Chances of Getting into a Top Tier Masters CS program

[HopefulAcademic]

Hey everyone, 

I'm currently in the process of studying for the GRE and I plan on applying to schools for my Masters in Computer Science in the upcoming months to start Fall 2017.  

A little background information:

I'm a recent undergraduate, I've been working as a Flight Software Engineer for 7 months and I got this opportunity to go to get my master's degree in CS that is fully funded through my workplace. Books and tuition are all paid for and I would also be a full-time student.

My first few years of college I didn't take seriously and ended up having less than stellar grades, will this hurt my chances? When I cared and decided to put effort into my studies I ended up doing well in all my Major Courses / Last 60 credit hours taken. The lowest grade I got on any of Upper Division CS courses was an A- for two courses and the rest were A's.

I have some undergraduate research experience in Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, but don't have a paper published. Even though I am finished with school I am continuing to work with my professor and aiding him in this research, while juggling a full-time job and studying.  Primarily using Stanford's NLP tools so most of my experience of doing research is in that area.  We we're working on a publication, but I think he has put that aside.

If I wanted to get into a school like Stanford, CMU, Berkeley, UIUC do I even have a shot? Is it worth it for me to even apply?

What about a Top 10-25 or a Top 25-50?

 

University: Regional University (ranked, but I don't think it's well known.)

Major: Computer Science with a Minor in Mathematics

Graduating GPA: 3.79 - Cum Laude (last 61 CR)

Overall GPA: 3.28

GRE: Haven't taken it yet, but I've been studying on the weekends and after work. Ideally I am looking to score 90%+ on both verbal and quant.

So far on practice tests I am averaging 161(V) / 166 (Q) finishing with extra time left. I've been studying for 2 months now, but I plan on taking it in September and maybe again in October if I don't do well enough. 

My Letters of Recommendation would be my Research Professor, Another professor I've taken multiple courses with, and the third letter would be my Technical Program Manager or Supervisor

Also a member of the Golden Key Honour Society (top 15% of graduating class), not sure if that makes any difference.

Thanks in advance,

HopefulAcademic

[ev a.]

Being published would help A LOT. 

Being in the process of to be published can help too. Do you have anything to show for of your work? Maybe a contribution to the research of your professor that s/he can vouch for, or show you as the primary researcher in that work? 

UIUC is good, but not on the same league as the others you mentioned. You have reasonable chance (since you'll be paying the tuition/or your employer) on this one, but even with great grades and good research experience, you would be lucky to be admitted to those others. The area is very competitive and even the best students are slayed in the process.

Definitely apply to all you want to attend, what you gonna lose, application fee? But don't have high hopes, you want NLP and ML, best brains are pouring to that area, hence in any case, you'll have low probability of being admitted, regardless of your profile.

If you have an option to add meaningful contribution to your research in this limited time period, focus on that instead of GRE's. GRE's are stupid, Q questions are easy, and V is not even considered in most cases (for good reason). Aside from it being a quick filter for weeding out the grade inflation that many schools have (by putting cut-offs like Q>160 etc), no committee ponders over it. 

Best of luck to you!