dr_lee

I graduated from a top school in my country in 2011. Due to some health reasons, I graduated with ~2.6 GPA. Subsequently, I have worked in a research lab locally (~1 year) and then in a top research lab in US for 2.5 years. I have 5 research papers and a couple in publication loop. I have some solid internships in Bay Area companies including Google. I am eager to join Stanford for MS in CS. Do you guys see any chances for someone with this low GPA? Do you guys think taking NDO classes would help ?

Any admissions ?

I want to pursue a Masters in Computer Science (Networks & Communications ) I graduated from best university in my country (third world) but my GPA is just over 2.6 /4.0. ( unlike US universities, my university's average GPA is 2.7 but 2.6 still doen't meet typical "should be at least 3.0" requirement of every second university in US. My CS subject GPA is 2.7+). I also have some graduate level course certificates from a good university in Europe with pretty good score. (I took one semester scoring ~ 3.6/4.0). I haven't yet taken GRE but from mock tests, I can predict that it will be Q 160+. I also have one research paper in a OK journal but it in very inter-disciplinary field and I do not see any use of this paper as there aren't research groups in CS departments working on even remotely near topics. I have over two years of part time RA experience. TAed three courses. Going to start fulltime RA next month which will continue for at-least one year - I will get 1-2 publications in this year but definitely no publication by the time I file applications for admission. I have around one year of industry programming experience. Participated thrice in Google Summer of Code, shined globally in Microsoft Imagine Cup, plus one more same quality accomplishment. Though I am inclined toward research but I am not sure if I want a Phd. So MS would also help me decide whether I want a research carrer or not, plus it will also nullify my undergraduate's bad GPA. My dream schools are UMass Amherst, Harvard, UC Irvine's Networked Systems, Waterloo, Princeton .... But my profile is too week and I cant risk average of 80 dollars on each school's application fee. So I am looking for a Masters program which (1) Gives me admission with these credentials (2) Gives me financial support in form of RAship or otherwise (3) preferably can give application fee waiver. (4)University should be good enough so that I can get into top tier Phd program after this masters. Any suggestions ?