Chance Me: is mediocre gpa still possible getting in to tier 1 programs?

[jojo164973]

Hey guys,

I'm a senior CS major and I'm looking for any advice you can give on school recommendations. Thanks in advance!

Major: CS
Minor: Philosophy
cGPA: 3.50 (with mgpa 3.8 and minor gpa 3.75)

Type of Student: Asian Female

 

Research Experience: 1) a final paper for a scientific computing course; 2) doing interdisciplinary 'research' between cs and game theory, It's not a real research-based experience, but more like reading textbooks and papers with a professor and then discussing some questions; 3) working on matching similar documents from two large database in an nlp group. I tried around 3 different approaches and finally got a nice result.

 

Letters of Recommendation: Will get LoRs from professors that I worked with in the above three experiences. They are all well-known in their fields, but I may only get mediocre letters.

General Grades: C's in freshman year and B's in general interest courses. 

Math Grades:  A's in probability & stats, and discrete math, B+ in grad linear algebra, C+ in first semester honors calc (I'm worried this would be a warning sign).

CS Grades: All A's and A-'s. Finished all required courses and only four electives (including nlp, crypto, scientific computing, advanced algorithm)

Extracurriculars: Did not intern or do extra projects. I spent most of the vacations teaching young kids. Currently planning a girl's coding camp in my hometown cuz I cant believe most of my previous students are boys!

Schools: I think I will ultimately apply for a phd, so i only consider thesis-based mscs now. Dream schools are cornell, princeton, and harvard. Other schools I'd love to apply are yale, upenn, columbia, u michigan, northwestern, duke and nyu.

That's all I have! Do I have a shot at the programs listed? Really appreciate any advice on school recommendations.

Wish we the best of luck during this hard time!!!

[jojo164973]

anyone has some advice for this please!

[InCoffeeWeTrust]

Really interesting post! Sorry I have no advice, but I think that maybe in cases like these it could be helpful to meet with academic consultants which specialize in admissions to your programs. Best of luck