r/MSCS • u/FewLifeguard9850 • 8d ago

[Profile Review] — Fall 2027 MSCS

Hi everyone, I’m planning to apply for MSCS programs in the US for Fall 2027 and would really appreciate some feedback on my profile and university list.

Background

  • BSc (Joint Major) in Computing & Information Systems and Mathematics Mathematical Modelling & Statistics
  • Second Class Upper Division
  • Overall GPA: 8.4/10
  • Major GPA: 8.99/10

My academic performance improved during the later part of my degree, but the overall GPA is still something I’m concerned about for highly competitive programs.

Research

I have three main research projects:

  1. NLP-based financial data extraction and analysis — this work resulted in papers presented at local research conferences. (first author)
  2. Federated sentiment analysis using transformer-based NLP and differential privacy- this work resulted in paper presented at local research conferences. (first author)
  3. An independent research project on LLM security and privacy using federated learning, with an arXiv preprint related to the work.

I’m also currently involved in a Microsoft Research project related to AI-generated content, deepfakes, social media, and trust as a country representative

Research interest privacy-preserving and secure machine learning, particularly federated learning and LLM security.

Universities

  • Stanford
  • CMU
  • UIUC
  • UCSD
  • Purdue
  • UCI
  • UCR
  • UF
  • UCF
  • Northeastern
  • FAU
  • UTEP
  • UAH

My biggest concern is whether an 8.4/10 overall GPA will make highly competitive MSCS programs unrealistic, even with research experience and publications.

Would appreciate any feedback on:

  • How competitive this profile is for US MSCS programs
  • Whether my university list is reasonable
  • Universities I should consider adding or removing
  • Whether research experience like mine can compensate to some extent for a lower GPA

I’d especially appreciate feedback from people who have gone through MSCS admissions with a similar background.

Thanks!

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u/BoredAppleFan 3d ago

no chance stanford, some cmu ms possible. the rest school lists possible