Hello everyone, my situation is a little different than most applicants. I'm planning to apply for an MSCS program in the Fall (2014). Here are my undergrad scores: 2.8/4.0 GPA 2 years at a junior college then 2.4/4.0 GPA at UC Irvine with a BA in International Studies.
My GPA is low because I wasn't planning to go to grad school at the time. After working for 2 years I decided I wanted to get a graduate degree in CS. For the past year I've been taking prerequisite courses at a local JC and CSU. By the end of summer school I will have taken Internet Programming, C++, Assembly, Calc 2, Discrete Math, and Data Structures and Algorithms (lower div). I will probably maintain a 4.0/4.0 in these 6 classes.
I was just planning to apply to the CSU I'm taking these classes at for the MS program. I was wondering if I would have a chance at getting into a higher ranked program. I have yet to take the GRE and I don't have any internship or research experience.
My questions:
Will grad schools take into consideration the success I've been having with CS/Math courses compared to how low my undergrad GPA was?
Should I take another year and finish the upper div classes (Computer Architecture, OS, etc.) before applying? Thus having to wait an additional year waiting to get accepted.
What other schools could I apply to? Would schools like UC Davis, UCSB, Cal Poly SLO, UCI, USC be out of the question?
Sorry for the long post. I'd appreciate any feedback. Thanks!
