newms

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Hello, Those are all top 15 or top 20 schools where competition is very intense and the admission rates at each of them is at best around 15%, so you should also apply to some schools outside of the top 20, say top 50, that have good programs in your area. This would give you better chances of being accepted at a school. Your GRE verbal score isn't that important for Computer Science so it shouldn't be a problem. Is it a research based degree that you are applying for? If so, it may be better to apply straight for a PhD where there is better funding.

Here are a couple Computer Science related links for writing an SoP that can help you. http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-apply-and-get-in-to-graduate-school-in-science-mathematics-engineering-or-computer-science/ http://www.cs.umd.edu/Grad/sop.shtml

Yes your GRE Verbal is on the low side, but most, if not all, top 10 schools do not really consider GRE. Also for those schools that look at the GRE, the quant score is what they look at for Computer Science. They will have your SoP and your TOEFL score to show that you have a good enough command of the English language. Just make sure you have a good SoP and you should be ok.

I think it could help you to get a good score in a graduate level course. The admissions committee will see it on your transcript.

Well I would say that your best shot would be at Penn State as long as your advisor's advisor has space for new students. As you know, CMU, UIUC, Texas, Cornell and Georgia Tech are top 10 schools and are very competitive, so your chances there, while pretty good because of your research and publications, will still be hard to predict, because of the vast number of applications these schools get. UCSD is a top 20 school and you should have good chances there. The other schools are outside the top 20 and you should have very good chances at those places as long as they have space for new students in your area. Overall it seems that you will have a strong application and if you applied to all those schools then I would guess that you should get into most of them. Just make sure that you have a strong and focused SoP. The one thing that I'm concerned about in your application is that third LOR - letters that only say you did well in class don't count for much at PhD programs. Best of luck!

I think you will have a pretty good shot at these schools. Keep in mind though, that some of these schools typically accept around 5% of applicants, so by 'pretty good' I mean something higher than 5% - maybe 10 -20%. It's very hard to say because these schools get so many applicants. If you look at the results on this forum from last year for those schools you'll see that many more people got rejected than accepted - there was something like 1 acceptance and 15 rejections reported on here for Toronto MS last year.

Hey speed, It can be useful to mention the prof(s) you want to work with, particularly in the sciences (In Humanities - such as English, I don't think it's necessary from what I've heard). The reason for this is that in the sciences, often times you will have to be aligned with a group or lab during your grad studies, and therefore the prof in charge of the group(s) you are interested in would have to look at your application to decide if they want to have you in their group (assuming, of course, your application is good enough to get accepted). If there is no prof that has space for you in their group or who thinks you would be a good fit for their group then you will probably be rejected even though your application is good enough to be accepted. Sometimes, applications can 'fall through the cracks' and the profs in the group you want to work with don't see your application and you end up getting rejected. Mentioning the prof(s) you want to work with helps to ensure that the profs in the area you want to work with look at your application. At one school, a prof advised me to email him when I had applied so that he could make sure to look out for my application. If you still need someone to look over your SoP, I will be happy to do so.

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I simultaneously resent and resemble that remark!

Is there a particular reason why you are applying for the MS rather than the PhD? If you want to do research, apply for the PhD (except for Toronto which recommends you get the research based MS first). There is guaranteed funding at all those schools for PhD students (and for the MS students at Toronto). You look like you would have a strong profile and would have better chances than most at all those places, but you haven't said what your interests are - you should know what area(s) you're interested in to determine which schools would be a good fit for you.

I think you should have relevant items on your CV. That said, I'm not sure what to tell you about your experience as a teaching assistant in early childhood education. Perhaps you could have it under something like 'Work Experience' on your CV or resume? Last year when I unsuccessfully applied I just sent my regular resume with my applications. In hindsight I think it is better to send your resume formatted as an academic CV, which usually has headings like 'Research Interests', 'Education', 'Research Experience', 'Publications', 'Awards', 'Professional Experience', 'Teaching Experience', 'Community Service' and 'Skills' . Even if you don't have any publications you can still format your resume to look like an academic CV. Perhaps you can browse the CVs of profs or graduate students in your field to get an idea of what it can look like. If your are going to mail your resume, then I would recommend using nice resume paper. The quality of the paper your resume is printed on is not going to matter much in the scheme of things, but it's best to treat applying to grad school like applying for a job - the more professional your application looks, the more it is likely to grab people's attention.

Mad Max

I think you have the right idea about what the SoP is about. With regards to your past research experience, it may not be in the same area that you are interested in currently, but you can still use it to highlight any problems you solved or to highlight skills that you have. Or you could use it to say how it helped encourage you to pursue research, even if not in that area. You could even mention techniques you used that may be relevant to your current interests. It sounds like you have a good plan for describing your past research experience, but spend the majority of your SoP on your future plans and your current research interests - it would be great if your past research experience led directly to your current interests, but it doesn't necessarily have to.

Thanks, PM sent.

Hi John, I had't noticed that part, but as you said it'll make the test a little easier for most people, although I'm with you in liking the analogies part. The quant section seems to also focus more on presenting 'real world' questions which adds the skill of being able to identify the math behind a real world problem to the test.

mad scientist

I would advise you not to do this for a few reasons 1) The SOP space is too valuable - your SoP should be about your research as much as possible (presuming it's a research based degree you want). 2) The AWA is not that important at all. Your SoP will be a better judge of your writing ability that the AWA score. 3) What could you possibly say to explain it without coming across as making excuses? 4) If a school is going to dismiss your application because you didn't do well on the AWA when they will have actual examples of your writing ability, then are you sure you want to go to that school? Just my $0.02. I think you should be perfectly fine especially with >1400 on the quant and verbal sections. The GRE is one of the least important parts of your application and the AWA score is probably the least important part of the GRE.

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ETS has a summary of the changes on their website here: http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general_institutions as well as some sample questions and preparation materials for the new test here: http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare It seems to me to be more of a change in format than a change in the content tested. Some of the material will be presented in different ways but it doesn't seem to be a radical change in the tested material.

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I did something similar to this. Just decide on what categories you want to grade schools on - I used five (Reputation, Research Fit, Location, Admission Rate, Funding Rate). I think she used more, but it's up to you. For the first 3 categories I assigned a score out of 10 and then multiplied the totals by the acceptance rates and then by the funding rates (which I estimated as the percentage of students that get full funding). You can play around with the numbers by having the categories weighted, so if you value research fit more than location, you could always weight the research fit values to be more. Personally I preferred to use a google spreadsheet since its online rather than an Excel one that is tied to my machine.

Stay away from the platitudes as you say. Things that you can mention are that they emphasize student research and have a collaborative or interdisciplinary approach (as long as they do actually have these things). Schools that emphasize student research and that have a interdisciplinary approach tend to be proud of those things.