I am a rising CS senior in UIUC. Currently my GPA is around 3.84, had 2 research experiences, no publications. But for the first one I am mostly doing engineering and developing works. The second one is about NLP, I just started not too long ago, didn’t see any chance to get publications. Next semester I plan to start new research about functional programming and computer vision. Had two internships (doubt if they matter in grad application), did some machine learning works. Do I have a chance getting in top tier master programs? My GPA is not high, and I don’t see my research competitive either… Thanks for any advices!
Your GPA is high, and you seem to have a solid amount of research experience, probably enough to know what type of graduate work you’d like to do. Yes, you have a good chance.