field, but you need introductory programming and linear algebra before enrollment.

How long does the program take?

Thirty-six credits: three semesters on campus plus a full-time industry practicum, usually in the summer after the first year.

Is there an online option?

No. The program is taught in person in Sarasota, with one cohort entering each fall.

What does the first year cost?

For 2026–27, tuition and fees are $11,384 for a Florida resident and $30,570 for an out-of-state or international student.

Can I visit or talk with someone first?

Yes. Plan a campus visit, request information above, or write to graduateDS@ncf.edu.

Projects with organizations

Work with New College students and faculty on software, reporting and data analysis. Projects can address recurring reports, internal systems or predictions used in planning.

Projects by industryRetail, credit unions and biomedical research, with interactive forecasts. Practicums and internshipsHow the work is organized and what participation involves. Discuss a projectDescribe what you would like to understand or improve.

Faculty

Faculty and staff.

Seven faculty teach every course.

graduateDS@ncf.edu

Gil Salu

Director of the Master’s in Data Science

Teaches databases for data science, and distributed and cloud computing.

Twenty-five years in software. Fourteen of them at Charles River Development, the institutional trading and portfolio management platform acquired by State Street, and earlier in senior client technology and solutions roles at IBM. Advises Fortune 500 asset managers on technology adoption, AI integration, and cryptographic tools.

gsalu@ncf.edu(941) 487-4525

Rohan Loveland

Professor of Computer & Data Science

Teaches applied machine learning.

D.Phil. in Electrical Engineering, Oxford University; MBA, University of Texas at Austin. Worked on classified projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory, then served as CEO of a biomedical device startup that won FDA approval. Holds two patents.

rloveland@ncf.edu(941) 487-4368HNS 207

Toby Wade

Asst. Prof. of Data Science and Statistics

Teaches deep learning and AI.

Ph.D. in Statistics, London School of Economics. Twenty years across equities, cryptocurrencies, futures, and currencies at hedge funds, exchanges, and banks. Quoted in the Financial Times, Institutional Investor, CNBC, and Yahoo Finance.

towade@ncf.edu(941) 487-4173HNS E152

Andrey Skripnikov

Assoc. Prof. of Applied Statistics

Teaches applied statistics, and data visualization and communication.

Ph.D. and M.S. in Statistics, University of Florida; BSc, Lomonosov Moscow State University. Postdoctoral associate and lecturer at the University of Houston. Researches high-dimensional data and time series, applied to gene expression, brain activity, and sports data.

askripnikov@ncf.edu(941) 487-4515Heiser E156

Tyrone Ryba

Assoc. Prof. of Bioinformatics

Teaches computational biology and the analysis of genomic data.

Ph.D., Florida State University; B.A., New College of Florida. A computational biologist working on epigenetic regulation and the biology of human disease, examining how large-scale domain regulation goes wrong in respiratory disorders and cancers.

tryba@ncf.edu(941) 487-4228Heiser Natural Sciences 102

Angel Novikov

Adjunct Professor of Statistics

Teaches Applied Statistics I.

Ph.D., University of Florida. Chief AI Officer, Chief Data Officer, and Managing Director at Analytical Strategies Group. Twelve years at Citi, most recently Senior Vice President and Global Processing Risk Design Head in Operational Risk Management. Earlier at Fannie Mae, Navigant Consulting, and Deloitte & Touche.

Melissa Elec

Program Coordinator

Runs the program office and is the first person most applicants talk to.

Admissions questions, visits, scheduling, and the practical business of getting a cohort from application to first day.

melec@ncf.edu(941) 487-4175

Bernhard Klingenberg

Prof. of Statistics On leave

Teaches applied statistics and advanced statistical modeling. Not teaching in the program this year.

Ph.D. in Statistics, University of Florida; M.S., Graz University of Technology, Austria. Professor of Statistics at Williams College for more than a decade. Co-author of Statistics: The Art and Science of Learning from Data.

bklingenberg@ncf.edu(941) 487-4172Heiser E160

New College students and founders beside the college bus in the 1960s

Since 1960

Great endings begin here.

New College is Florida's designated honors college: a teaching college where evaluations are written in narrative, and every student defends original work.

Our very first graduating class produced a Fields Medalist. Ninety-two students have won Fulbright awards since 1968, from a college of about 700.

Fields Medal

William Thurston, Class of 1967, won mathematics' highest honor.

92 Fulbrights

Since 1968, across 36 countries, from a college of about 700 students.

No. 1 public

Among liberal arts colleges in Washington Monthly's 2025 ranking.

Where our people work now

Planetary scientist

NASA

AI scientist

Argonne National Laboratory

Researcher

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

Quantum photonics scientist

Quantinuum

Statistics doctorate

Carnegie Mellon University

Agentic AI engineer

United Nations

Senior software engineer

Akamai

Lead data scientist

YouGov

The numbers

Small by design.

One

Cohort each year

Small enough that every student is known.

Credit hours

Twelve, twelve, nine, then the three-credit practicum.

No. 8

Fortune program rank

2025; Florida residents pay $11,384 in first-year tuition and fees.

100%

In person

Campus, cohort, and faculty, on Sarasota Bay.

Community and knowledge.

Ready to apply Ask a question

Questions · graduateDS@ncf.edu