Stanford MSCS Chance

[nvseal]

Hello everyone,

Newbie here, been reading around and have found quite a bit of good advice. Like many others I have found, I'm looking to get into Stanford but have some questions about my application strength that I would like to get some opinions on.

First, even though the topic is about Stanford (since that is my first choice), here are some of the other schools I will be applying to in case anyone can voice extra information.

Berkeley

University of Texas, Austin

Princeton

Texas A&M

Rutgers

Background: I am a student going into my senior year at a non-prestigious, non-research university with a Computer Science major/Math minor . I will be taking the GRE in August so these scores are expected based on my study for the test.

Total GPA to date: 3.71

This is what really worries me. I have never had a bad semester per se, but I haven't been able to get that 4.00 I've been after either. Every semester since I started there has been one class that I got less than an A in but never less than a C. Some of these classes are less than important (e.g. an online spanish class ( B ), a speaking class ( B ), etc) but three of these classes are. The problem classes are Cal 2 ( C ), Cal 3 ( C ), and Diff Eq( B ) -- this causes me to worry. I have all A's in my Math classes before Cal 2 and after Diff Eq. I do not currently have the explanation for these courses in the statement of purpose. All of my CS specific classes are A's.

GRE: Q (780>)/V(560>)/5.0

Research Background: My only research background is undergraduate research -- pursued by me -- I did this summer in AI. Again, I don't go to a research heavy university so maybe my pushing for it might help my application? (though I doubt it)

Work background: My work background is freelance web development, math lab tutor, and freelance visual effects development. My visual effects work resulted in several jobs, contactsand product sales in countries around the world such as Germany, England andAustralia as well as with companies such as Blizzard Entertainment, CBS Digitaland Lockheed Martin. I mention this in my SOP.

Recommendation Letters: I have only one confirmed letter at this time but am certain that I will get several excellent letters to accompany it. The letter I have now is from a current professor with a BS from Rutgers and a Ph.D. from Univ. of Maryland. He has also worked at Carnegie Mellon and the Naval Research Labs and Bell Labs. The other letters I expect are from a professor with an extensive background in AI who is well connected in the field and possibly one from CBS.

What are your thoughts? Also, what are your thoughts about the ability of a fantastic SOP to help this application?

Thanks

Edited July 25, 2010 by nvseal

[ashley_kettles]

I will be blunt and please forgive me for that. I see that you have a great profile but it is not "Extra-Ordinary" unless you score 1550+ in GRE or maybe publish a paper in ACM or win gold/silver in Olympiad. This is why I think Stanford may be tough to get in.

You can see your chances with the admission tool, at http://www.missiongre.com/

[nvseal]

Thanks for the reply. By all means be as blunt as possible. I tend to agree with you that my chances are quite small, in the slim to none range. Perhaps an SOP with an extremely clear vision of what I want to do and what I have done to accomplish it will help but I am inclined to believe that it wouldn't help enough (I'm sure there are lots of applications from very mature, motivated applicants). There is still time for me to get my GPA up a bit this next semester as well to publish my current research. Thanks for the link too.

Any other thoughts?

[hahahut]

I agree publication would be the most effective way to strengthen your application.

[timuralp]

unless you score 1550+ in GRE

Don't fall in that trap. GRE is not that important. Also, Stanford is notorious for admitting students with no funding. If you're looking for a PhD, you shouldn't take that. Finally, the statement of purpose advice I like is this: http://prisms.cs.umass.edu/mcorner/cs-admissions. It's also targeted for PhD applications and international students, but is useful in general.

Finally, a publication is great, but just doing research work may be enough, assuming you work on a good project with a good professor. If you want to do research, you should be doing research

Also, I have no idea what your area of interest is and the schools you list are all over the place. A few of those I wouldn't apply to, but that's for my field.

[nvseal]

Don't fall in that trap. GRE is not that important. Also, Stanford is notorious for admitting students with no funding. If you're looking for a PhD, you shouldn't take that. Finally, the statement of purpose advice I like is this: http://prisms.cs.uma.../cs-admissions. It's also targeted for PhD applications and international students, but is useful in general.

