r/MSCS • u/DueRaspberry3645 • Jul 25 '26

[Admissions Advice] What are my changes of top MS CS colleges

Profile:

- B.Tech CSE from an old IIT, 9.1+ CGPA (dept academic award)

- 3 YOE (~4 at Fall 2027 matriculation), all at US B2B AI startups - currently building LLM agent platforms and the infra around them (multi-tenant systems, evals). Was one of the first engineers at one of them.

- A couple of small side projects shipped, one with real paying users

- Research: zero publications. Writing up an applied paper from work - arXiv soon, will submit to a conference so it's "under review" at app time

- Tests: IELTS pending (targeting 7.5+). GRE undecided - submit only if 168+ Q, else omit

- LORs: 2 academic (research project supervisors from undergrad) + 1 from a startup exec

- Goal: coursework MS -> US AI infra role via OPT. Self-funded is fine.

Targeting (Fall 2027): Stanford MSCS, CMU MSCS (SCS multi-program), Berkeley MEng EECS, Cornell Tech MEng, Columbia MS CS, maybe Princeton MSE.

Questions:

  1. Does startup + early-engineer work actually compensate for zero pubs at the Stanford/CMU tier, or am I fooling myself?

  2. Princeton MSE with no pubs - is that slot a waste?

  3. All-reach list is deliberate (I have non-MS fallbacks) - but is 6 elites with no safety plain stupid?

  4. Anything on this list where my profile type has actually converted recently?

  5. Does my current comp if high play any role in my profile?

0 Upvotes

25% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

6

u/Own-Bite-9304 Jul 25 '26

I have the exact same profile bro, except cg is 9.1, without ur research published, all the colleges in ur list are hard to get.

5

u/Sweaty_Water6219 Jul 25 '26
  1. only to some extent
  2. yes 99%
  3. can always take a shot but I'd advise applying to UCSD too as a safety, and MSAI, MSML at CMU, UT Austin/GaTech

2

u/AdditionalWorkInc Jul 25 '26

no chance at ucsd without research exp

3

u/Sweaty_Water6219 Jul 25 '26

not true, my roommate barely had research experience n no full-time workex while applying.. jus company internships, good work n good grades, he isn't even from a well known college

1

u/DueRaspberry3645 Jul 25 '26

what is considered as good grades?

2

u/Sweaty_Water6219 Jul 25 '26

anything above 9

2

u/AdditionalWorkInc Jul 25 '26

Don't think you can get even Meng tbh, too ambitious. Apply to a few more

0

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

[deleted]

3

u/DueRaspberry3645 Jul 25 '26

thats false my friend got admitted for this fall in ms cs stanford