svent

Rochester traffic is not bad at all. Think of it as a midwestern city, not a NY city. I hear parking on campus is terrible though.

Sounds fine. An operating systems class could help, or something related to your interests (ML, Crypto, graphics, whatever).

Then I don't see what you're hoping to accomplish here. Just apply to all the programs in NYC if location is more important to you than potentially better programs. If you really want more advice, post what CS classes you've taken.

What about Stony Brook?

3.2-3.3 is fine for Master's for schools ranked around Vandy's ranking. For schools a bit higher, 3.5+ is good. For the Stanford's, 3.8+. For PhD, try to get 3.6+ (or 3.8+ for the Stanford's) and get plenty of research experience and great letters.

Full-ride + stipend. I think it's more important what you accomplish, not just the name of the school. Then again when I had this decision to make, the schools' rankings weren't too far off... certainly wasn't looking at any non-top-100 schools. Sure, if it's Stanford CS or Harvard Law, maybe you take a chance. But in this day and age, I think it's smart to minimize debt when it comes to school (or anything else for that matter).

Look, if someone deserves a grade bump, so be it. Whether that student is pre-med or an art history major has no bearing on this. These kids are whiners and will cut your throat if it means an A instead of an A-.

I don't know what QM is, but if you get into a software engineering job after school at some point, this looks like a nice project to have on your resume, regardless of how many people use it.

GT is ranked higher if you care about US News. When I looked into GT, I looked up the career fair. They've got plenty of local companies, plus all the big companies from SF/SV. I don't know about Yale's career fair. But even if it's as good, Atlanta is in a better area for jobs I think. Atlanta+Raleigh+Houston+Dallas+Austin are all semi-nearby and all pretty cheap to live in. Near Yale, you have Boston and NYC which have good job markets, but very high COL. Plus NYC is all finance-related jobs, not as much of a pure tech scene as SF. I would ask yourself if you'd rather live in the north or south (not just weather-related). You can always move after school, but you have a couple years while there to build your network.

I agree. Sometimes people will enter UC San Diego, sometimes just UCSD. Some people have even mistakenly entered San Diego State. To be honest, I don't really have any use for it myself. I already know where I'm going, and don't expect to ever read the results page again.

I see. I'd go to Tech then. Yale doesn't really have the same level of prestige in the field that it has overall. It's ranked very highly for undergrad, and for some other stuff like law school. But when it comes to CS or Math, it doesn't come close to ivies like Princeton. I've never met anyone who had gone to Yale, whether current students or professors who did their PhD there. Which doesn't mean it's a bad program, but Tech is better IMO. Just try to take one soft class per semester. Unless Yale has "easier" classes. Taking 4 grad CS classes each semester sounds really tough. But Atlanta is a good city to be in for jobs.

I see. Probably a good tool for most schools, but if there's a reasonable chance of results pulling in multiple schools, I'd analyze the results manually. (UA/ASU, TAMU/UT, UPenn/PSU, etc.).

Pretty cool. How specific is the search function? For example, does Texas A&M include all the UT Austin, UT Dallas etc. results? Does University of Arizona include Arizona State?

Disagree. PhD pushes you into research even the first couple years. You may even burn some bridges in quitting like that. Some schools won't let you duck out with a Master's. You won't have nearly as much time to work on your portfolio for jobs.

If you want a Master's, get a Master's. Hopefully you can get a TA job or at least a summer internship to mitigate the effect on your savings.