Finally, a publication is great, but just doing research work may be enough, assuming you work on a good project with a good professor. If you want to do research, you should be doing research

Also, I have no idea what your area of interest is and the schools you list are all over the place. A few of those I wouldn't apply to, but that's for my field.

Thanks for the link. My research focus is in the AI field and was the topic of the research I did this summer. The schools listed above are indeed all over the place and have since been updated with the following schools.

MIT

Stanford

UT Austin

UI Urbana-Champaign

I will probably be adding to this list but they all have a strong focus in my area of interest as well as having specific projects that I can relate to. I don't have an absolute plan to pursue my PhD at this time though it is something which I am considering and would be beneficial (considering my goals to do research as a career). The reason that I do not have a specific plan for a PhD is that I just don't know how things will turn out. It may well be that I can get a good research position in a company without having to have a PhD. This brings me to a questions I have been wondering about. In my SOP I state that it is likely that I will pursue a PhD after my masters but that I do not yet have an absolute decision. Is this a good idea? I think I do a good job of solidifying my research ambitions as well my reasons for pursuing a masters, so I don't think my mentioning it doesn't come across to the reader as weak sounding (after all, its the truth). But I am wondering if it may be better just to say that I have goals to pursue a PhD flat out. Any thoughts?

Edited July 28, 2010 by nvseal

[explorer-c]

Thanks for the link. My research focus is in the AI field and was the topic of the research I did this summer. The schools listed above are indeed all over the place and have since been updated with the following schools.

MIT

Stanford

UT Austin

UI Urbana-Champaign

Your list is missing some strong AI dept like CMU, Berkeley, Georgia Tech and UW. Also, those 4 + your list are all top 10 universities, you might want to add a few safeties because to be honest your stat, although good, is probably pretty average for top 10 universities. To stand out, you must have outstanding recommendations.

I will probably be adding to this list but they all have a strong focus in my area of interest as well as having specific projects that I can relate to. I don't have an absolute plan to pursue my PhD at this time though it is something which I am considering and would be beneficial (considering my goals to do research as a career). The reason that I do not have a specific plan for a PhD is that I just don't know how things will turn out. It may well be that I can get a good research position in a company without having to have a PhD. This brings me to a questions I have been wondering about. In my SOP I state that it is likely that I will pursue a PhD after my masters but that I do not yet have an absolute decision. Is this a good idea? I think I do a good job of solidifying my research ambitions as well my reasons for pursuing a masters, so I don't think my mentioning it doesn't come across to the reader as weak sounding (after all, its the truth). But I am wondering if it may be better just to say that I have goals to pursue a PhD flat out. Any thoughts?

In my opinion, don't say you want to pursue PhD flat out if you don't want to. It will show in your statement. Your current plan sounds better as long as you say it the right way.

Edited July 29, 2010 by explorer-c

[krok]

Here is something to keep in mind too, admissions are not just based on your application package but your demographic info as well, especially for engineering/CS programs. When admissions decisions are made the admissions committees are looking for the best applications, but also the most diverse class because it makes for a better learning-environment, better PR, better marketing, better everything. So if you have 20 applicants from India, 20 from China, and 5 from the US as an example and they have 15 spots to fill and 5 US applicants are all good but not extraordinary, they will likely get in. However only the top 5 extraordinary applicants from India and China will get in even if 10 of the applicants from India are better then 3 or 4 of the applicants from the US who were admitted. You catch my drift. Furthermore throw gender into this mix and you see what I mean. Programs will never admit someone who is not good enough to make it through the program, but they will admit someone from an underrepresented demographic in the applicant pool who may be slightly weaker than a few others in an overrepresented demographic group. Typically in graduate CS/engineering programs women, europeans, latin/south americans, US citizens are considered underrepresented groups. Just the way it goes and all schools do it. Don't kid yourself in thinking that Stanford takes only the most extraordinary of applicants regardless of gender or country of origin.

