victor.s.andrei

No.

Be careful with that strategy. I tried doing the same thing as an undergrad, and it did not work entirely as intended. That said, adcoms will judge your GPA in the context of the school that you attended and the overall course load you attempted. Lower GPAs can be tolerated if they are earned in tough courses (math, science, engineering) rather than "fluffy" courses. I'm more concerned about your lack of research or job experience. Make sure you work on that.

I got a 4.0, and I didn't have any problems. The AW test doesn't measure your writing ability, only your ability to conform to a standard form that ETS came up with. If you have an undergraduate thesis and possibly published papers...or other evidence that you are capable of communicating in written English in a cogent and coherent manner...you should be fine.

They still teach FORTRAN in undergrad?

If I had to move anywhere in California, I would pick the Bay Area - San Francisco or San Jose - or San Diego. Definitely not Los Angeles though. Of course, Los Angeles has horrible traffic, and I'm biased, coming from the Northern Virginia perspective.

Your credentials are fine, but I'm concerned about your "unfocused" and "fluffy" statement of purpose. Don't worry about the CS GRE. Also, as another poster pointed out - you missed a few really good CS schools like UIUC, Carnegie Mellon, and UT Austin. I'd also add UC Berkeley to that list. I've also heard that the University of Utah and the University of Washington have good programs, too.

If you are able to turn Plan B into a publishable paper, then I don't think that Plan B will hurt at all. Otherwise, Plan A - the thesis - is probably better if you plan to go on to a Ph.D. later.

Talk to your school's career center. Do a few Google searches. Ask your professors - preferably the ones who will write your recommendation letters. You need to do a lot of soul searching while applying for the Ph.D. Is the Ph.D. something you really want? How will it help you accomplish your goals? Your "specs" are fine. With regards to the GRE, don't base it off your SAT scores. ETS has free practice test software called POWERPREP that you can download and install. POWERPREP is basically practice GREs. Take them. They correlate strongly to the actual GRE. Also, don't worry about the Analytical Writing section of the GRE. My understanding is that adcoms look favorably upon applicants who succeed in the face of adversity or make mistakes and then turn themselves around.

What do you want to do with the degree?

Out of all of those, CUNY is the only one that perks up my attention.

Torture (intentional or not) of undergrads is SOP for most U.S. engineering schools.

You can but I don't recommend doing so, at least, for a computer science program. You will get thrown into upper-level courses without fundamentals (data structures, computer architecture, discrete math, etc.) which will not end well for you. If you want to do a computer science program, do a formal post-bacc. See my post above for an example at Oregon State. Quite a few schools have such programs. Here in Virginia, George Mason has a twelve-hour "Foundations of Information Systems" certificate (yes, certificates are considered graduate degrees, like master's degrees and doctorates) that is essentially the core of a computer science program.

The two biggest benefits of getting into a prestigious school are one, getting access to that school's people network - students, faculty, alumni, and so forth - and two, using the school's reputation and brand as part of yours. Keep in mind that the first benefit can be achieved merely by having friends and colleagues in the prestigious school's people network. The second benefit doesn't matter if your personal brand is garbage.

1. Take the GRE. 2. Look at the University of Illinois' online M.S. in computer science.

Only if you are applying to way too many schools.

Address it, but choose your words very carefully. Schools can be a bit touchy these days, especially after the Virginia Tech incident five years ago. I wouldn't directly call out the mental illness, though. I would refer to it as "a series of ongoing health problems." My words - pick your own. Adcoms will understand.

Ponylevel is right. Go to a conference or take a research seminar at your local university. Or join an online mailing list.

I think your profile is fine. If you were to go for a MS, the adcom's biggest concern would be whether you had sufficient mathematics and computer science background to complete the program. That said, I think that you don't need a full-blown MS to do what you want to do. However, if you must have an MS, get one issued by a known, brick-and-mortar institution known for fostering an entrepeneurial atmosphere in a geographic area where there are other young folks like you. (Online or hybrid degrees issues by brick-and-mortar institutions are okay, but you may lose out on the networking aspect to varying degrees.) In other words, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Washington, Cambridge Mass., or New York. Think Stanford, UW, UT, Maryland, Harvard/MIT, or NYU/Columbia. "Big data" is popular in these cities - there are a lot of tech companies in San Francisco and Seattle, tech entrepreneurship is big in Austin and Cambridge, the financial services industry in NYC loves "big data" for obvious reasons, and so does the Federal government in Washington. Which city you pick depends on what sort of people you want to meet and what industry you ultimately want to target as your market. Choose wisely - you may end up sticking around for a while. You may also want to consider getting experience in your target industry - for example, if you want to target financial services, work in a financial services enterprise for a year or two. Consider that they may also pay for your continuing education. That said, it can't hurt for you to pick up useful classes here and there. For example, Hadoop or SQL or SAS or R or various scripting languages (Python is useful). Classes in data structures and algorithms might be useful. Same thing for a computer organization and a discrete math course. You could do a formal post-bac (like the online one offered by Oregon State) or just pick up classes at a local school wherever you are. Also, learn UNIX. Actually, learn how to use Linux...err, GNU/Linux, for the fanatics among us. Definitely learn about the cloud. It's the big thing right now in information technology. Rackspace has an amazing free certificate program called CloudU. Virtualization is also the rage. Your most important challenges at this point are to go somewhere where lots of entrepreneurial young tech folks are hanging out, learn the basics on the tech side, meet new people, amass some capital, come up with a business plan, and execute. Also, consider that your existing business background may make you an attractive candidate for handling the business side of a venture that also includes tech folks. Startups don't happen if all you have are tech folks. Startups also need business folks, and you've got an amazing background in that regard. Good luck, and feel free to PM me if you want to talk more.

