<p>im 24 and im studying Medicine and Computer Science in Germany.
In Spring 2012, if everything works fine, i will have a bachelor degree in Computer science
and Ill be a Physician. It was my goal to focus on Surgery-Robotics and Artificial Intelligence in my future carreer.
Thats why i studied the two subjects und and really worked hard
to study those tuff subjects parallely. When Im ready in 2012 , I have studied 6 Years, so I can say that i managed to study both things without loosing to much time. (Physician needs at least 6 years studying here).
One Disadvantage i think I have, is that it was unimpossible to finish both subjects brilliantly, but very succesful. This means I will not reach over the 95th percentile in my
record of transcripts, but lets say over 75 to 80th percentile.
Now Im thinking about getting a Masters degree in Computer Science in America.
I know, for getting in admission in a highly well reputed College, I also need
good GRE-Score, Letters of Recommendations and so on.</p>
<p>But do You think, will I get a good chance for an admission (e.g for Harvard School of Applied Science or Stanford), though I have no brilliant record of transcripts?
Do you think the admission-commitee will (or would You personally) value highly my achievement, that i finished those two subjects
parallely?
Maybe for a lot of studius hard working americans, this is just normal, I dont know.</p>
<p>I would be thankful for every helpful comment,
Thanks!</p>
<p>It’s difficult to say because the grading standards are different in Germany from the U.S.'s standards. In the U.S., a 75 to 80 is a C+ or B- average, which wouldn’t do you any favors in master’s admissions. But that’s not the case everywhere. I know that in the UK system a 75 is equivalent to an A here.</p>
<p>You’ll have to do a grade conversion of your German GPA to an American GPA. You can either find someone at your university to help you do this or search online for conversion charts. Then you might have a better picture.</p>
<p>This is an unusual situation, so I don’t know how much this board can help. Keep checking back for additional postings.</p>
<p>No one can tell you your chances, you have to take a leap of faith. For MS in Robotics or AI, research schools that excell in these areas and professors who you are interested in working with (read their bio, read journals.) Be sure to include schools like Carnagie-Mellon and Brown University, among others. You definately need a good list of strong schools like this, not just pie-in-sky schools with extremely selective admit rates.</p>
<p>You will certainly be an interesting candidate. If your school is known and your professors are known to admissions committee, it will help.</p>
<p>I doubt they will give you a break for lower grades due to a second degree. They don’t care about the other work you have done, but rather how well you have done in the field you plan to study. Only consider your chances at various schools with your gpa for computer science- those are the people you are competing with. Those in the US wishing to do basic science/medically related subjects don’t need to bother with a degree in medicine. Speaking as a physician, I doubt you will have that much expertise in surgery to wow any grad schools with your knowledge base to give you an edge over others with better credentials in computer science. To become a surgeon in the US you need the 5 plus years after medical school and would learn practical use of robotics during that time. You may also check on degrees offered by schools- some may expect their grad students to go for the PhD and not plan on only an MS.</p>
<p>Hi julx55,
I graduated from a top 5 engineering program in the U.S. I did a double major in computer science engineering and electrical engineering along with a minor in nuclear engineering and another minor in mathematics. I graduated with 150 credits in 4 years (the required in the u.s. for engineering is generally 128 credits). It does give you a very slight advantage which cancels out by having a lower GPA (as opposed to if we both focused on CS only). Most admissions committee won’t care at all, it certainly makes your application worth looking at but it won’t give you the needed edge over other applicants. As an advice, when applying, do not discuss having multiple majors. Be focused and centric on one topic only.</p>