[wifey99999999]

Hello everyone,

Newbie here, been reading around and have found quite a bit of good advice. Like many others I have found, I'm looking to get into Stanford but have some questions about my application strength that I would like to get some opinions on.

First, even though the topic is about Stanford (since that is my first choice), here are some of the other schools I will be applying to in case anyone can voice extra information.

Berkeley

University of Texas, Austin

Princeton

Texas A&M

Rutgers

Background: I am a student going into my senior year at a non-prestigious, non-research university with a Computer Science major/Math minor . I will be taking the GRE in August so these scores are expected based on my study for the test.

Total GPA to date: 3.71

This is what really worries me. I have never had a bad semester per se, but I haven't been able to get that 4.00 I've been after either. Every semester since I started there has been one class that I got less than an A in but never less than a C. Some of these classes are less than important (e.g. an online spanish class ( B ), a speaking class ( B ), etc) but three of these classes are. The problem classes are Cal 2 ( C ), Cal 3 ( C ), and Diff Eq( B ) -- this causes me to worry. I have all A's in my Math classes before Cal 2 and after Diff Eq. I do not currently have the explanation for these courses in the statement of purpose. All of my CS specific classes are A's.

GRE: Q (780>)/V(560>)/5.0

Research Background: My only research background is undergraduate research -- pursued by me -- I did this summer in AI. Again, I don't go to a research heavy university so maybe my pushing for it might help my application? (though I doubt it)

Work background: My work background is freelance web development, math lab tutor, and freelance visual effects development. My visual effects work resulted in several jobs, contactsand product sales in countries around the world such as Germany, England andAustralia as well as with companies such as Blizzard Entertainment, CBS Digitaland Lockheed Martin. I mention this in my SOP.

Recommendation Letters: I have only one confirmed letter at this time but am certain that I will get several excellent letters to accompany it. The letter I have now is from a current professor with a BS from Rutgers and a Ph.D. from Univ. of Maryland. He has also worked at Carnegie Mellon and the Naval Research Labs and Bell Labs. The other letters I expect are from a professor with an extensive background in AI who is well connected in the field and possibly one from CBS.

What are your thoughts? Also, what are your thoughts about the ability of a fantastic SOP to help this application?

Thanks

What is exactly your ugrad school? cuz while 3.71 GPA sounds great, it could be different thing depending on where you went as ugrad.

[wifey99999999]

Don't fall in that trap. GRE is not that important. Also, Stanford is notorious for admitting students with no funding. If you're looking for a PhD, you shouldn't take that. Finally, the statement of purpose advice I like is this: http://prisms.cs.umass.edu/mcorner/cs-admissions. It's also targeted for PhD applications and international students, but is useful in general.

Finally, a publication is great, but just doing research work may be enough, assuming you work on a good project with a good professor. If you want to do research, you should be doing research

Also, I have no idea what your area of interest is and the schools you list are all over the place. A few of those I wouldn't apply to, but that's for my field.

The dude's advise is pretty much spot on. But I don't understand his attitude for the MS only applicants (Some people would rather go into industry directly after MS degree instead of getting PhD, and there is nothing wrong with that). Also what's his problem with Yale? Yale is not MIT, but Yale's CS is still pretty top notch.

[timuralp]

The dude's advise is pretty much spot on. But I don't understand his attitude for the MS only applicants (Some people would rather go into industry directly after MS degree instead of getting PhD, and there is nothing wrong with that). Also what's his problem with Yale? Yale is not MIT, but Yale's CS is still pretty top notch.

Well, he's in systems and Yale doesn't exactly have a strong publication record in systems. I just went through the systems group and there is one guy in DB, one guy who hasn't published this year (or taking the time to update the page), and one guy publishing in mobile stuff. The other people that there were links to are doing EE stuff. The networking group has one guy in it, who is the same guy as the mobile stuff guy on the systems page. The DB group has 2 guys, both of whom are listed under systems and one of them is the guy that doesn't have any 2010 publications. There is one PL guy who's actively publishing. It appears the theory group also has people publishing, but I don't know anything about that field to make any judgment.