Don't be anxious. You have a really interesting profile. Your undergraduate GPA isn't that terrible, and it's from UNC Chapel Hill, which is a public Ivy. That does make a difference. Plus, your GRE verbal score is fantastic. I only wish you had mentioned your GRE math and AW scores, although your math score won't count as much as your verbal score for the sort of program you're looking at, and nobody cares about the GRE AW anyways. You have extensive research and teaching experience, and you have connections at plenty of schools, so you probably have good LORs. I agree with one of the earlier posters - apply to "any program with an appropriate advisor/program regardless of prestige or rank." As for your health issues, be forthright and turn a negative into a positive: for example, saying that despite your health problems, you still tackled a tough course load while teaching at UNCC and working on your master's thesis. Show the adcoms that you were focused and tenacious, and make sure to work with your LOR writers to ensure that their letters reinforce your goal statement. Best wishes with your application, and kudos for staying the course despite getting a few curveballs thrown at you by life.

If keeping the cost low is a requirement, George Mason University in Fairfax is a winner, hands down. I have also heard that George Washington University has a good program with a campus on Route 7 in Ashburn. Note that both George Mason and George Washington are part of the DC consortium, which means you might get to take a class or two at UMd. College Park, which is a top 20 research university. You may also want to check out the Commonwealth Graduate Engineering Program offered by a consortium of schools in Virginia, including UVa., Virginia Tech, ODU, George Mason, and others: http://volgenau.gmu.edu/graduates/commonwealth_graduate_engineering.php

A couple of things... 1. There is no need to get a Ph.D. unless you want to become a professor. In the academic world, usually you do not stay a professor for very long if you can not do research. 2. Having a master's degree is generally sufficient to teach at most community colleges and to work as an adjunct or instructor at many four-year schools. However, you're going to have a hard time getting a job with brick-and-mortar schools, namely, community colleges and four-year schools, (your goal, as stated in post 1) if you go the for-profit online degree route. In the academic world, where you attended school counts, and there is a significant bias in favor of brick-and-mortar non-profit schools. 3. Keep in mind that community colleges are public institutions that are subject to government funding. Same thing goes for most four-year non-profit schools. Most community colleges are overloaded with students right now since they are often less expensive (due to heavy government subsidies) than their four-year non-profit counterparts, and both community colleges and four-year non-profit institutions are looking for ways to cut costs...like the paycheck associated with your intended job.

Merely "working with computers" does not prepare one for a computer science degree. The University of Illinois system, as well as Colorado State University, have online programs in computer science. However, they still require at least some subset of the prerequisites that I listed way back in post 17.

Unless you are enrolled at a U.S. university and participating in a special exchange program, that debt will likely not be in the form of Federal student loans, with fixed interest rates and very flexible repayment options. It might, however, consist of private student loans, with variable interest rates. The latter sort of debt is not the pleasant sort to have, since you have little to no recourse against abusive lenders under U.S. law. The job market for liberal arts and humanities is terrible right now. Be careful. If you can get into a ranked and funded master's program Stateside, that may be a better option from a straight financial point of view. After all, there is nothing stopping you from studying abroad for a semester or two or collaborating with folks at those schools in the UK and Ireland on research and publications in your specialty - continental philosophy.

You may not have interest in doing academic research yourself, but you should be following the latest and greatest since many things that start out in academia eventually make their way into industry. Also, some programs offer the option to do a project rather than a thesis. Then you may be barking up the wrong tree, figuratively speaking. If you want to get directly involved in start ups, move to a city like San Francisco, Seattle, Cambridge, Mass., or Austin, get a job with a start up, and jump on in. Now, if you want to attend a top school in the hopes of finding like-minded people who might want to team up to start a technology business, that's all fine and dandy, but you might not want to tell that directly to the adcoms of research-oriented programs. Actually, if that's your goal, you may want to look for ranked business programs in entrepreneurship, specifically technology entrepreneurship.