Honest opinion about Grad School prospects for M.S. in Computer Science

[Pastafarian]

I'm currently a fourth-year Computer Science undergraduate and I intend to apply to an MS. Program in the US for Computer Science for admission in Fall 2015. I'm particularly looking at programs with a strong focus in Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science or Computational Neuroscience. However, I've been reading some of the forums out there and it makes me feel that my chances are terrible. Here is my situation:

• GPA: 3.5/4
• GRE: 334/340
• TOEFL: 115/120
• Work Experience: 3-month internships at a fairly large software development company and a small firm unrelated to the field.
• Research Experience: Projects in college related to Computer Vision and Machine Learning, a year with an independent UAV development team, currently working on some mobile applications using mining techniques etc. Pending university approval, I will spend my final semester working on my senior undergraduate thesis at a research lab in a major university in the US, which deals in Cognitive Science, Data Analysis, etc. and would certainly count as relevant research experience.
• Extracurriculars: A bit hazy but I've been a member of various student organizations like the university IEEE chapter, the college magazine editorial committee and so on.
• LORs: Pretty good LORs from my instructors and mentors at university.
• SOP: I'd like to think I'm a pretty good writer, so I think I'm capable of producing a fairly impactful and direct SOP.

What I'm enormously worried about, especially after reading this http://www.reddit.com/r/gradadmissions/comments/25gmig/a_somewhat_notgentle_guide_to_getting_into_grad/, is that some of my grades during my first 2 years at university are fairly terrible, e.g. B's in Calculus I and II, and most glaringly, a C in Linear Algebra. I have improved quite a bit in the last two years though, and I have straight A's in several core CS subjects I'm interested in, like Artificial Intelligence, Data Mining, Theory of Computation, Analysis of Algorithms etc.

 

Considering all this, what are my chances of getting in grad school in the US? Do I completely forget about trying for any university ranked in the top 30 schools?

 

[GeoDUDE!]

X% where  X>= 0

[GCool]

This post might have seemed obligatory to you, pastaman, but I find it ironic that a sharp data miner would post all his stats and expect a straight answer to that question. I implore you to look around a little bit and see what other graduate profiles can tell you.

[Pastafarian]

This post might have seemed obligatory to you, pastaman, but I find it ironic that a sharp data miner would post all his stats and expect a straight answer to that question. I implore you to look around a little bit and see what other graduate profiles can tell you.

 

I'm obviously not expecting a straight answer, exactly delineating the schools that would fit my profile. I'm just trying to gather a general opinion on what relatively poor freshman grades in Mathematics-related subjects means in the context of an overall M.S. application for Computer Science. That's a pretty specific question, I would think.

[GCool]

Ah, a good clarification. Thanks!

 

Might I direct you to the computer science forum? People who might be able to answer you probably won't look here for a CS-specific question.

[Vene]

I don't know how computer science works, but over in my world I had a GPA around 3.5, am in  a PhD program, and I had the impression that it is easier to get into a masters program. I got some Bs along the way including in statistics, anatomy, and cell biology. Hell, I got a C in analytical chemistry and the first semester of organic chemistry. My GREs were in the 80th percentile, so they were good, but not high enough to leap of the page.

 

I'm not saying that I didn't get some rejections, I did, but I got what I needed.