The MS only applicants part is because a number of schools are not looking to admit MS candidates, because more often than not it does not benefit the ongoing research. There have been students who were admitted and left with MS, but the grad school committee would not be willing to give money to applicants who are going to do that. I know of other schools that do the same thing. At the same time, there are other schools that admit majority terminal masters students, out of all grad students admitted. If you're pursuing that, personally, I feel like you could try to find a job that would pay for a part time masters. I am aware of a few companies that would be happy to do that.

[wifey99999999]

Well, he's in systems and Yale doesn't exactly have a strong publication record in systems. I just went through the systems group and there is one guy in DB, one guy who hasn't published this year (or taking the time to update the page), and one guy publishing in mobile stuff. The other people that there were links to are doing EE stuff. The networking group has one guy in it, who is the same guy as the mobile stuff guy on the systems page. The DB group has 2 guys, both of whom are listed under systems and one of them is the guy that doesn't have any 2010 publications. There is one PL guy who's actively publishing. It appears the theory group also has people publishing, but I don't know anything about that field to make any judgment.

The MS only applicants part is because a number of schools are not looking to admit MS candidates, because more often than not it does not benefit the ongoing research. There have been students who were admitted and left with MS, but the grad school committee would not be willing to give money to applicants who are going to do that. I know of other schools that do the same thing. At the same time, there are other schools that admit majority terminal masters students, out of all grad students admitted. If you're pursuing that, personally, I feel like you could try to find a job that would pay for a part time masters. I am aware of a few companies that would be happy to do that.

But that doesn't mean Yale's CS, as a whole, is a bad place to pursue CS graduate study. I would bet that many students would prefer to go to Yale over UMass for CS PhD for both prestige and resources available.

The dude also said UMass CS isn't looking to admit students who only intend to get a master degree without continuing onto PhD. But he's wrong. UMass' CS department actually accepts application for MS only program. Does he really work in CS Dept?

http://www.cs.umass.edu/drupal/admissions/degree-programs

Edited August 24, 2010 by wifey99999999

[timuralp]

But that doesn't mean Yale's CS, as a whole, is a bad place to pursue CS graduate study. I would bet that many students would prefer to go to Yale over UMass for CS PhD for both prestige and resources available.

If you're looking for a PhD in systems, that's pretty much exactly what it means. Moreover, with graduate studies, everyone knows who you are - every subfield is tiny, so it only matters that you do good work and doing good work is more likely at a place with a strong publication record at top tier conferences. Now honestly, would you go to a school that publishes less because to the people outside your field the name sounds more prestigious? That seems like a horrible reason! By the way, I forgot to ask, how do you define top notch?

Also, what resources are you talking about? As a grad student, doing research, your resources are tied to your advisor's grant money, which is correlated with publications.

The dude also said UMass CS isn't looking to admit students who only intend to get a master degree without continuing onto PhD. But he's wrong. UMass' CS department actually accepts application for MS only program. Does he really work in CS Dept?

http://www.cs.umass.edu/drupal/admissions/degree-programs

Let me quote from that page, now: "Most Computer Science graduate students are admitted in the MS/PhD track. That means they are intending to work toward a PhD, but will acquire a masters degree along the way." Compare this with other schools where most graduate students are admitted into a terminal masters program.

"Financial support for most MS-only students comes in the form of half or full assistantships" -- this part means that you can apply for TA/RA positions, but RA is subject to agreeing with a faculty member and students with guaranteed funding are handed the TA jobs first. So, yes, you could apply and get admitted to MS only and then hope that there are spots left after the guaranteed funding students for you. Most likely, you'll be forking over some amount of money to the school.

Finally, I feel like this is far enough off-topic at this point, as the person asking this question is not actually interested in Yale CS anymore anyway.