Can I challenge US top school?

[ElasticSteve]

Hi.

I'm Graduate student pursuing cs Master's degree in Asia. (Ranked globally top 10 in HCI field, top 30 in CS )

I would like to get suggestion whether I should apply for US school or stay at current school for Ph.D

As in my case, I have low GPA and good research experience (I believe?)

Undergrad GPA : 3.27/4.00

Master GPA : 3.84/4.00

Research experience :

Co-authored top-tier conference(Mobile computing), 1st authored top-tier conference(HCI), 1st authored top-tier conference workshop(Mobile computing, Best paper award)

Work experience:

3 years as developer in >2000 employee sized company.

GRE : 162 on verbal, 170 on quant.

TOEFL : 115

It would be best if I apply for both choices and naively choose which ever becomes available but my circumstances forces me to choose either options.

If I apply for top schools in US (I'm most interested in U.Wash, Harvard, Dartmouth,Princeton, Georgia Tech because I have strong interest in some lab that belongs to these schools),

would admission committee overlook my GPA because of research, work experience?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

[Matt Whitehill]

Yep, you can definitely go for US schools, research experience is much more valuable than GPA. Plus your masters gpa is very good, it will out weigh your undergrad gpa, especially if you explain that in your statement of purpose. You seem to have an excellent application, i think you have a very good chance at some of the top PhD programs. I'd work on networking as your next step. Here's a blog post I wrote that might provide some guidance - https://www.stemgradadmissions.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-networking-for-stem-grad-applicants/.  The site is still pre-launch so some of the links are broken, but I think it should still be of some help. good luck!

[ElasticSteve]

On 8/1/2019 at 5:16 AM, Matt Whitehill said:

Yep, you can definitely go for US schools, research experience is much more valuable than GPA. Plus your masters gpa is very good, it will out weigh your undergrad gpa, especially if you explain that in your statement of purpose. You seem to have an excellent application, i think you have a very good chance at some of the top PhD programs. I'd work on networking as your next step. Here's a blog post I wrote that might provide some guidance - https://www.stemgradadmissions.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-networking-for-stem-grad-applicants/.  The site is still pre-launch so some of the links are broken, but I think it should still be of some help. good luck!

Thank you very much for your opinion! I should definitely  start networking!