Unusual MS CS applicant; what's realistic?

[2346891]

I'm looking at MS CS programs and trying to figure out what's in the right ballpark (in terms of reach and safety schools) given my situation.

I have a BA in CS from Boston University, 3.4 GPA, Latin honors... but it's from 2008. Since then I haven't done anything professionally or academically related to CS because I've been on active duty in the military (I had an ROTC scholarship).

At this I point I think it will be difficult to get a strong letter of recommendation from anyone who can speak directly to my ability in CS, but senior military officers will speak to my general intelligence/character and military achievements. My GRE score is 160Q/170V/4.5W, and I will be a "full pay" student regardless of sticker price. Maybe being a US citizen/veteran helps if I'm competing with a lot of international students.

So using the US News rankings as an imperfect guide, where can I realistically look? #1 Stanford? #20 USC? #48 BU again? Places farther down the list or unranked? 

Edited April 4, 2016 by 2346891

[svent]

The best thing to do is ask some professors if they remember you and if they could write you a letter. I did take some classes as a non-degree student and got a couple LORs that way, so only one of mine is from my old degree (not quite as old as yours, but pretty close). But I wouldn't have done that had I been a CS major.

MS is surprisingly easy to get into. It's nothing like PhD. I had worries about even getting into one top 50 school, so I made a list of backups ranked around 50-100 with late deadlines (May-July) just in case I didn't get in anywhere. I applied to 9 schools. Got into 6 (including some much better than USC, but didn't bother applying anywhere like Stanford), no rejections yet. I'm sure I'll get a couple in the next few weeks.

Most of your competition will be Indian (and Chinese) students applying so they can enter the American job market afterward. Most of the SOPs that I've seen them post just look terrible (strange phrases, talking about grades, telling a dumb story about how they fell in love with computers as a kid, their industry experience, etc. -- grad schools care about research, not industry). Your GRE scores will almost certainly be much better than those of your competitors.

Perhaps you can write about why you want to attend an MS program. I would focus on top 50 (mostly around 30-50), and know that no school on the list is too high to apply to, provided you're actually interested in going there. I would try to avoid some of the schools known to admit as many internationals as possible. So for example, apply to places like UCLA and UCSB, and avoid places like USC, ASU, and NCSU. All schools are going to have plenty of internationals, but it's no fun for an American when you show up 10 minutes before class and the room has 200 people all talking to each other, and none speaking any English.

[2346891]

Thanks for the insight. Yeah, I've spent a lot of time looking at unranked schools to be safe, so maybe that's selling myself short.

Your point about demographics has made me think too. Looking at Duke's statistics, I was amazed to see that something like 98% of applicants were international. I wonder if that's the case everywhere, and what that experience would be like for me.

[svent]

Applicants, maybe. Enrolled students, no. There are some schools that are known to be very international-heavy like USC, ASU, NCSU, GT. Some schools like Duke, UCLA, UPenn offer statistics. I know UCLA shows how much of its class is international/American, male/female, things like that (not sure if Duke/Penn have those stats). UCLA is still > 50% international, but it's nowhere near 90%.

Over the next year, as you do your research, keep an eye on these forums (and possibly others), you'll see plenty of international students asking for profile reviews, posting their SOP, things like that, and you'll see what you're up against. Unless you've got some serious red flags on your record, I don't think you should have too much to worry about. Still keep a list of backup schools just in case though.

Edit: Also look at the results page for particular schools the past few years. Most of them are internationals there, but they often post their GPA/GRE/other stuff, so you can get an idea of what kind of profiles get accepted and rejected.

Edited April 4, 2016 by svent

[2346891]

I'm thinking more about enrollment statistics. I've confirmed (looking at course registration pages) that USC runs 200+ person lectures for its core requirements, which is astonishing to  me for the graduate level, and it's very unappealing. I guess I took small class sizes for granted after my experience at BU back when CS was not a popular major. Is there any quick way to get a good read on this at different schools? I'm thinking the total number of faculty might be a good proxy(?).

Edited April 5, 2016 by 2346891

[svent]

200 is actually current... when I looked in the fall, their fall classes for algorithms/machine learning were more like 500+. ASU has like 50-100 students in grad classes I think. You can usually look at course schedules for the particular school and figure it out. Number of professors is probably a decent proxy too. And size of schools too.