<p>I have a 3.66 GPA from a top undergraduate university with a double major in CS and Math, 3.94 CS GPA and 3.89 GPA over the last two years, internships with Harvard, MIT, and NASA (though not explicitly in CS, I was just the CS person), last summer got into internships at Princeton, Caltech, Stanford, NASA, Harvard, MIT, have a previous degree in an unrelated field from a liberal arts college, wrote math questions for a book that's in every Barnes and Nobel in the US now, plus a few other highlights... </p>
<p>I got into a top 15 CS PhD program this year but am contemplating taking a year off (extending one of my internships) so that I can have one more shot at the top schools.</p>
<p>Do I have a chance? Or am I crazy to even think of turning down / deferring a top 15 school for the opportunity... ? I have lots of varied experience and a high CS GPA, plus CS-related internships, but I worry that I haven't done enough explicitly related CS-stuff, i.e. publications in CS (I have them in biology, philosophy, physics, but none in CS), and programming contests. Plus I am now 28.</p>
<p>I think I've got an impressive resume, but I didn't get into the top schools last year... (perhaps due to one of my recommenders, a less than perfect math GRE score, a silly statement of purpose, and my dabbling in so many different things)</p>
<p>Should I defer for a year and try again, or just be happy to even have the opportunity to attend a top 15 school? Honestly I am not that excited about attending the school I got into this year :( but maybe this forum can convince me to either 1. reapply, or 2. be grateful for what I have.</p>