whosthat

What can you get from a top school that you can't get from other schools? If you're pursuing a PhD, it should be because you want to do research, not because you want prestige. For a PhD, the mentors and labs that are specialized in your research interests should outweigh the school's ranking. Even near-perfect applications only have a small probability of getting accepted to a top school. Just look at the CS search for Stanford, Berkeley or MIT and see all the applications just like yours or even better that got rejected. You should play the numbers and apply to some schools with higher probabilities of acceptance as well. For a Master's, taking courses in your field of interest will be helpful. For PhD, publications and patents are the best way to boost your application. The admissions committee for a PhD want to know that you have aptitude for research. It is more important than any other aspect of your application. If you can get a publication as first author in a high-level conference or journal, this would be a very compelling demonstration of this.

If you can convincingly demonstrate that you are an ace computer scientist, the GRE and GPA won't matter as much. However, I would think your statement of purpose would have to be very compelling for answering these points: Sociology to computer science is quite a jump, and the school will want to know that your motivation for this is appropriate. Is this switch because you have found your passion and talent in this new field, or merely for economic reasons (i.e. you want a degree in CS as a means to well-paying job)? If you think that your GPA is low, what assurances does the admissions committee have that your academic performance will be better in masters courses? What was the reason it was low, and what has happened in your development to move past this problem? Are you technically proficient in computer science? Almost all of your peers have had 4+ years of rigorous education in CS or a related technical field. Can you demonstrate that your self-study has been comparable to this? Tell them about some of the computer science projects you've done and some of the technical challenges you've solved. They need to know that not only are you able to program (not a big deal) but that you fully understand CS concepts like polymorphism, concurrency, etc. (a very big deal). Brandeis is ranked #82 in computer science grad school according to US News. So it is not super competitive. With that in mind, I think you stand a good chance of getting accepted if you play your cards right. I think you're overestimating the importance of GRE and GPA and underestimating the importance of writing a compelling statement of purpose in light of your drastic career change.

I was first author of a paper that got accepted to a top-level conference after all the admissions deadlines. When I got the notice of acceptance I attempted to update all of my applications. I was able to simply modify many of the the applications myself. For the others, I sent an email to graduate admissions. They all gave auto-replies, one human reply that said they couldn't update it, and one that said they would update it. So for me, it was definitely worth it to contact the admissions department. Different schools have different policies about this. If they explicitly say no updates whatsoever can be made, don't bother them. If not, why not try? You would be paranoid to think that such a thing could lower your chances of acceptance. In reality, it will just be an administrative assistant who addresses your email and makes the update, and the admissions committee may or may not notice the change. On the other hand, failing to list something on your resume is less understandable, since you could have prevented this problem. I think they would be less likely to want to help you because you were forgetful when writing your application. You might have to pick your battles and try to update the publications list and not the resume.

Well that is pretty damning for me, but thank you for this information...

If the interview is with your POI, assume he or she will want to gauge your technical ability and research potential in your shared focus. It is not good that don't have research experience, since that is by far the most important qualification for a CS PhD application. I would suggest that you look up common graduate school interview questions (there is a huge number easily searchable) and also prepare some anecdotes about things you've done that resembles research in some way.

Yeah, you're screwed. I'm screwed. We're all screwed. Let's start a band.

I'm also interested in getting more information (about Berkeley EECS and Stanford CS in particular). If some of you get interviewed, consider asking some of these questions and sharing with the group: What stage of the process is admissions for this department in? (e.g. shortlisting is finished, interviews are half-way through) For this particular department, are all short-listed candidates interviewed or only the candidates being considered for fellowship or borderline candidates? What is the department planning on finishing notifying all accepted candidates? In past years, it seems all short-listed candidates for Berkeley EECS have been interviewed. It would be interesting to confirm if this is still the case, what the progress of the interviews is and whether that includes people who are living abroad.