I am a (now) senior year undergrad at University of Mumbai and I want to pursue a grad program that is focussed on Natural Language Processing. I have two questions:
1. Which are the best schools currently for NLP research that have good masters programs and plenty of funding? There are other posts discussing this, but they're at least three years old. Does anyone have new information?
2. I don't know what to make of my profile, but I'm trying to dig for schools I could reach for. I consistently scored a 55% in all of my first four semesters here and then 67% in both my fifth and sixth (First Class, but about 3% less than a First class with distinction). (As a fresh undergrad, I was deluded and made to believe that course knowledge is useless, and my focus should lay purely on coding. I grew up and two years later, realized how severely limiting my lack of knowledge was.) Anyway, I'm in fire-fighting mode for the last six months, when I found my passion for NLP, taking up MOOC courses to bridge the gaps. (So far only Algorithms at Stanford)
My GRE score: 320 (160 Q, 160 V, 4.5 AWA)
Right now, I'm in the middle of my dream summer research internship (2 months) at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Bombay) under Dr. Pushpak Bhattacharyya who is the current vice president elect of the ACL (Biggest name in NLP in India).
The MLT program at CMU is my favourite choice so far. Contacting them, it seems they find my GRE score good, and they've assured me that my profile will be judged in its entirety despite my academics. That still doesn't mean I have a good shot.
What is the best course of action for me? Must I wait out an year and still improve my academics this year?
Furthermore, my aim is to pursue a career in research. I think the MLT program will be the best way to toy with the idea of a Ph.D But I know it's a long shot, Im willing to take detours to my eventual goal. Thoughts?
Sorry about the long post. But I really couldn't have done better.