newms

Short answer: No. Long answer: The AW section is one of the least (if not the least) important aspect of your application. Your SoP will give the admissions committee a lot more information about your writing ability that the AW score will. And why would you risk getting lower on the quant and verbal sections?

Good luck!

I agree with this. If you want to ultimately get a PhD, shoot for it now. No, it wouldn't be strange at all. In fact you could even contact profs, if you want, to determine if they'll have a need for new graduate students and to see if your interests match well with theirs. They may not respond to your email, but you never know unless you try. My stats were GRE: 800Q, 730V, 5.0 AW and my GPA would have been around 3.8x (I went to a non-US undergrad that didn't use GPA at the time, so that's an estimate on my part). I think what really helped me was that I focused my research interests in my SoP and my research interests were good fits at the schools I applied to (especially the one I am going to). What also helped me was that my likely advisor was looking to grow his lab, so he was looking to hire several grad students when I applied.

You're right that getting into the top 4 schools would be extremely difficult without at least 1 publication, but the standard is not that exclusive for other top 20 schools - it is very possible to get into a top 20 CS school without a publication. You will have to demonstrate a focused research interest in your SoP and your letter writers will have to speak to your potential as a researcher and not just as a 'did well in class' type as barber5 says. Getting into a top 10 school is going to be hard without some research experience though. So the top 10 schools in your list - Princeton, Georgia Tech and UT-Texas will probably be harder than the others to get into. The others on your list should be more feasible, but you're going to have to narrow your research interest down from ML and Software Engineering. What aspect about ML interests you? What kinds of problems would you want to work on? Likewise with Software Engineering - you should focus your interest a bit more than this. I suggest that you read papers (or watch talks/lectures - academicearth.com and videolectures.net are good resources) in ML and Software Engineering so that you can focus your interests and be able to write knowledgeably about current research in your SoP. You also need to determine whether it's a MS or PhD you want - if you apply for a PhD without being sure of your intentions, it's quite likely that that uncertainty will come through in your SoP or other parts of your application, such as in the letters your recommenders write. It's going to be hard to get research experience at this point, possibly you could seek out a prof a a local school that was interested in having someone assist them over the rest of the summer. I don't know if this would be feasible for you since you're working 70 hrs a week, but I've heard that it works for some people. FWIW I will be going to a top 20 school this Fall even though I don't yet have a publication and I had limited research experience as an undergrad.

I was surprised to recently stumble across CS profs that had undergrad GPAs under 3.0. For example, Jeff Erickson at UIUC (no less). He explains how he managed to get into a PhD program with a 2.4 GPA here. He also lists a couple other CS profs that had GPAs almost as low as his, but he doesn't say what they were. So it is possible to get into CS PhD programs and make a career in academia with a GPA under 3. Very difficult, but still possible. Matt Might, that Utah prof, also adds:

I'm going into the CSE PhD program.

Great point...this almost happened to me last year as it took me longer than I wanted to finish my SoP.

Awesome idea. I'm sure this will be helpful for a lot of applicants. Here's another link from a prof at University of Utah: http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-apply-and-get-in-to-graduate-school-in-science-mathematics-engineering-or-computer-science/

I'm not in your field, but I found from last year very helpful when I was writing my statement, so I would imagine people in Political Science would find it particularly helpful.

Yep, it's definitely the SoP by another name.

Be careful. Sometimes some programs refer to a 'Personal Statement' when they want a 'Statement of Purpose' about your academic and research goals. If the programs that you are applying to only ask for a 'Personal Statement' then I am inclined to believe that what they want is something similar (or identical, except in name) to the Statement of Purpose. Sometimes schools will ask for a Personal Statement in addition to the Statement of Purpose. In this case, they usually want a short statement describing why you want to pursue graduate education and what contributions you have made to helping others pursue their education. Sometimes this can be like a 'Diversity Statement'. I hope you're not too confused by now, but as I said, if your program is just asking for a Personal Statement, then I think they want something like a SoP. Perhaps you could post their instructions about what they want for the 'Personal Statement'.

I agree with the above two replies. Many AI professors work with Cog Sci and Psychology people, and a lot of AI work is done by Cog Sci or Psychology or Neuro people, so a letter from the Cog Sci lab you work at will very likely help you (assuming that they speak well about your research potential). BTW I'm assuming you mean 'prestigious' rather than 'pretentious'?

