Need help with Profile Evaluation

[piy9]

Undergraduate Degree:
Degree : B.E- CS
Percentage: 74.7% (School doesn't offer CGPA. This is on absolute scale.)
Topper (Gold medalist) percentage : 85%
University: Visvesvaraya Technological University from Bangalore, India
College: Bangalore Institute of Technology

GRE: 
GRE: 327
Verbal: 157 Percentile Below:74
Quant: 170 Percentile Below:98
AWA: 4 Percentile Below:56

TOEFL : Reading 27 Listening 30 Speaking 24 Writing 28 Total - 109

Interested Specialization: 

Data Science/ Machine Learning/ Artificial Intelligence/ Advanced Algorithms/ HCI

List of universities considered: 

Arizona State University
Purdue University
University of Rochester
University of Southern California
Virginia Tech
UIC 
NCSU
NEU
UMass - Amherst
OSU
UC-Davis
Univ of Utah

Letter of Recommendations 

2 from College professors.
1 Team Lead Office.

Additional Information

1 and a half year Work Experience as an Analyst at Google.

3 significant Projects at Google:- 
a> API Integration of an existing tool (Tools development) (Role - Coder - C++ & python) 
b> Project Manager of a new workflow (Role - Project Manager) 
c> Signals Integration into current tool (Role - Analyst) 


- No Internships on my resume 
- Was the founder of a club in College - Literary Club.
- Was an active member of Rotaract club during College - Social work & leadership skills (was Community service director & PR director for 1 year each)
- Have taken around 4-5 MOOCs on topics related to MicroEconomics, Algorithms, Startup Engineering etc.

Thank You,
Piyush

[sixgunguerilla]

Piyush,

What would you like to know? Your quant score is obviously outstanding, which would seem to be what matters in your field. You have strong, relevant work experience. Your bonafides are solid. Your other application materials, such as your recommendation letters and statement of purpose need to be strong but that is subjective. There is no harm in applying to a few "safety" schools if you can afford it. 

[piy9]

Piyush,

What would you like to know? Your quant score is obviously outstanding, which would seem to be what matters in your field. You have strong, relevant work experience. Your bonafides are solid. Your other application materials, such as your recommendation letters and statement of purpose need to be strong but that is subjective. There is no harm in applying to a few "safety" schools if you can afford it. 

 

I want to know if the list of schools I have picked out are decent or not. Are there any other schools (similarly ranked but not on the list) which have a better CS programme.

Also are there any schools in top 20 which give more attention to your GRE than say your GPA or admits more international students where I might stand a better chance

[sixgunguerilla]

 

I want to know if the list of schools I have picked out are decent or not. Are there any other schools (similarly ranked but not on the list) which have a better CS programme.

Also are there any schools in top 20 which give more attention to your GRE than say your GPA or admits more international students where I might stand a better chance

The best way to answer these questions -- especially the one about GRE and GPA -- is to contact the graduate director at the department(s) you're interested in. Few people here would likely know the exact methodology for each school's committee (though many will claim to) and if they did they'd be unlikely to share it. But that sort of information, if you ask a graduate director directly, should be available. At the very least, you should be able to get a temperature reading of what the committee there is willing to share about their process and how comfortable that makes you.

As far as whether or not the schools you've selected are decent, well, if you believe rankings that are published by third-parties like "US News & World Reports" are of any value, you can check there. Some put weight into them, others do not. Most all of the schools you've named are easily recognizable; many of them are major name-brand universities. 

The only way to deduce this stuff accurately is to contact that graduate departments individual and try to gauge what they are looking for and if you think they are a good fit. It will help in the long run anyway, since contacting persons of interest at your proposed schools will help you get to know the faculty and they will have some distant sense of your name when it comes time to go through applications.

There are no shortcuts. 

[Eigen]

Just putting it out there- emailing the graduate director to ask if GRE or GPA or anything else is more or less highly weighted is a really bad way to start a dialogue with the program, and will not likely lead to direct answers.