Machine Learning Master's Degree Questions

[The_Longest_Hound]

I have some questions about the best way to go about getting a Master's relevant to Machine Learning. It doesn't matter to me whether the title of the degree is Machine Learning (I know there are still very few of those), Computer Science, or something else, as long as I'm studying Machine Learning and will be able to get a good job in the industry afterwards. I'm hoping to apply this fall/winter, and start in the fall of 2017.

I'm hoping to get into a top program like Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, or Berkeley. My first question is:

1) Do I have a shot at these kind of top programs? What are my chances? Relevant background: I graduated from Villanova University (a great, but by no means “top” school) with a 3.78 GPA in Mathematics. I am a self-taught coder (I have about 13+ years of my own projects through which I've learned how to program well), but I have been taking a few undergraduate CS classes at my local state school to demonstrate my knowledge and hopefully avoid pre-reqs. I have a few years of work experience doing something that most people would consider to an enormous responsibility. However, while that job might be a very impressive item in general for a resume, it had nothing to do with computer science. I've been volunteering at a University lab for the past 6 months helping the Professor with some robotics/AI programming research, and intend to continue to do so until I apply. Unfortunately, there has been no machine learning component, and it seems doubtful at this point that my name will be on any papers submitted before I apply. I just took the GRE; I got a 168 in math (95^th percentile), 167 in verbal (97^th percentile), and a 4.0 in writing (56^th percentile).

2) My GRE scores seem to be more than adequate except for writing. Is it worth retaking for the writing or do these programs care less about writing? The GRE is expensive for me right now, and I'm not sure that I could get a better writing score anyway (writing was the only thing I spent any significant time studying for on the last test and the studying didn't seem to do me much good; also, I am a very slow writer). On the other hand, I'm well aware of how insanely competitive the top programs are, and I'm concerned that my mediocre writing score might serve as an excuse to help the top schools' overworked admissions offices eliminate one more application. So should I retake the GRE for the writing or is it irrelevant for a ML/CS master's?

3) Finally, assuming I do have a chance at the top programs, how do I go about finding some safety schools and in-between schools (better than “safety”, but not “reach” schools either)? There's not exactly a list anywhere (that I've found) of decent master's CS programs in which a student can focus on ML.

Thanks so much for your time and help! If there are any other resources or information that it might helpful for me to be aware of, I would appreciate the info!

Edited June 25, 2016 by The_Longest_Hound