Chances of getting into a top CS program

Graduate School
1

<p>Can anyone tell me if I have a good chance of getting accepted to one of the following schools for their Computer Science Masters program? My top choices are: Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, and Princeton. </p>

<p>I have a bachelors in Mathematics from University of Florida. </p>

<p>My GRE scores were 800 Q, and 730 V, and my undergraduate GPA was 3.43. </p>

<p>I have been out of school for several years now, and I've been working for about 2 years now as a software engineer. </p>

<p>I am planning to ask my most recent employers to write recommendations for me, as opposed to my professors. </p>

<p>Can anyone tell me how you think I will line up for these schools?</p>

2

<p>I’d recommend applying to some less selective schools as well. Even with much better stats and lots of research experience, none of those are certain.</p>

3

<p>Agreed with the above. I’ll be applying to the same schools for CS PhD, and from what I’ve found, acceptance rates hover at around 5% or lower. This is a very helpful document on CS PhD:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>based upon DS experience, I would reword “less selective” to “lessor known” but just as good if not better.</p>

5

<p>I would highly recommend getting at least one professor to write a recommendation. Relying on employers only might be a strike against you.</p>

6

<p>your GPA is too low, you need to apply to schools at different tiers</p>

7

<p>There’s this line in the document that Phantasmagoric linked to:</p>

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<p>A couple of thing to keep in mind: 1. This professor is talking about CMU, one of the top CS schools in the country, but still, only one university 2. The information refers to PhD program admissions. It is much easier to gain admissions to M.S. programs.</p>

<p>Much will depend on what you’ve done as a software engineer and your LORs. Your grades have not hit that 3.5 mark, so any admissions committee will have to look at other aspects of your application. Although your GREs, particularly the verbal, are impressive, they won’t gain you admission by themselves.</p>

<p>Take the advice of others. Go ahead and apply to those very competitive programs, but also apply to several lower down if you’re set on getting your M.S.</p>

8

<p>Your GPA is OK and your GRE score is really good. However, those schools are really competitive. There are a lot of ppl who have the same credentials. However, your work experience can be an advantage</p>