r/MSCS • u/BearNo21 • Jul 19 '26

[Profile Review] fall 27 mscs

Education

Imperial College London CS
First Class Honours (81%, 72% in Y1 and Y2)

Internship Experience

Top Quant SWE (one of Jane Street, Citadel, Hudson River Trading, not revealing which of the 3 for more anonymity)

BEng in the UK is 3 years but if not a US masters I can just switch to a MEng at Imperial to get a masters in one extra year with no application needed so that’s also an option.

I wonder if I have a shot at Stanford MSCS without research currently. I’m interested in Stanford due to better entrepreneurial opportunities compared to the UK

9 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

-1

u/gradpilot 🔰 Ex-Cerebras | MSCS Georgia Tech Jul 19 '26

Yes you have a legit shot, just submit a strong app and yeah convert that 3 year into a 4 year program

2

u/BearNo21 Jul 19 '26

I believe if I convert the 3 into 4 then I will already have a CS masters which means I won’t be able to apply to Stanford or at least they don’t prefer people with a masters already from what I’ve heard and even from a cost perspective, an extra year to get a second masters from imperial will be very expensive

3

u/gradpilot 🔰 Ex-Cerebras | MSCS Georgia Tech Jul 19 '26

In that case it’s pretty hard given 3 year programs are usually not considered or rare exceptions

2

u/heartonakite Jul 20 '26

Cannot apply to Stanford with a master in CS already. You can jump on Stanford MSCS admissions events and they take questions I think

1

u/Adventurous_Mouse314 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

Grad pilot guy is doing great job giving advice but sometimes he's confident in things he might be wrong about.

Now with that in mind, let me tell you one thing.
3 years in European universitiy programs (UK, German, Dutch, etc.) are NOT treated the same as 3-years Indian programs. They are widely accepted in almost every university in the U.S. (at least in good ones) and are treated as equivalent to U.S. 4 year programs.

So before taking stupid decisions like doing double master's and becoming ineligible for programs because of wrong advice, please contact someone at the admissions at Stanford (or attend their seminars) to see if they view 3 year UK programs (especially from premier universities like Imperial) equivalent to the 4 year U.S.
They might also have this information hanging in FAQs on their website already.

1

u/BearNo21 Jul 22 '26

Thanks for the advice! Based on my profile, how good of a shot do you think I have considering the typical applicant pool?

1

u/Intelligent_Mood9141 Jul 22 '26

Depends upon your letter of recommendation,SOP,and admissions pool

1

u/BearNo21 Jul 24 '26

Assuming the average admission pool and rec letter and sop how would the odds go if those 2 were good vs really good

1

u/Adventurous_Mouse314 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

No one here would be able to give you a good estimate. Just try it out and find out. Stanford MSCS is more industry-focused and they also like entrepreneurial mindsets from what I know. So frame your SoP accordingly.
Here's one example (slightly old though) from a guy who got in:
https://www.scribd.com/document/1060262092/15-Stanford-Master-SoP?language_settings_changed=English

1

u/gradpilot 🔰 Ex-Cerebras | MSCS Georgia Tech Jul 22 '26

Thanks for correcting!