Should I change my list of schools? (Non-CS B.S. applying for MS)

[asmithe]

Hello, thank you for reading. I recently graduated from a small unranked state school with a B.S. in biology, I've been working at the university doing research since graduating. During this time I've taken some CS courses and want to apply to a MS program. My GPA is probably my biggest downfall, mostly out of laziness, I never really enjoyed biology that much but I didn't know what else to study.

 

If you could please look at my list of schools and let me know which are a waste of time/money to apply to. I know my stats and situation are not ideal so I don't want to waste application fees and my letter writer's time. Thank you all for your help.

 

Overview

Domestic Applicant with US degree

School: small unranked state uni

Degree: B.S. biology

Undergrad GPA: 3.34 cumulative (3.47 not counting freshman year, didn't take it seriously)

Post-Bac GPA: 3.8

GRE: 164 Q / 159 V

LOR: 2 very good, 1 average

 

3.5 years molecular biology research (1.5 yrs full-time, 2 yrs undergrad) with 1 first author publication in Molecular Microbiology

 

CS Courses Taken (all post-bac):

-intermediate programming (Java)

-linear algebra

-data structures and algorithms (single course)

-discrete math

-computer organization

 

Also taking machine learning but won't have grades in time for application deadline.

 

Schools:

Tufts

Boston University

Northeastern

Brandeis

University of Southern California

Dartmouth College

 

 

Also other suggestions for schools are welcome.

[PhDerp]

It looks balanced IMO!

 

Any particular reason for the ordering?

[asmithe]

It looks balanced IMO!

 

Any particular reason for the ordering?

 

haha not really, I just wrote them down as I remembered. I'd say Dartmouth is my first choice and Brown was the one I was least certain I should apply to. In regards to USC, I don't know much about the stats needed to get in, just that the program is a good fit.

 

Out of the others I don't have a huge preference, it would come down to cost most likely.

[colinmatthew]

One thought might be to add in a public research uni or two just for some balance?

 

To my knowledge, the list looks fine, but I also come from a small state university (and know many others in the same boat) and in my experience the big public research schools tend to care less about pedigree and/or will allow test scores and experience to speak more over your undergrad location

[asmithe]

One thought might be to add in a public research uni or two just for some balance?

 

To my knowledge, the list looks fine, but I also come from a small state university (and know many others in the same boat) and in my experience the big public research schools tend to care less about pedigree and/or will allow test scores and experience to speak more over your undergrad location

 

I've looked at UMass Amherst and SUNY Stony Brook, and I will probably apply to them. Overall from the FAQ pages I've read most publics seem to demand a much stronger background in CS than I could possibly have (often asking for 10-12 courses of background, essentially a BS).

 

Any suggestions for good schools public or private that are forgiving of poor CS background?

Edited March 12, 2014 by asmithe

[colinmatthew]

I've looked at UMass Amherst and SUNY Stony Brook, and I will probably apply to them. Overall from the FAQ pages I've read most publics seem to demand a much stronger background in CS than I could possibly have (often asking for 10-12 courses of background, essentially a BS).

 

Any suggestions for good schools public or private that are forgiving of poor CS background?

 

Actually, yeah, there's at least one that comes to mind. UPenn has a Master's in Computer and Information Technology (MCIT) program that's geared directly at people with non-CS undergrad degrees: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/grad/mcit/index.shtml

 

They also post their admissions statistics from previous years ( http://www.cis.upenn.edu/grad/admission-stats.shtml ) and it looks like you're right on par with their average admitted student. It's still a competitive program with ~20% admission, but that's why you apply to more than one school =]

 

There are more programs out there like this. If you're interested, just check around at the bigger CS departments -- they're more likely to offer more specialized degrees.

 

I think the biggest question is whether you want something that's geared at starting you on the path to be a developer, or whether you might be interested in research. If the latter, you'll probably want to think more about M.Sc. degrees, which *might* be more rigorous but keep the door to PhD open more so than something geared specifically toward industry. Generally the big difference is that with M.Sc. you do a thesis and are at least exposed to research work.

 

As for the idea that publics would want more CS background, I'm really not sure. It sounds like you have some core courses and can show a strong interest, so, if I were you I'd just take time to write a good SOP that clearly outlines your interests. And maybe just send out apps to both types of program (and private + public) and see who bites? I'm not an expert by any means, but to me your chances actually look pretty darn good.

[PhDerp]

I've looked at UMass Amherst and SUNY Stony Brook, and I will probably apply to them. Overall from the FAQ pages I've read most publics seem to demand a much stronger background in CS than I could possibly have (often asking for 10-12 courses of background, essentially a BS).

