Please help me in shortlisting colleges for MS in CS/ML/AI

[noisy_hippo]

Hi Everyone,

I'm planning on applying for masters and I've selected the following colleges+courses. Please help me filter them into Ambitious-Moderate-Safe.

Here's my profile:

• GRE: 326 (161V, 165Q, 4W)
• TOEFL: 106 (30R, 25L, 23S, 28W)
• GPA: 6.55/10 (~2.7/4.0)
• Bachelors - Electrical Engineering (From a Tier-2/Tier3 university in India)
• Work Ex - 18 months (Data Scientist at a Fortune-500 consultancy, AI Researcher at a top Indian University)
• Projects - 6-7 good research based projects in my preferred field (paper implementation and adaptation)
• Technical AI Blogs - 15+ (3000 views/month)
• Open source contribution through Google Summer of Code
• 1 paper publication in a top international AI conference

Into research. Main goal of an MSc is to build up a research and math background for ML. May get a Phd in the future.

I am worried that because of low GPA, my application will be filtered out and won't reach the admissions committee. Is this possible?

I will pick ~7 colleges from the list below (2 amb, 3 mode, 2 safe). Please help!

Sr. No.	University	Course	Type (Ambitious/Moderate/Safe)
1	CMU	Machine Learning
2	Columbia	Computer Science (ML Track)
3	USC	Computer Science (AI)
4	NYU	Data Science (Math Track)
5	ETH Zurich	Data Science
6	EPFL	Data Science
7	University of Amsterdam	Artificial Intelligence
8	John Hopkins University	Data Science
9	U Penn	Data Science
10	University of Edinburgh	Artificial Intelligence, Data Science
11	University of Warwick	Computer Science
12	University of Helsinki	Data Science
13	KU Leuven	Data Science
14	Kings College London	Artificial Intelligence, Data Science
15	Cardiff University	Artificial Intelligence, Data Science
16	Aalto University	Computer Science, Data Science+ML,+AI
17	TU Delft	Artificial Intelligence
18	UCL	Machine Learning
19	KTH	Machine Learning
20	Northeastern University (GPA 3.0)	Artificial Intelligence, Data Science

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by noisy_hippo
grammar correction

[lost_spirit0]

I just want to remind you that the master Artificial Intelligence programme at the University of Amsterdam has a really high language requirement. The last time I checked, they expect students to have a grade of at least 25 in TOEFL speaking.

[abd1997]

Sorry, TBH, I think all are ambitious for you expect for Cardiff, especially UCL, CMU, EPFL, ETH, CMU, Columbia and UvA. These universes are all top universities, I think you GPA might be little bit low (maybe India has different standards, I'm not sure). Actually, I don't know much about Cardiff. In my opinion, I recommend you lower your expectations unless you can specify what your top conference is and whether it's first authorship. Then I can reconsider about it.

[abd1997]

Great, I think you should have a chance, but it is hard to say. I don't know exactly what work you did and also depending on how the universities evaluate your work. Based on my experience, European universities is more concerned about GPA relative to other aspects than the US. Moreover, for the safe universities, the top universities in Australia are safer.

Edited November 11, 2020 by abd1997

[noisy_hippo]

2 hours ago, lost_spirit0 said:

I just want to remind you that the master Artificial Intelligence programme at the University of Amsterdam has a really high language requirement. The last time I checked, they expect students to have a grade of at least 25 in TOEFL speaking.

Hey thanks for the reminder. I wasn't aware of that. Do you think it's prudent for me to retake the TOEFL?
Also, can you please shortlist a few colleges for me from the above list. Are all 20 ambitious for me or are there a few moderate/safe ones too?

[noisy_hippo]

1 hour ago, abd1997 said:

Sorry, TBH, I think all are ambitious for you expect for Cardiff, especially UCL, CMU, EPFL, ETH, CMU, Columbia and UvA. These universes are all top universities, I think you GPA might be little bit low (maybe India has different standards, I'm not sure). Actually, I don't know much about Cardiff. In my opinion, I recommend you lower your expectations unless you can specify what your top conference is and whether it's first authorship. Then I can reconsider about it.

 

I see @abd1997. Can you suggest a few moderate (3)/safe(2) universities please? And maybe a couple ambitious ones that I have the most chance of getting in from the above list. I'm really confused at this point. The conference is AAAI but not the first author.

 

As an aside, what else can I do to increase my chances for this fall or next fall (if I don't go for an MS this year).

Edited November 11, 2020 by noisy_hippo
Further explanation.