chance me?

[anon1]

3.66 GPA overall

3.94 CS GPA

163 quant, 162 verbal, 5 writing (planning to retake for higher quant score)

Internships at Harvard, MIT, NASA

Nontraditional student with a previous degree, before recent CS and Math double major.

I'm in a 2nd (?) tier school now, but would prefer to attend: Harvard, Caltech, Berkeley, UCLA

Do I have a shot? At Master's? At Phd? Or am I wasting my time and money applying...

[Mecasickle]

First lower down your ego.

How many papers have you published?

[karth]

Mecasickle, I don't think he's trying to boast.

anon1, your overall GPA is on par and your CS GPA is stellar, but most applicants will have this. I'm at UC Berkeley right now, and most people here have the numbers... GRE + GPA.

Could you describe here a bit more about what you did in your internships? And as Mecasickle said, could you expound on your research experiences? Most importantly, why do you want to get a Ph.D.? Keep in mind that most places have Ph.D. acceptance rates that are around 5-10% (not sure about other schools, but I know that Berkeley was around 6% and CMU was around 9% in the robotics track).

And why do you want to attend Harvard or UCLA (specifically) for computer science... it seems like you're shooting for "name brand" schools across the board, which may not be the right thing to do. For example, you seem to have left out Stanford and MIT for prospective schools.

[victor.s.andrei]

3.66 GPA overall

3.94 CS GPA

163 quant, 162 verbal, 5 writing (planning to retake for higher quant score)

Internships at Harvard, MIT, NASA

Nontraditional student with a previous degree, before recent CS and Math double major.

I'm in a 2nd (?) tier school now, but would prefer to attend: Harvard, Caltech, Berkeley, UCLA

Do I have a shot? At Master's? At Phd? Or am I wasting my time and money applying...

Lots of times the best graduate programs in a particular field are not at the "name brand" schools.

Do not go by the reputation of the overall school. Go by the reputation of the program that you want to attend.

By the numbers, I think you have a chance, but if you don't have a good reason for applying - that's reflected in your letters of recommendation and your goal statement essay - you will get turned down.