Computer Science M.S. GRE vs. GPA

[revolutionary4ever]

Hello GradCafe Community,

I recently went through the grad cycle for fall 2009. It was crazy and I was lucky to get into a school. My bf will be applying for a M.S. in computer science or something closely related for Spring 2010. I have provided him with advice on what I learned from going through the grad cycle but I am not in the Computer Science field. I was wondering how important the GRE is and what the average score is to have a chance to get into a good school like a top Ivy or even somewhere like the University of Maryland. My bf has a cum. gpa of 3.6 what should he aim to get in the GRE? is the grade point average considered bad or low to have a good chance. Any advice or feedback is greatly appreciated Thanks

[MaximKat]

gre is not important unless it is too low

for quant anything less than 750 is too low, but getting 800 there is extremely easy for a cs/math major

[Rojahon]

I have a 3.76 GPA, and I got into the PhD program at UCLA with a 680 quant. I'm a math major, but I never do that well on standardized tests.

Depending on the school, I don't think it's that important as long as you have enough to make up for it. I don't even think MIT asks for your GRE scores.

[revolutionary4ever]

From my experiance GRE's are a major factor but I am in the Humanities. What can a student do to improve his/her chances to being accepted into a Computer Science mater's it seems like competition for any program has increased.

[galatea]

I have a 3.76 GPA, and I got into the PhD program at UCLA with a 680 quant. I'm a math major, but I never do that well on standardized tests.

Depending on the school, I don't think it's that important as long as you have enough to make up for it. I don't even think MIT asks for your GRE scores.

Yeah MIT doesn't ask for GRE scores...

I mean an 800 Quanti score will hold good for the initial steps of the process; it is a valuable asset. But, in the end it's all about fitting in - whether your interests match that of the university. And of course, your research work.

[mo7aisen]

Those big schools ask a simple question: where are you from? and then look at the qualifications one has. I think >80%tile on the GRE Q would be fine for any school. 3.6 as a GPA and its meaning greatly depends on where from your bf got his degree

[belowthree]

From my experiance GRE's are a major factor but I am in the Humanities. What can a student do to improve his/her chances to being accepted into a Computer Science mater's it seems like competition for any program has increased.

Yeah CS is pretty different in this regard. Everyone gets an 800 on the quant or close, so it doesn't really matter much. It can hurt you if you don't get good scores, but otherwise it's pretty irrelevant. Verbal needs to just be not bad, unless you're a foreign student, in which case they might want to see better scores. (Doesn't sound like this is an issue for your BF.)

Most important factors for CS are still going to be his LoRs, just like in most other fields. He sounds like his GPA is in decent shape, a decent statement with some standard LoRs should probably slot him in as an unfunded MS student at most schools. Funding being considerably trickier and often varies depending on which school he goes to. If you go as an MS student to a school where they accept unfunded PhD students or have a lot of PhD students doing TAships to pull their stipends... then you're going to have a much harder time getting funded. But there's plenty of schools that fund most of their PhD students as researchers and have plenty of spare TAships open for MS students where even if they aren't explicitly funded they can get funding. (Maybe takes them a quarter or two, but they get it.)

[MaximKat]

Verbal needs to just be not bad, unless you're a foreign student, in which case they might want to see better scores. (Doesn't sound like this is an issue for your BF.)

If you are a foreign student they will want to see good TOEFL