ala_alf

Whhhhy I'm flattered! We're now officially gradcafe friends . Thanks again for all the help!

Thank you very much my beefy friend . One more Q: I know the subject GRE is not required by a lot of schools, but of the ones where it is "recommended" or "strongly recommended," is an application hurt significantly by not having one? Is it hurt enough so that I shouldn't consider these schools unless I plan on taking it?

I decided to apply to graduate school this year, after three years in industry. I could really use some help. Any advice would be very much appreciated! About me: Graduated from a top 50 US undergrad uni, with a small, probably weak Computer Science program. (just checked, it was unranked when I went there) Double majored in CS and Math with a 3.2 GPA(mostly due to a terrible semester freshmen year), 3.6 Major GPA. Just got my GRE scores back: 760Q/630V/3.5W (I know, I BOMBED the writing section. Will schools reject my application based on this? Should I bother to retake? I probably could have done better on the Q too, since I got 9/25 wrong, but it's seems acceptable enough to me) I've been working for the same large US company for the 3 years I've been out of school. Received good performance reviews, could probably get decent recommendations. Which range of schools should I be looking at? Do I have a shot at top 20-50 schools? I've wanted to work on a grad degree full time, but I don't want to go into debt going to school (again). I want to do research projects, but I doubt I can get into any decent PHD programs with no research experience, so are there any masters programs I should take note of (or aviod) if I want to TA/RA? In general is there a difference between private or public schools in terms of funding opportunities? Thanks, and good luck to those of you still waiting for acceptances!