<p>Hi, All</p>
<p>I am new to the forum and I hope that I can get some suggestion from you guys. I will be graduating on March 2009 and applying for grad school (Computer Science MS degree) at the end of this year. Here is my stats.</p>
<p>I have a overall GPA of 3.48 at my community college
And then i transferred to University of California, Irvine.
At Irvine, my overall GPA is 3.6, major GPA 3.63. </p>
<p>I am planning to take GRE in November. Hoping to pull 400 in verbal and close to 800 in math. Good LOR will be a problem for me to get as i have no research experience.</p>
<p>Do you guys think I would have a chance to get into UCLA, USC or any other better schools? Thanks</p>
<p>Yeah you probably have a shot at a masters degree in computer science. Aim a whole lot higher than 400 on your verbal. If you can't get research experience, perhaps there is some industry around you that could provide work experience instead.</p>
<p>As of the Letter Of Recommendation, is a letter from an employer or instructor(without Phd) fine or does it has to be from a professor (with Phd)?</p>
<p>Interesting question. I don't know for sure but I would think that it is not as good to get a recommendation from an individual without a PhD than one with a PhD. As for the sector that they work in, as long as they publish and do legitimate research activities, I can't see that that would make a huge difference. I arrived at this conclusion well after I quit working in industry in part because I was afraid that the letters of recommendation wouldn't be as strong.</p>