Hello. I'd like to know if "late research experience" would negatively affect my app.

[hzesen1221]

Hello everyone.

I went to a community college in Washington state for two years. Last year, I transferred to UT Austin as a junior with tons of elective credits since my community college did not really offer too many Computer Science classes, which is my major btw. In my college, there was no research at all. So all I did there was to develop web apps on my own.

Last Dec, I transferred to UT Austin with a 3.89. Immediately I asked for research in the CS Department. As expected, most professors would love me to take their classes first or simply told me that I had not taken any Upper-Division Classes so I was not qualified. Therefore, in 2012 Spring, I took two Lower-Division CS classes as a prerequisite for a Upper-Division Class in summer, which is the class I am now taking. And I asked the professor of this class and then he said he would consider giving me a chance to participate in his research in fall, 2012.

However, since I have so many credits already, all I need is three more semesters in order to graduate. My advisor told me that I could manage to graduate by August next year, which means I will need to apply for grad school THIS DECEMBER. However, my research started in September.....

A little bit more about myself. I am a pretty good student. Currently I have 3.9 and I think I will try hard to keep it. Other than this, I have been involved with programming since 12, and I am an Oracle Certified Professional in Java, and I am the author of a few open source Java projects, which were done by me independently when I was in community college. Besides, I am in the process of writing a book about object-oriented programming principles in Java, which may or may not be completed by December this year.

So given that I have such a "late research experience", what's my chance of getting admitted by some top programs?

Thank you so much.

[hzesen1221]

Just a follow-up:

I know that all of my achievements might not matter too much because the main focus of grad school is research.

So I am going to apply for both Master and PhD.

What's the chance of getting admitted by top Master program, what about PhD then?

If getting into master is easily, then will the duration of the PhD program after that be shorter than if I directly go for PhD after Bachelor?

Thank you.

Edited June 19, 2012 by hzesen1221

[DBP]

I'm under the impression that CS programs are more concerned with GPA/GRE performance than research experience given the slim pickings of research opportunities during undergrad. As you've mentioned - needing to have taken upper-year courses.

Is there an opportunity for you to do a thesis? Or find a RAship for the summer?

Best of luck !

[TakeruK]

I'd say apply this December for Fall 2013 grad school start. If you don't get in, and you think it was because of a lack of research experience, then spend Summer of 2013 doing more research and take the last semester of courses in Fall 2013 instead (and apply to Fall 2014 grad school).

I think you have a pretty good application though -- not everyone will have research experience. If you stay at the same school for PhD after your Masters, then probably the Masters courses will count towards PhD requirement, so probably shorter. But if you go elsewhere, it seems like the best you can do is reduce your courseload by 1 year, but the most common scenarios I encountered were 0 reduction or ~1 semester's worth of reductions. The timeline for orals, comps, etc. might change too but if not all required core courses are offered all the time, you might not be ready to take it earlier anyways. This was from my asking around since I'm going to a US grad school with a Canadian masters degree (which are more like terminal masters programs in the US -- courses + thesis 2 year program)

[ktel]

I'm not in CS, but absolutely all of my research experience was in my last year of my undergrad, and it didn't affect my application in any way. In fact, when I was applying, I had almost no research experience, I just had to spin the stuff I had been doing so far in a good way. I was applying to Master's programs in Canada and my GPA was the same as yours