<p>Hi guys, I will be applying for Masters in Computer Science in this upcoming admissions cycle. I've heard from many people that the recommendation letters are the most important factor in admission, is this true?</p>
<p>Also, I'm an international student and my university give marks out of 100. Will the admission committee in the US care much about my actual mark, or will they just look at the proportion of A's I get as they would when calculating GPA? For example, if I just scraped pass getting A's for many courses, but they are still A's.</p>
<p>My GRE score is 800M, 410V, 4.0W. I can probably improve it but not sure if it's worth retaking; I've heard from many that GRE is not that important in admissions.</p>
<p>Do you have any idea on what constitutes a good GRE subject test score (in Computer Science) particularly for competitive places. Would the 90th percentile+ be considered very good even for the top universities?</p>
<p>Lastly, I did study abroad for a year in the US but obtained very bad grades (gpa 2.7) mainly because I took very ambitious courses (advanced graduate-level courses). Do most universities require that I send transcript for this one-year study abroad, or should I just not send it because of the bad grades. Note that I will briefly mention the study abroad program in my statement of purpose.</p>
<p>Thank you in advance for any replies.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Universities ask for every transcript from every college you applied to. If you identify your study-abroad, then they will want to see your transcript.</p></li>
<li><p>I have no idea for GRE CS subject score. I know for most applicants it is not at all necessary to take. Maybe this is different for international? </p></li>
<li><p>I would say your GRE score is fine, for an international applicant. 800Q is awesome.</p></li>
<li><p>I would say for masters, GPA is a little more important than letters of recommendation. They are both important though!</p></li>
<li><p>I have no idea how they will look at your grades, sorry!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you for your comment, fatpig.</p>
<p>I believe I have good enough grades, but my university doesn’t calculate GPA. Basically out of the 20 courses I took, I obtained the highest grade possible in 18 of them (which I guess are equivalent to an A in the US).</p>
<p>What really shine through in my application though are the recommendation letters. I believe that I have really good letters, and I’m hoping that these are enough to get me admitted.</p>
<p>For clarity I just took the GRE CS subject test and didn’t go as well as I had planned. Probably I will get around the 90th percentile or at least a high 80th.</p>
<p>I would appreciate it if anyone else could comment on the 4th point above; how will the US admission commitee look at my grades (just the letter grade or the actual % mark)?</p>
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<p>Yeah, way to add an insult to it…</p>
<p>It depends on what your university reports your grades as on the transcript. By the way your are phrasing it, it seems like they might give a raw percentile mark as well as a grade. So, if I am understanding you correctly, you are worried because you only barely got As and are worried that they might be concerned because you have the lowest mark for that A. Is that correct?</p>
<p>yes that is correct. My university give marks out of 100 (>80 being the highest grade, i guess this would be equivalent to an A grade) and I average around 83/100. However, most of my grades are still A’s (18 out of 20 courses that I took are A’s).</p>