How high should an electrical engineer aim in CS MS?

[ev a.]

Hello,

 

I am an electrical engineer with programming languages, algorithms, data structures, computer vision and machine learning background (by background, i mean that i have taken additional courses for each of these). As I have a high CGPA (3.95 atm) and some personal and group projects related with CS (some CMS projects, CS projects for my university such as some  web based services that university currently uses etc), I tend to aim higher.

 

By higher, I mean top 50-75 in CS subject category. The thing is, as an overall ranking, most of these top 50 schools are even ranking higher, like top 20. As I am going to compete with CS graduates who probably have twice the knowledge on CS, I am starting to think I am being very presumptuous about my chances to these schools.

 

 

--Also, I have no publications or any academic research experience. In fact only thing I have going for myself that I have gotten pretty much all A+'s on most of my CS courses.

 

Couple of questions related with these:

 

1. Which ranking should I consider? For example a program ranking 50th in CS, may rank 17th overall. Is this a harder admission than a 10th CS rank with 75th overall ranking. ps: i know that ranking should not be the principal criteria, i looked program webpages and eliminated some schools on that list. as a factor i then added the ranking to estimate how hard it would be to get in based on rankings. i also eliminated some more based on prerequisites and admitted profile (which was so far away from my profile).

 

 

2. Is it very unlikely that an EE graduate will get accepted to these top (top 50 is really top for me) programs? By the way, in order to be not very vague, some of schools I plan to apply are EPFL, U of Toronto, Mcgill, Cornell M.Eng, Stanford, TU Delft, pretty diverse and desultory list, I admit.

 

Thank you for reading this long post.

[eeee1923]

With your course experience and high GPA, I would suggest you apply to as many top programs as you can afford and that are doing research that you find intellectually stimulating. Of course apply for a good spread but don't sell yourself short by not applying to top institutes. 

[Icydubloon]

The higher the CS ranking of a university, the harder it will be to gain admission. Overall ranking has little to do for top CS department admissions. For example, CMU.