Getting into an ivy league graduate school?

Graduate School
1

I’d like to know what my chances are of getting into an ivy league graduate school?

This is what my application will look like
-Major: Computer Science
-Minor: Mathematics
-Minor: General Business
-GPA: 3.58, made the dean’s list most semesters
-GRE: 156 verbal, 162 math, 5.5 writing
-Research with the Police department in my home town for two semesters, helping them with IT stuff and with developing criminal databases
-Study abroad in Germany for 6 weeks last summer for a research opportunity in Artifical Intelligence
-Study abroad in Australia for 6 weeks last summer for another research opportunity in Artificial intelligence
-Semester in Tokyo (this is upcoming), taking a few classes in web development and a robotics engineering class
-Study abroad in Cuba, winter break during sophomore year (nothing to do with major though)
-Study abroad for 6 weeks, 2 summers ago, in South Korea (also had nothing to do with my major)
-I also took an average of 19-21 credits each semester
-I am also going to graduate a semester early (the semester in tokyo is not part of my current school, just something I wanted to do)
-I speak English, Japanese, and German (taken the standardized proficiency tests and everything) and have a little understanding of Mandarin and Korean
-I volunteer at the women’s shelter and homeless shelters in my hometown

So what would my chances be? My biggest concern is the GPA. I heard ivy league doesn’t accept anything below a 3.8. But I’ve also heard that research experience is the most important thing. Any feedback would be great.

2

No idea what level school you are at nor why you only want a Ivy

3

^ or which Ivy, or which department/major/degree program OP wants to apply for, for that matter.

4

Grad school admissions is all about GRE score, GPA & recs from professors in that major. They are interested in diversity, so if your sex or race is underrepresented, you might get a bump.

Is the ivy better regarded for your major? If not, then why bother.

I turned down a full ride + stipend to an ivy for grad school, in favor of a school that was top ranked for my major. It was the right decision because that’s where the job recruiters were.

5

BIG difference between a PhD program and a MA program (for those Ivy’s that offer a terminal MA).

For a PhD in Math or Comp Sci, for example, your numbers are low. Medians are more like a 3.8/168/160.

In addition to GPA, you need a much higher GRE Quant score for a quant PhD program. (Remember, the Quant section just covers advanced high school math so someone aiming at a top quant school, better have a top quant score bcos most to the accepted applicants will have the same.)

6

I think you need to do a lot of research. The Ivy league is an undergraduate sports league. It has nothing to do with graduate education. You should be looking at which programs or departments meet your needs. And graduate schools don’t care about a laundry list of “EC’s”. They look for excellence, research and/or work experience in the area you’ll be studying. They will not care that you volunteer at women’s shelters or speak a smattering of some language or spent a few weeks studying abroad somewhere doing something irrelevant to your field.

7

What program? Master’s? PhD? MBA?
Why just the Ivies? Are they even the best for whatever program you’re targeting?

You have a very interesting set of experiences but taken together, they don’t provide a hint of what you plan to do or study in grad school, Ivy or otherwise. If you want to delve further into AI (get a PhD), then you need to research AI departments and who is doing the research you like (and find out if they take on grad students).

I think you need to put more thought in to what you want to accomplish in grad school, how you plan to do so, and with whom. Ivy or not is secondary.

8

This varies greatly based upon program. For a PhD program, research experience and research interests expressed in the personal statement are probably the most important thing, followed by GPA and recommendations from professors. GRE scores are actually further down the list of importance. (Also, I don’t think there’s a bump for being a woman or a racial or ethnic minority at the graduate level. It’s a nice to have, but not something that will get you in. It’s something that might get you some fellowship money for underrepresented students, though.)

I agree that it’s impossible to answer this question without more information about what you’re looking for. For a PhD program, you have a string of unconnected research projects and generally PhD programs like to see some sustained effort on a single project and/or in a single laboratory (it shows that you can stick with something for longer than a few weeks and see it to completion). Also, helping the police with IT stuff and developing databases doesn’t sound like research work, so it’s unclear what the nature of that is. Also, if you are interested in a quant-oriented program (CS or math), a 162 GRE is pretty low. I think it’s very common for people entering those programs to have very close to the 170.

If you want an MBA, you need work experience.

If you want a master’s in CS or math, you might be more competitive, although the point about the quant GRE score still stands.

Also, any rigid standards you’ve ‘heard’ are probably false. I went to an Ivy for graduate school and my undergrad GPA was a 3.42. Generally speaking a good benchmark for master’s programs is a 3.0 and for a PhD program is a 3.5. Your GPA is fine.

9

Let me put it to you this way. I personally know several people who did not have 3.8 GPA’s, yet still got into Harvard.