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I am applying for a masters program. I have read about the courses, which will be taught at the program. In fact, I think that I have had a lot of such courses in my bachelors program. Does it help to specifically mention that I think that I will do great at the program, because I have taken similar courses before? Also, I have got Bs for some of the courses (actually, the most of my classmates have done similar or worse, the grading was really harsh).

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  • (I changed "worse" to "worthwhile" in the title...)
    – paul garrett
    Commented Feb 2, 2018 at 22:47

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Anecdotally: I did this when I applied for CSE masters programs coming from a background in engineering. I highlighted the graduate level and elective courses I had taken in numerical methods, optimization etc. to demonstrate that I had interest in, and aptitude for, the courses on offer in the masters program. I also chose the professors from these courses for my references.

I think it can be worthwhile to do this if it fits the narrative of your motivation letter as it shows that you have considered why you want to study these particular courses and why you would be a good fit for the program.

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If you've done work at the graduate level, then that would be worth mentioning. However, in many cases, the graduate-level coursework are elaborations and expansions on similar courses from the undergraduate curriculum, in which case your undergraduate class might be an "introductory" version of the master's class.

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  • Definitely, I have not studied graduate courses. However, at my university there is no way to study graduate courses when one is an undergrad. Should I carefully compare syllabus of the courses? I mean, yeah, I expect master courses to be harder, but it looks like some of them are of a very similar level (let's say 90% of the material of the masters courses I have covered before)
    – randomuser123123312
    Commented Feb 3, 2018 at 0:06
  • If you have taken coursework at the master's level, you should mention it in your application. For my field, for example, a master's student might have to take "ChemE Thermodynamics" again, but the course is very different from the undergraduate course with the same name.
    – aeismail
    Commented Feb 3, 2018 at 0:09

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