<p>Hello all,</p>
<p>I have begun investing my time in searching for a graduate school focused around computer science. For kicks I've been looking at some of the most competitive programs and wanted to get opinions on what my chances for getting into some of their PhD programs are (maybe Master's might be different?)</p>
<p>I graduate from Cal State Long Beach with a Bachelor's in Computer Science.
I held a 3.67 GPA while working full-time some years. I was also an officer for the campus' ACM branch for four years and a tutor (CS and Math) for three years. I am well known in my department and know several teachers who would write me stellar letters of recommendation - I even taught some lessons on occasion.<br>
I have been part of a NASA-sponsored research project and am published in an IEEE scholarly journal. I also took part in an ACM programming competition in Riverside (and subsequently helped teach future attendees).<br>
I have not yet taken the GRE test but will soon, and I am not sure how high my score will be on it. I am negatively predisposed to the test because I find it a poor measure of a person's intellect. If anything it gives insight to the monkeys that write it, because some questions are just incomprehensible.</p>
<p>Outside of academics I am working in industry in physics simulation (which is awesome) and just recently became a private pilot. I don't think this would really affect my application much, but it might be something interesting for them to notice. :)</p>
<p>What do you feel are my chances of getting into graduate programs at schools like:
Stanford, Cornell, CMU, University of Washington, UC Berkeley?</p>
<p>I am personally pessimistic because I know how competitive those schools are, but it wouldn't hurt to try! :)</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>