What universities are at my "reach" for a computer science graduate program?.

[international:student]

Im am an international student very interested in machine learning and nlp. This is my background:

 

- Bsc in computer science at the main university of my country

- Research Bsc thesis in NLP/ML

- 3 research papers in ML/NLP (LNCS, CLEF and a local journal) [They are not "groundbreaking research"]

- 3.1 GPA

- Still dont take the GRE, since I was stuck with my previous research experience I will do it in the following months.(Let's assume my worst case setting: bad scores since I was doing research I could not prepare the GRE and only few dates are ofered)

- I will take the TOEFL the next month.

- If I get the acceptance my goverment will pay anything to the university.

 

 

I was thinking on applying to: USC,UCLA, UWashington, UMich ann arbor, UCI, UIUC, Umass amherst, College park Maryland, UT Austin.

 

My goal is the Phd since I love doing research, but maybe I lack of background to pursuit a Phd program. However my question is: What universities are at my "reach" for Phd and Msc?. What do you guys think are my chances to get in?.

 

 

[cs_phd]

No one expects BS degree holder to do ground breaking research. 

If you are confident that you can get 3 good reco letters from the professors you worked under for those 3 papers then you have a good chance. If those professors are well known in US for their research then you have a good chance. SOP is also important. 

Any case apply to wide range of universities (i.e, apply even to outside top 20 and 30 universities) to be on the safer side.

[international:student]

Thanks for the feed. Do you think Washington may be interested in me?

[simin]

I have a similar question.

I'm a Bsc student in computer engineering at the third university of my country.

I'm interested in algorithm design and Computaional Complexity. my GPA is 3.6/4. I don't have any publication.

Now i'm just starting to send emails for a number of professors from defferent universities.

I prefer to continue my education at EPFL but I want to know if it's possible for me.

what universities are reachable for me?

[ev a.]

As a candidate who faced the similar dilemmas in the past few weeks, here are my thoughts.

 

You CAN'T know which universities are in your reach without applying. The criteria for universities around the country or world is so multifarious that it is not possible to determine ranges, or universities or even programs for that matter.

 

There are micro decisions you can make, such as getting admitted to a PhD is harder than MSc or M.Eng is easier and so on.

 

But different adcomms have different priorities. In fact, they switch priorities as years go by, so you can't conclude "X university admits students with such and such backgrounds" etc. Some prioritize publications, some purely GPA and test scores, some Masters programs are terminal programs which are more lenient towards those who don't have a strong CS theoretical background, Stanford is an example for this.

 

Nobody can know what type will be admitted. In fact, I am sure that if adcomms did their evaluations on another day, they could've come up with a whole different list. 

 

What increases your chances are, good scores and grades, publications, early applications, great statement of purpose letters and you then hope for the best.  Also, a good source for what to expect from an application can be found from this site: http://bit.ly/1OUIV2z   This survey has thousands of entries, and as you can see, the profile for admitted and rejected are incredibly diverse. With great undergraduate career and perfect test scores, research assistantships and internships, there are people who get rejected from a school, yet someone with an average or sometimes below average background is admitted with fellowships! 

 

 

Lastly, my sources for this comment are Quora, The Grad Cafe, hours of Google searching, my current professors and professors at the universities I hope to get admitted that I had email conversations. 

Edited August 1, 2015 by ev a.