Hi all. I’m currently finishing up my junior year as a CS major. I haven’t taken the GRE yet, which I will most likely do over the summer break.
Overall, my CGPA is a 3.65, and I expect it to either stay or improve for my final, senior year. My major GPA in CS is a 3.9. I have been a TA for several courses now, officially “working for” the university, a professor being my supervisor, and I also did a supervised independent study for a course in AI, if that helps.
I have figured that with a lack of “research experience” due to the minimal opportunities offered and not getting any REU offers, I’d have to reconsider the programs I intend to apply in the future. I am also aware of the fact that in order to get admitted to a “good” program, the GRE and GPA, as well as personal statements and letters of recommendation need to be very good.
Which of the programs in the list below would I have a shot? I am considering the following schools:
UCR, UCI, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UCD, UWash, UBuffalo, BU, and UPenn.
I am not exactly sure whether I should “risk” applying for the PhD program directly, as I’m lacking the research experience (assuming that my GRE, GPA, letters and personal statement will be “good”). Should I apply to the MS programs?
Any help and advice appreciated.
@econcalc You can certainly apply for MS programs, but you don’t necessarily need research experience to pursue a Ph.D. (although it can certainly be helpful!). I think having the TA experience will also help greatly if you apply.
Thanks for your reply. Usually it seems that “most successful” PhD applicants (that I’ve read about) already have some kind of exposure to research, which is why I’m bringing this up. Also, [this article by CMU](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf) is what led me ask this in the first place, which states the following:
Looking through some CVs of grad students at UC Santa Barbara for example, most PhD candidates seem to already have a master’s, which means that most likely, I’d be at a disadvantage, right?
You are going about this all wrong. Without research experience, you are completely wasting your time trying to get into PhD programs.
You have to get some research experience. Otherwise, you have no credibility with professors that you have carefully thought through your plans, and they have no reason to believe that you will be a good investment of their time and money.
With no research experience, your chances of getting into top notch PhD programs is low, but there’s not a big disadvantage so applying (cost and time, but you won’t see penalized for being rejected and applying again). You don’t necessarily need a masters degree to get research experience, but in CS I don’t think there are as many research assistant positions as in science fields (But definitely worth looking). You could apply to a combination of PhD and masters programs, PhDs as a reach and masters as a means to research experience
I’ve emailed a few CS departments and some of the directors encouraged applying for a PhD, while some encouraged to apply for an MS instead. I’ll probably focus on MS programs first, and maybe give lesser-known schools a shot for a PhD.