The_Longest_Hound

For future searchers: I have confirmed with the professor that was telling me to write the cover letters that they are probably unnecessary. Thanks for your help rising_star.

Should applicants include a cover letter for online PhD applications? I'm getting a lot of mixed information on this point, and none of the applications I've looked at specifically ask for it, so it'd have to be uploaded as an "additional" or miscellaneous document. Thanks in advance for your help.

I apologize for having no advice to give, but I do have a question for you. My reach list is very similar to yours, and my Verbal and Math were great, but my writing score was the same as yours (4.0). Do you (or anyone else answering) think it would be worth retaking with our mediocre writing scores? I've heard that the writing score matters the least, but I've also heard that a 4.0 might not be enough to get into these kind of schools. Thoughts? Would you be happy with a much higher math/verbal but a 4.0 in writing? I'm considering retaking but it would be nice to not have to!

I have some questions about the best way to go about getting a Master's relevant to Machine Learning. It doesn't matter to me whether the title of the degree is Machine Learning (I know there are still very few of those), Computer Science, or something else, as long as I'm studying Machine Learning and will be able to get a good job in the industry afterwards. I'm hoping to apply this fall/winter, and start in the fall of 2017. I'm hoping to get into a top program like Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, or Berkeley. My first question is: 1) Do I have a shot at these kind of top programs? What are my chances? Relevant background: I graduated from Villanova University (a great, but by no means “top” school) with a 3.78 GPA in Mathematics. I am a self-taught coder (I have about 13+ years of my own projects through which I've learned how to program well), but I have been taking a few undergraduate CS classes at my local state school to demonstrate my knowledge and hopefully avoid pre-reqs. I have a few years of work experience doing something that most people would consider to an enormous responsibility. However, while that job might be a very impressive item in general for a resume, it had nothing to do with computer science. I've been volunteering at a University lab for the past 6 months helping the Professor with some robotics/AI programming research, and intend to continue to do so until I apply. Unfortunately, there has been no machine learning component, and it seems doubtful at this point that my name will be on any papers submitted before I apply. I just took the GRE; I got a 168 in math (95th percentile), 167 in verbal (97th percentile), and a 4.0 in writing (56th percentile). 2) My GRE scores seem to be more than adequate except for writing. Is it worth retaking for the writing or do these programs care less about writing? The GRE is expensive for me right now, and I'm not sure that I could get a better writing score anyway (writing was the only thing I spent any significant time studying for on the last test and the studying didn't seem to do me much good; also, I am a very slow writer). On the other hand, I'm well aware of how insanely competitive the top programs are, and I'm concerned that my mediocre writing score might serve as an excuse to help the top schools' overworked admissions offices eliminate one more application. So should I retake the GRE for the writing or is it irrelevant for a ML/CS master's? 3) Finally, assuming I do have a chance at the top programs, how do I go about finding some safety schools and in-between schools (better than “safety”, but not “reach” schools either)? There's not exactly a list anywhere (that I've found) of decent master's CS programs in which a student can focus on ML. Thanks so much for your time and help! If there are any other resources or information that it might helpful for me to be aware of, I would appreciate the info!