 

Any suggestions for good schools public or private that are forgiving of poor CS background?

UMass is more lenient than the website suggests. There are English majors who are PhD students now, with just some computer job experience.

[colinmatthew]

Hello asmithe and colinmatthew,

I noticed that Tufts and Northeastern are on both of your lists. I'm currently trying to compare them (for a PhD in the areas of natural language processing and maybe machine learning), so I would very much like to hear your opinions about them. If you could share any thoughts, that would be great. Thank you!

 

Honestly, I wasn't much interested in NLP when choosing schools so I'm not sure what insights I could provide there. 

 

I can't much vouch for the accuracy of anything they provide rankings-wise, but you can get a good sense of who's doing work in your area and glean some rough info on # of publications and citations from microsoft academic search: 

http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Comparison?entitytype=7&id1=13235&id2=16473&topdomainid=2&subdomainid=9

[inertia]

Thank you for the link! I didn't know that the Microsoft academic search allowed for direct comparisons. 

[PhDerp]

Honestly, I wasn't much interested in NLP when choosing schools so I'm not sure what insights I could provide there. 

 

I can't much vouch for the accuracy of anything they provide rankings-wise, but you can get a good sense of who's doing work in your area and glean some rough info on # of publications and citations from microsoft academic search: 

http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Comparison?entitytype=7&id1=13235&id2=16473&topdomainid=2&subdomainid=9

 

OMG love that, thanks! Will upvote when mine respawn (if I remember)!

[bsharpe269]

Have you ever considered bioinformatics or computational bio programs? You'd be a really strong candidate for them. I'm really enjoying the field!

[asmithe]

Have you ever considered bioinformatics or computational bio programs? You'd be a really strong candidate for them. I'm really enjoying the field!

 

 

Hi bsharpe, yeah I have thought about it, but in reality I'm trying to get away from bioscience research with this change of fields. At least in my experience (doing basic science research) progress is far too slow for my taste, and the practical applications of the research are too distant. I am interested in some aspects of computational biology, but I don't want to be tied down to academia. 

 

Do you feel that given your program you could move into a developer/engineer role in industry should you want to?

[asmithe]

UMass is more lenient than the website suggests. There are English majors who are PhD students now, with just some computer job experience.

 

Thanks for letting me know, I really like the program and it is close to home but I was a bit scared off by the website.

[bsharpe269]

Hi bsharpe, yeah I have thought about it, but in reality I'm trying to get away from bioscience research with this change of fields. At least in my experience (doing basic science research) progress is far too slow for my taste, and the practical applications of the research are too distant. I am interested in some aspects of computational biology, but I don't want to be tied down to academia. 

 

Do you feel that given your program you could move into a developer/engineer role in industry should you want to?

 

The easiest to get and best paying jobs with an MS in bioinformatics are bioinformatics programming jobs in industry (this would probably be true of phd too but the phd would be unnecessary for these jobs IMO). These jobs are pretty much your standard programming jobs but you often work for biotech companies or hospitals. Also, they typically involve some statistical analsysis also where your typical programming job may have less of that.  I am not sure if that is what you are looking for or not but it may be worth applying to a couple bioinformatics programs as back up plans since I think you have a very competitive application. At my program at least, you can really design it to your interests. For example, my program only requires 2 programming classes (they are pretty intense though) but you can take 5+ if you want to. Classes like numerical analysis, advanced stats, machine learning, etc arent required but are electives. I am taking more of those sorts of classes and less of stuff like genomics and sequencing. I cant really say how easy of time you have getting straight out computer engineering sorts of jobs. it would probably depend on how many programming electives etc you take but I think that a straight out CS degree be more competitive for these jobs than bioinformatics degree.

[asmithe]

Thanks for the advice bsharpe, I didn't know there was much demand in industry for bioinformaticians.

 

This is completely unrelated, but does anyone know about Cornell's MEng CS? Is this program as tough to get admitted as it's MSCS program? I met the basic prereqs listed on their site and I like the industry focus (and shorter course).

[DeleteMePlease]

Thanks for the advice bsharpe, I didn't know there was much demand in industry for bioinformaticians.

 

This is completely unrelated, but does anyone know about Cornell's MEng CS? Is this program as tough to get admitted as it's MSCS program? I met the basic prereqs listed on their site and I like the industry focus (and shorter course).

 

Afaik the MEng isn't funded (unlike the Master of Science). So I would suppose it is much easier to get into the MEng.