How can one offset a low GPA?

[sayan91]

Hey guys,

I'm a fourth year student of Computer Science in an Indian university in Bangalore. I am applying for the Fall 2014 programs and was wondering whether I could get some advice from the people here.

I have a less than mediocre GPA for my first 3 years - 8.02/10 (which maps to about 3.2) which includes a smattering of C's in subjects like Operating Systems, Compiler Design, Formal Languages. I have A's in subjects like Algorithms, Data Structures, Networks, Business Intelligence and Operations Research. Many of these grades are mediocre because the classes involved plain regurgitation of what was in the texts and I happen to have a terrible memory.

I also represented India in international debate tournaments which conflicted with my exams causing me to retake a few as I was in another country during the Finals. I've done very well in parliamentary debating and was a national champion, reaching the Semi Finals in all Asian Championships. I contributed to the debating community by making various software that have been widely adopted by more than 10 national tournaments in India for managing their tournaments and by teams for calculating their probabilistic chances of getting to the knock out rounds of a given tournament. I'm currently in the process of devising a ranking methodology and software to rank institutions based on past data in debating.

I was working with a professor on introducing parallelism to computational algorithms, but my professor passed away this summer due to a brain tumour that was previously undetected.

I've given my GRE (169 Q, 165 V, 5.0 AWA) and want to aim for a decent Masters program in a top school. However, I do not want to apply to core computer science, but more of an MS in Analytics, MIS or Computational Sciences program.

My questions are as follows

1. My GPA/GRE combo screams lazy, and I wonder what work I can do to offset this. I have a year, and two professors willing to work with me and write me great letters.

2. Are non CS MS courses easier to get into?

3. Does working in an analytics company (Mu Sigma) boost my chances for acceptance?

These are the courses and schools I am looking at. They are highly difficult at the moment, I was wondering what I could do to strengthen my chances.

Northwestern University (McCormick)____MS Analytics

Carnegie Mellon University_____________MISM

U Mich Ann Arbor___________________ MS in Information (IEM specialisation)

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign___MS Stats/Analytics

Cornell University____________________M. Eng OR (Data Analytics)

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill__M.S. in INSTORE

Georgia Institute of Technology_________MS in CS

North Carolina State University__________ MS Analytics

Michigan State_______________________MS in Business Analytics

NYU Stern__________________________MS Analytics

University of Maryland__________________MS in Business: Information Systems

UT Austin___________________________MS Business Analytics

[ssk2]

1. Getting something published is, I've read, an easy way to boost your profile significantly. See if you can get involved in a research project with one of your professors - ideally relevant to your intended specialism at Master's. Even if nothing comes out of it, it will hopefully be a good project to mention on your SOP (and if you do well, you might get a better letter out of it).

2. I don't know if they are easier to get into but on a pure numbers basis, they seem less competitive.

3. Relevant work experience will help.