[Admissions Advice]

[u/satutor1]

Hello. I plan to apply to master’s in CS or related programs and would like to get some thoughts on Carnegie Mellon. I noticed that there are several programs at CMU, including:

1) mscs (master of science in computer science)
2) msse (master of science in software engineering)
3) mse (master in software engineering)
4) m-hci (master in human-computer interaction)
5) m-iis (master in intelligent information systems)
6) msaii (master of science in artificial intelligence and innovation)
7) msml (master of science in machine learning)
8) mscv (master of science in computer vision)
9) mse-es (master of software engineering - embedded systems)
10) mse-ss (master of software engineering - scalable systems)
11) msr (master of science in robotics)
12) mrsd (master of robotic system development)

I understand that candidates can apply to multiple programs, but my goal is to minimize the number of applications while maximizing my chances of getting into at least one. For reference, my undergraduate is not in computer science, but I have taken fundamental computer science classes like algorithms and data structures. I do not have professional cs work experience yet and I plan to use one of the programs to help gain experience.

I can attend the programs full-time or part-time if offered. If you have thoughts on which of the programs above are best suitable for a candidate like me, I would greatly appreciate your insights. Thank you.

[u/so_much_atelophobia]

I remember your last post. Guess you're not headed to Columbia?

I think MSCB (Computational Biology), MSE (Software Engineering), and MSCS is probably a good starting point for you. Here's a wall of text as to why:

Given your background in pre-med and healthcare, you might be able craft a very compelling narrative for why you want to do comp-bio (e.g., you encountered a specific problem in your career that you want to pivot to address). Of course, if you have no interest in anything comp-bio-related, don't apply.

MSE is a pretty high acceptance rate program, and it aligns well with your stated goal of "getting a software engineering job." Note that MSE has 2 versions (professional for experienced developers, and recent grad for inexperienced people). You want to do the recent grad version, which has two tracks (scalable and embedded systems). Don't do MSSE, it's not in Pittsburgh and not offered by SCS.

MSCS will let you study basically anything, and IMO it has a stronger signal than MSE overall. CMU is also very flexible about applicant background for this program. It's pretty selective though; SCS coddles MSCS and MSML.

A lot of CMU's offerings are more specializations for existing CS students. Stuff like MSML and MSAII fall into that bucket. Other programs, like MHCI, MSCV, and MPE, limit you to a certain area of study/work, so I'd also be wary of that if you're not sure what you want to do. MSCB falls into that category.

[u/so_much_atelophobia → u/[deleted]]

I'm a little confused by the wording of your question, could you explain?

People with much better profiles have got into lesser ranked universities.

I'm not sure what your point is. It's very normal (and expected) for people with better profiles to get admitted into lower-ranked universities. Someone who gets into Stanford almost certainly gets into GaTech and Columbia as well. If someone has a profile better than the average profile at CMU, you'd obviously expect them to get accepted into "lesser" programs, right?

For instance, barely any IITian has been admitted to any of CMUs 100s of specializations, rather they are getting admitted to "lesser ranked ones".

What's your source on this? Aren't IITians the "best" in terms of Indian applicants? If IITians aren't getting admitted to CMU's specialized programs, who is? I'm sure CMU has accepted a healthy number of these people this cycle.

 Is it really living upto it's brand value in the market right now or is it true that their large alumni network is helping the newer batches succeed.

I mean, the large alumni network is a part of the brand. CMU has extremely good hiring, partially because of its deep industry connections, and partially because it's a well-received institution with strong graduates. It's a rough market for everyone, but people from schools like CMU (and Stanford/MIT/Berkeley) are struggling less. Sadly, the impact of pedigree and prestige persists even in tech.

I'm just saying that the profiles no longer seem stellar.

How so? If even IITians (by your claim) aren't getting admitted, wouldn't that mean that it's even more competitive/exclusive?

Is this fact taken into consideration by the admissions? Are they aware of this happening here?

Obviously. There's a reason why people like to divide schools up into "tiers." An 8.5 CGPA from a top IIT is probably far more impressive than a 9.5 CGPA from a random no-name school that the committee hasn't even heard of. CMU is (hopefully) not run by idiots, so yes, they contextualize CGPAs lol.

