chance for CS PhD in top universities?

[nigar]

Hi All,

I would like to know my chance to be admitted in Phd Program in top universities such as MIT/CMU/stanford/Berkeley. I want to apply for Machine Learning field. My profile:

1- master student in statistic at ETH Zurich university

- GPA : about 5.5 up to now

- TA in one course

- doing one research seminar

2- master degree in Artificial Intelligence in Amirkabir university in Iran (top three universities in iran)

- GPA : 16.92 out of 20

- TA in three course

- one journal paper (to be revised in neurocomputing journal)

- 5 regional conference papers

3- BS degree in computer engineering in Amirkabir university in Iran (top three universities in iran)

- GPA : 15.78 out of 20

- First International ranked Team Rank in Robocup

- Ranked 170th in ”National Entrance Exam for B.Sc. Program“ among more than 400’000 high school students

GRE: not yet (expected Q:800 V:350-400)

TOEFL : 92 at the moment but I want to take it again.

I could get three strong recommendation and I have a strong SOP. I have a response from a CMU professor that told me "I encourage you warmly to apply".

Because I have both statistics and AI degrees, it matches profile of some professor very well.

what is my chance to be admitted in these universities?

[newms]

Firstly you should know that applying to the very top universities is a crapshoot and that your chances of admission are low even if you are an exceptional applicant. Last year MIT had over 2500 applicants. Each of the schools you mention above probably admitted less than 5% of applicants (in some cases much less than 5%). So statistically, your chances of getting into any of those very top schools (if you only applied to those 4) you mentioned would be less than 20%.

That said you seem to have a good profile, but what the very top universities look for is quality research experience, so your journal paper will look good on your application. If I were you, in addition to those very top universities you mentioned, I'd make sure to apply to some top 20 schools as well, just because getting into top 5 schools is so hard.

[nigar]

Thanks for your reply.

I have just noticed that based on following standard website :

http://www.wes.org/

I can convert my international GPA to four point system. Therefore we have:

MSc in Amirkabir university in Iran : GPA : 3.72 / 4.0

BS degree in Amirkabir university in Iran : GPA : 3.17 / 4.0 (and 3.33/4.0 last two years)

master student in statistic at ETH Zurich university : GPA : 5.5 / 6.0 (in four point scale is not clear yet)

I think WES is the system which most universities uses for converting international GPA to four point system.

Now what do you think about my chance to enter top 5 and top 20 universities? (based on converted GPAs and also information posted before)