Misa

@Josephine: You are right. International students are not allowed to enroll part-time. The student gave me this info is a US citizen, he listed as many different choices as possible. Hence I just repeated what he said. @bounce: I am still waiting for another school, so I haven't decided yet. What I told you before was just an info from a student, he did his MS at Brown so his info maybe a bit out of date if the policy changes. He told me if a student takes from 3 courses/semester, he/she is considered a full-time student. I again haven't double checked it yet.

I got an acceptance from Brown recently, too. I have been contacting current MS students at Brown since then. It seems that Brown doesn't offer any funding for MS students, and it's quite hard to get jobs that pay tuition fee and provide a stipend. For bouncecmpe, $38.000 is for 1 year. I did get an advice from a current student that, there are 2 ways to save money: 1. Take 2 courses/ semester and finish the program in 4 semesters, work part-time to get money for the tuition. In this case, you are considered part-time student, you pay per course (~5k/course), not full tuition ($38k/year). 3 courses are considered full-time. 2. Take 4 course/semester and finish the program in 2 semesters and pay only $38k for one year. This will definitely save you money from the living expenses and the tuition fee for the 2nd year also. To Horsemen: I am an international student, I even haven't finished my undergraduate program yet, nor I have any publication/intern experience. I am doing my graduating thesis with a PhD candidate. I don't know what criteria in my application make it through the admission committee, however I could share some of my records: GRE: Q:790,V:600,AWA:3. TOEFL: 105. SoP: I personally think I make my point/goal clear in the SoP, but the way I wrote it was not very attractive. LoR: 1 from the PhD candidate, 1 from a professor at my school, and 1 from a well-known CS professor, but not in my field. GPA: 3.84/4, ranked 1 in my class. I hope that helps.