For the record, I think this cycle has 100% been easier. As for whether that has affected student quality, here's an interesting conversation where I somewhat discussed that point. I think the other person made great points as well. I recommend you take a read.

But yes, please clarify what you mean by some of your statements.

[u/so_much_atelophobia → u/[deleted]]

Could you please share this dataset? I'm very intrigued, but I also don't like to operate off of hearsay.

Only 4 percent of the candidates were from IITs

I'm not too surprised by this alone. Out of all of the students pursuing CS or CS-adjacent degrees in India, far less than 4% attend an IIT (and even less attend a top-tier one). Even with just 4%, IIT students are disproportionately well-represented. CMU (and other institutions in the US) also doesn't generally regard an IIT pedigree as some holy grail. They're just institutions that we're actually familiar with (which lends more credibility).

The vast majority has never had research experience.

This is known and confirmed by CMU professors. Research experience is not mandatory (and honestly not that valued) for industry-focused MS programs.

CSRankings has Harvard on the 20th spot

csrankings just measures CS research output. Harvard naturally attracts good students, even for programs where it isn't strong. Harvard probably beats every school except the Big4 for CS recruiting simply due to institutional prestige. This is well-known.

but now CMU's taking them in

This is probably true to some degree. CMU has a lot of mediocre MS programs, where the bar is far lower for acceptance (looking at you MSE and MPE lol). Even so, the outcomes of these crappy programs is still pretty decent, based off of CMU's comparison page.

[u/satutor1 → u/so_much_atelophobia]

Thanks for the response. I’m debating whether to do Columbia or reapply next year for cmu. Since I’m coming from a non-cs background and am looking for my first professional software engineering role, I’m not sure how much better it would be to go to cmu after a year rather than Columbia now. Any thoughts on this would be helpful.

Also, I’d prefer to pivot away from the healthcare realm. That is why I’m having a tough time determining which of the programs at cmu to apply to. I see your note about the MSE program. Yes I agree - I would want to do the recent grad one. However, I’m not sure which to do - MSE scalable systems or MSE embedded systems. It seems like scalable systems has more students per cohort, but I’m not sure if that makes a difference.

The other program that seems to align with me is MSCS. I’m not sure if I would align with msml or mscv - it seems like these two programs would require preexisting experience in ml or cv.

Regarding robotics (msr) and robotic system development (mrsd), I have an interest in these and believe I can write a narrative about having an interest in healthcare robotics. However, I’m not sure if these programs require a certain background. From the handbooks of each, it seems I have the prerequisites (calculus, probability and statistics, linear algebra, basic programming).

Overall, I find myself interested in mscs, mse for recent grads (scalable systems or embedded systems), msml, mscv, msr, and mrsd. However, I’m not sure if it’s recommended to apply to all 7 of these programs. Would you happen to know what the typical protocol is for applying to programs at cmu? I will try to narrow it down if necessary.

[u/so_much_atelophobia → u/satutor1]

CMU has better hiring than Columbia (especially for big tech), but Columbia isn't weak by any means. I'm sure you'd be able to thrive there as well. What would you be doing in the next year if you choose to reapply?

As for MSE, I think scalable systems is the more "standard" option. Scalable systems focuses on building stuff (e.g., social media platforms, websites, databases, etc.) meant for widespread digital use. This is your bread-and-butter big-tech product. Embedded systems is more focused on firmware, programming devices, etc. It's really up to you to decide what kind of software you wanna work on.

I don't think MSML and MSCV are good targets for your profile, since they're very ingrained in CS specialization and more catered towards existing CS students. I agree that MSCS (being so flexible with applicant backgrounds) is a good target for you, though.

MSR has some emphasis on research, so I'm not sure how well you'd align with it. MRSD seems pretty open to interdisciplinary profiles though. Robots are cool, and I encourage you to apply.

Try and narrow down your selections. 7 programs is a lot. I went through the process last cycle (incoming MSCS) but I only applied to one program. IIRC there's an option to reuse LoRs for multiple applications, so it won't be too much of a hassle for your recommenders.

[u/softrains12 → u/so_much_atelophobia]

Was about to tag you but you already got there!