A little guidence for choosing MS in CS University from a short list

[qfarhan]

Hello folks,

I have completed my BS in Computer Science on Feb 2010.

• My undergraduate CGPA is 3.41 out of 4.00.
• GRE score is Q-740, V-530, AWA-3.0 .
• IELTS band score is 7.5 .
• Class rank is 14th out of 38 students.
• Have 3 international conference papers and 1 journal paper.
• Was a lecturer of CS department during last 6 months.
• Participated in several programming contests from my undergrad institute (including regional ACM ICPC).
  I am applying for fall 2011. Although the season is nearly close, I am going to apply within the next couple of days. I know that there is not much chance for initial funding for MS. But I'll try to get some after one or two semesters. I have shortlisted some schools. Can you folks give some analysis about these schools?
  
  USA:
  
  • High:
    • Case Western Reserve University
    • University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
    • Clemson University
    • Medium:
      • Mississippi State University
      • University of Utah
      • Auburn University
      • Northeastern University
      • University of Texas, Arlington
      • West Virginia University
      • University of Mississippi
      • Louisiana State University
      • Oklahoma State University
      • University of Nebraska-Lincoln
      • Low:
        • Utah State University
        • Wright State University, Ohio
        • University of Texas, San Antonio
          Canada:
          
          • High:
            • Simon Fraser University
            • University of Ottawa

          [*]Medium:

          [*]Carleton University[*]Saskatchewan University

          [*]Low:

          [*]Memorial University

          Okay, it is a ridiculously tall list. The point is I need to narrow it down to half. That is why I am requesting some suggestion/insight from the members about my chance of getting admission at least initially and I am willing to pay for for initial semesters, provided that there are scope for funding later on.

          Actually, (although my low cgpa will become an obstacle) I am interested to enroll into PhD directly, since I plan to do it later on anyway. Is there any chance for my admission into PhD into any of these schools?

          Thank you very much for your time.

[starmaker]

Your cGPA is fine for going directly to a PhD.

What subfields are you interested in? What sort of career might you want after getting your degree? It's hard to help you narrow your list when we don't know what your interests are.

Most of us also don't know much about most of these departments. I suggest that you go to the department websites and see which departments have labs related to your interests. You can also use the website phds.org to create your own customized rankings, and to find data like job placement rates.

I think your credentials are competitive for most if not all of these. Which doesn't mean that I think you are guaranteed to get in, just that they're not going to look at your application and decide that you're obviously unqualified after a first glance.

[tdarcy]

It is probably not a good idea to get a PhD from any of those schools (or anywhere ranked outside of the top 30 or so). What are your long term goals? You will find it almost impossible to get an academic job out of those schools. If you want to work in industry, you are better off either going to work directly now, or just getting a masters.

Its hard to tell without more info, but your stats seem good enough to apply to top 30 schools if you wanted to. It depends on whether your publications are decent or not.

[qfarhan]

Well, I had no idea that a quant score of 740 and a cgpa of 3.41 can get admit into a top 30/40 school. The issue is, even if I could get admit, there is virtually no guarantee for funding in schools so high ranking. My best case scenario would have been a direct PhD(saving couple of years). And then get into research oriented industry. So I guess direct MS is the best route here. As tdarcy said, it seems right that PhD from these schools will be too big of an investment. Thank you for your suggestion.

[beanbagchairs]

It is probably not a good idea to get a PhD from any of those schools (or anywhere ranked outside of the top 30 or so).

...for the exception of UNC chapel hill from the above list

[beanbagchairs]

Well, I had no idea that a quant score of 740 and a cgpa of 3.41 can get admit into a top 30/40 school.

But you got publications. You even published in a journal! I think you are being too hard on yourself.

The issue is, even if I could get admit, there is virtually no guarantee for funding in schools so high ranking.

I think top schools have better funding for their PhDs. Not sure about MS.

As for your list of schools, I think you can be a bit optimistic by applying higher (univs higher in ranking).

[pepsi]

Well, I had no idea that a quant score of 740 and a cgpa of 3.41 can get admit into a top 30/40 school. The issue is, even if I could get admit, there is virtually no guarantee for funding in schools so high ranking. My best case scenario would have been a direct PhD(saving couple of years). And then get into research oriented industry. So I guess direct MS is the best route here. As tdarcy said, it seems right that PhD from these schools will be too big of an investment. Thank you for your suggestion.

btw, your profile says youre looking to enroll in fall 2011.. if that's true then better get a move on

for MS a lot of schools' deadlines have already passed or are coming up soon. and the ones that haven't passed yet are most likely rolling, so the earlier you apply the better

[starmaker]

It is probably not a good idea to get a PhD from any of those schools (or anywhere ranked outside of the top 30 or so). What are your long term goals? You will find it almost impossible to get an academic job out of those schools. If you want to work in industry, you are better off either going to work directly now, or just getting a masters.

This is not strictly true. If you have an advisor with good connections, or are in a program that is very good in your chosen subfield even though it's not great as a whole, you can get an academic job even from a poorly-ranked school. The NRC study actually collected data on the percentage of grads from each CS PhD program that got academic jobs, and there are some pretty random programs that have high academic placement.

There are lots of jobs for PhDs in industry (I'm in industry right now) and government. The big corporate research labs (e.g. AT&T Labs, Microsoft Research, IBM Research), the government contractors (big ones like Raytheon, smaller more specialized ones like iRobot), the FFRDCs (like MITRE or Lincoln Lab), the Department of Energy's national labs, NASA, the NSA...all of them hire CS PhDs, for PhD-level jobs, in significant numbers.

[qfarhan]

OK fellas, thanks for your advice. I've rolled some dices. Northeastern University, Mississippi State UNiversity, Simon Fraser, Memorial, University of Texas, San Antonio are the slots. Counting previously applied University of Alberta, that makes the total count of 6. Maybe a couple more super safe schools with the next 8-10 days.

[newms]

OK fellas, thanks for your advice. I've rolled some dices. Northeastern University, Mississippi State UNiversity, Simon Fraser, Memorial, University of Texas, San Antonio are the slots. Counting previously applied University of Alberta, that makes the total count of 6. Maybe a couple more super safe schools with the next 8-10 days.

Cool. I also applied to Alberta Masters CS program. What area are you in?

[qfarhan]

Cool. I also applied to Alberta Masters CS program. What area are you in?

Well what do you mean as "what area"? What is your profile? In which varsity did you apply?

[newms]

Well what do you mean as "what area"? What is your profile? In which varsity did you apply?

Sorry, I meant what area of computer science - I'm in machine learning.

[qfarhan]

Sorry, I meant what area of computer science - I'm in machine learning.

Well, I applied for Artificial Intelligence, Data mining.