compiler_guy

Improve GRE ASAP. Should be at least Q > 162 and V > 149

You didn't say if you are applying for a masters or PhD. Either way, your application looks pretty good, so it all depends on the quality of the letter of recommendations

Perhaps this can help:

Improving your Verbal and AW will help your application. You might want to get some research experience as well and reflect that in your statement of purpose.

Is there any value-for-money in buying one of the 13' Windows 8.1 laptop\ultrabook alternatives? I will probably have a dual-boot setup with a Linux OS. I know MBA's Apple OS are Linux based, but I might still need all a Windows based OS for Windows-only applications (like Visual Studio).

Usually, you may want to aim at a quant score of at least 163+ (the higher the better) and verbal of at least 153+ for CS graduate programs. Also, you might browse to the websites of programs you are considering to check if you could make the cutoff.

Most people improve their score by a couple of points if they take the GRE the 2nd time. But taking this statistic for granted will not help you if you don't study harder. There are also GRE preparation books and classes available. There is a forum right here that deals with all these GRE issues - browse over there to get some good advice on how to prepare yourself better: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/68-gregmatetc/ Definitely focus on improving your Q score. V score is somewhat less important for CS.

is the PhD in CS? Either way I think most people here are aiming at universities in the north america, so you probably should ask in another sub-forum here..

Agreed. Also picking universities based on ranking alone is not that useful for your future plans. Each university in your list has an admit percentage from 3 % to 10%. During your graduate studies you shall do a research project or thesis. I encourage you to check out what research is done in the universities you selected and if that research interests you at all. A ranking of a university in a particular sub-field may be much greater than the university's overall ranking (for example, John Hopkins U in AI). Also the reputation of your advisor-professor in the target school is much more important (for funding, career opportunities) than the university's ranking.

The universities you listed are in notoriously expensive cities. Luckily, not all the best universities in the USA are in high-income,expensive areas. Don't be alarmed by the relatively low stipend - a lot of computer science graduate students manage their expenses, and complete their PhD without debt. You could always apply for work at internships in the summer, apply for financial aid and maybe even get an external fellowship. Also it might be wise to save some money before starting the graduate program.

An advanced degree in statistics\operations research\computer science is probably good enough for being a data scientist. Though bear in mind you should focus on machine-learning and similar fields. Your final degree goal for will likely be a PhD. If an MS will help you get there - go for it. But if you could get there without the MS - great! Graduate program's admission committees look mainly for research experience. Taking some CS classes might help your SOP but will not enhance your application as much as you wish.

All respectable universities are "hard" to enter. Getting admitted to an "easy" university is probably not worth your money or your time. Also the consulate visa officer might suspect your true reasons for wishing when you go to study at a "bad" ranking university, and refuse your visa. So my advice is to start your MS studies search by looking for research topics you are interested in, and then look for universities that are strong in those subjects.

Don't rely on rankings alone. Be sure to visit the web pages of researchers in those schools. Also you might want to check out if they are looking for new students.

Game servers is probably a sub-field of "Systems research", which is a field of computer science that deals with how to make computer systems better and more efficient. See: http://cs.stanford.edu/degrees/mscs/specializations/ I haven't heard of a university that has even a course, workshop or degree specialization in "game servers" . Probably because from a technical viewpoint, "game servers" are very similar to regular servers that deal with a lot of bandwidth traffic (like at google, youtube.. ). So as a researcher you don't have any special incentive to tackle specific research problems with "game servers". You just research servers and such systems.

UC Santa Cruz has a specialized game development graduate program: https://cs.soe.ucsc.edu/ms_gamesplayablemedia But you could also do a PhD if you work with relevant faculty: http://www.cs.ucsc.edu/research University of South California has two types of degrees: http://www.cs.usc.edu/academics/masters/msgames.htm http://cinema.usc.edu/interactive/degrees.cfm http://interactive.usc.edu/game-innovation-lab/ One is geared more towards the "fine arts". Perhaps there are other universities with game development - try to search for schools that have good computer graphics focus.

CU Colorado - 18K (not including summer) UC Irvine - 16.2K (not including summer)

If your career aim is a research position, then a PhD is the way to go. But if you have another type of career in mind, than you probably should explore other opportunities.

1. Go to the admissions websites of the CS program in each university on your list and view the application deadlines. 2. Try to have at least 1 powerful academic LOR, it would help you more the other types of LORs. 3. GRE is only one criteria of the entire application package. Nevertheless you should strive to get good GRE scores if you want to beat the competition. 4. You could browse through professors websites, as most professors keep a list of the job placements of their alumni, MS and PhD.

Are you interested in doing research? Do you have any thoughts about doing a PhD? If so you'd probably want to go to a program that gives you good research opportunities. If you only care about getting a great job, look at the job placement records of each of the above programs and pick the one that is best for your career goals.

If your final goal is not the PhD, but a great software engineering job, attending a UC program is not your only choice. I am not familiar with the job placement records of SJSU, UCI, but you should find some sort of optimization of between the money you invest in graduate school and final job outcome. Perhaps you should first define what type of job you would like to find after graduate school, and at which organization, and browse thru profiles of people who fit that description on sites like linkedin.

So start looking for an MS program with good job placement.

You should apply to a couple more universities to be on the safe side. Admission is very competitive and could be somewhat random nowadays. Some other universities in Canada that you should check out: Simon Fraser University, University of Alberta, York University, McGill.

Accepted PhD students could receive a one-time funding relocation incentive, but that depends on the department and your location. Some numbers I heard from other graduate students are: 900 to 1500 dollars. But most of these graduate students are international students. Perhaps you could send a polite email to your program's graduate program, it doesn't harm to ask.

Yes, by 9 points :-)