What is the LEAP Alliance?
The Diversifying Leadership in the Professoriate (LEAP) Alliance is an NSF-funded Broadening Participation in Computing Alliance focused on diversifying future leadership in the computing professoriate at research universities as a way to increase diversity across the field of computing.
Get Involved
The LEAP Alliance includes three cohorts of universities focused on computer science doctoral programs. Many of the graduate application deadlines are rapidly approaching, especially for the consideration of assistantships. Many of the institutions offer application fee waivers for particular communities of students. It is important to check the requirements for GRE, as many institutions no longer require the GRE or have suspended this requirement for now.
All LEAP institutions have faculty and staff advocates for the LEAP Fellows. The LEAP Advocates serve as the primary point of contact for the LEAP Fellows and engage the LEAP Fellows in activities to build community among the LEAP Fellows at each institution.
Application Deadlines
Below are the deadlines for computer science Fall 2025 Ph.D. admissions for the LEAP Alliance institutions:
December 1, 2024
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
December 3, 2024
December 9, 2024
University of California at Berkeley
December 11, 2024
December 15, 2024
California Institute of Technology
University of California, Los Angeles
University of Colorado Boulder
University of California, Davis
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
University of Southern California
University of Wisconsin Madison
December 16, 2024
December 20, 2024
University of California, Santa Cruz
January 1, 2025
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
January 15, 2025
January 31, 2025
March 12, 2025
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
July 1, 2025
In the case that additional time is needed to complete your application, we strongly encourage you to reach out directly to the institution to identify possible flexibility with the given deadlines.
Reference – Computer Science Awards, Scholarships, & Fellowships
As an additional reference, below is a link to a GitHub site created by former LEAP Fellow Chinasa T. Okolo. The site includes a curated list of fellowships and scholarships for graduate students in Computer Science and related fields: https://github.com/chinasaokolo/csGraduateFellowships