I agree, it was indeed strange. But it was an admissions assistant and not a professor who told me this, so maybe they didn't know exactly what the admissions committee considered and how they weighted the various aspects. In any case I didn't apply there, in part because I thought that if they considered the GRE so important, then that probably wasn't a place I would want to go to.

This is a really good deal - $25 for unlimited data is hard to beat! And it looks like Virgin Mobile will be getting a new phone this month. I'll definitely consider this option.

I'm wondering the same thing myself. I guess it might depend on the state you're in for state taxes. From on this site I am under the assumption that about $300 out of my $2200 stipend would be deducted for taxes, since stipends tend to be on the low end of the tax bracket and are taxed at a lower rate than, say, your parents' income.

Harvard isn't in the same class for CS as Stanford. In fact, it's a lot closer to USC and Penn State, which are good CS programs BTW. The concern about the cost is warranted as $70K is a lot of debt to take on, and the CS job market, while better than the general job market, won't guarantee that the OP will be able to pay off the debt in the short or medium term, so that is something the OP should have thought about. I'm guessing the OP had already made his or her decision though, since the post was from March.

Usually machine learning and data mining fall under Computer Science departments rather than in Engineering (although at some universities, CS is part of the Engineering college/school). So you should probably be looking at Computer Science departments. Perhaps if you posted some information about yourself, in terms of any research experience/publications, more details about your interests (machine learning can be a broad area) and your GPA and/or GRE then people could give you advice as to which schools might be a good fit for you. You should also consider posting in the Computer Science subforum, since you might get more responses from people in the field there.

I first contacted profs around this time last year and continued until September of last year. I would guess that the summer is probably the best time to contact profs since they won't be as busy with class related stuff.

You're applying for Fall 2012 right? If so, they won't be evaluating your application until after the deadline, which I'm guessing would be sometime late this year or early next year. So don't worry about them filtering out your application (which even though your 730 is on the lower end for a CS applicant, it's not so low that they would filter out your application because of it). What will happen is that they will see all your GRE results including the one you just did.

I would do it over if I were you. 730 is on the low end for a CS applicant so that may be a disadvantage for you (even though the GRE scores shouldn't matter that much, the fact is that some schools, particularly mid and lower ranked schools, do pay attention to them). Many CS applicants will score a perfect 800 and while schools will not expect an 800 from every applicant, 730 will be at the lower end of the scores that applicants would report, so I would encourage you to re-do the GRE and try to score as close to 800 as you can.

I'll be moving from a tropical country to a place that apparently can have some harsh winters. I've visited places that have winters and experienced snow and ice before, I just haven't had to live through it, so it should be quite the adjustment.

Usually schools will have instructions for applicants from schools that used a different GPA system or had no GPA system. If you don't see such instructions, contact the admissions people at the departments you are applying to (or the graduate school, if the application is to the graduate school) and ask them what you should do.

I wouldn't suggest that you just convert your percentages to GPA like this. You should check with individual schools - I think most will just want you to enter the percentage and will examine your transcript for themselves. I had a similar situation in that my UG used a percentage system rather than GPA and most of the schools I applied to wanted me to either enter the percentage or leave the GPA field blank. Some of the schools I had applied to gave a formula to use to convert to the GPA system, so you really should just check the schools you are applying to and see what they want.

Thanks for the link. I'm always interested in improving my problem solving skills so I found it interested and I'm watching the talk too. I would suggest that the tips you listed aren't just related to people in science and that most (if not all) people doing research could benefit from them.

If you can't find a professor that will be willing to do research with you, then perhaps you can look for independent research opportunities. Alternatively, you could read up on research papers that are interesting to you, so that you can identify researchers and schools that are of interest to you and that are a good fit with your research interests. This will also help you when you're writing your Statement of Purpose, as you will be able to write with knowledge of current research in your area. If you're currently getting a Master's then you really don't need to do the CS subject test as most schools don't expect those results. It would be a lot of preparation as the test is very broad based, however a good score could help your chances. In my opinion, in your situation (since you'll be getting a MS in CS) and in most cases, it's much better to focus on research activities, such as reading papers, rather than investing the time in preparing for the CS GRE.