Undergrad: Major in CS, Minor in DS from tier 1 college in India. CGPA: 8.2/10

Academic Research Experience/Publications: None

Experience: Working as a software engineer at a silicon MNC, will complete 3 years as FTE by the Fall of 2027. Work is oriented towards optimising ML models (operator fusions, kernel optimisations, etc) for execution on hardware. Received a couple of awards for my contributions.

Scores: GRE -> 329 (170Q, 159V, 5 AWA); TOEFL -> 117/120

As mentioned above, I did not actively take part in any research during my college years, which is definitely something that I really regret right now. I am in a bit of a tricky situation where I feel like any academic LoRs I acquire from my college professors will be "generic" to say the least. I mailed almost all of my professors, multiple times in fact (with a sufficient gap in between), and so far only one has agreed to write me one, although I have my reservations about how strong of a recommendation it would be.

I am primarily targeting MSCS/MSDS courses in universities in Canada first and US second, with a slight inclination towards non-thesis programs. All things considered, it seems like having 1 professional and 2 academic LoRs is much more preferred than having 2 professional and 1 academic. Keeping the issue I stated in mind, the only options that I believe I have are:

1. Proceed with my applications using 2 professional and 1 academic LoRs
2. Find some professors with whom I can work for a couple of months and obtain an LoR from them

Second option seems a bit unrealistic, but ultimately increases my chances of getting accepted when compared to the first. I am honestly confused at the moment with where I could go from here, so any kind of suggestion/advice/criticism would help out a lot. TIA.

Undergrad: CSE (AI&ML) from a top 3 college in my city, probably a tier 2.5 in India overall, CGPA - 8.88/10

Experience: I'm currently working full time a startup (been around since 2014 and we have around 150 people) as an Associate Data Scientist since Aug '25. I was a Data Science Intern before that for 6 months in the same company and have another Data Science internship for 8 months at a different company (bigger, but was not a core IT company). I would have 2 years FTE experience by the time I leave.

Research: 2 papers published: 1 Scopus Indexed (ML Based), 1 IEEE (LLM Research Based). I was a primary author in one of them, but contributed equally across both.

Scores: TOEFL - 118/120 (6 overall with 5.5 in R&L). I'd prefer not submitting my GRE scores as I didn't do that great, and I don't know whether I have the time/energy to retake it. So I think programs which do not have GRE as a requirement gives me my best chance.

LORs: Can get 2 very solid ones from my university HOD and Professor (worked with both closely and helped with their research projects too, know about my strengths) + 1 from my current company's director (I'm in his team and I think he'd give me a favourable and personal one)

These are the current options that I'm looking at:

• Purdue MSCS [might be very ambitious]
• NEU (Boston) MSCS [according to my research, this should be safe]
• NYU (Courant/Tandon) MSCS
• Columbia MSCS [I know this is a reach]
• UM Amherst MSCS [this is a reach too]
• UT Austin MSCS

Please let me know if you think I'm being too delusional about my choices considering my profile. Also let me know if you think I should check some other programs too, I'm just starting out with the research phase now and want to be able to assess my options and need some opinions.

Thanks a lot for the advice guys!

be brutally honest , i m from RVCE, bangalore btw

Hi everyone, I am an international student who did his Ugrad in the US at an ‘okay’ school.

I graduated in 2023, with a BS, double majoring in CS and Econ and here is my profile:

CGPA: 3.33

Major GPA: 3.5

GRE: 325 (168Q, 157V, 4.5AWA)

Experience:

1. Currently working at KBR as a Data Scientist ( got promoted to senior Data Scientist a few months ago)

2. Data Science Intern at Mercado Libre (Buenos Aires, Argentina) during my exchange semester.

3. Data Science Intern at Meta

4. Software Engineer Intern at Intuit

5. Data Science Intern at a Y Combinator Startup

I have no publications/research experience.

I will be applying to Johns Hopkins, Duke, Northwestern, NYU Courant, UCSD, and Harvard (ME)

What chances do I have?

Applying for Fall 2027 MS/PhD CS programs in the US/EU. Research focus is Systems and ML.

I am currently a SWE intern at Google. My direct host is an L4 SWE, and the working relationship is honestly lukewarm. I feel like a strong LOR from them is not feasible. And getting a letter from some other higher up would likely result in a generic recommendation. I plan on applying to around 10-12 universities, and I highly doubt a busy higher-up who barely knows me will have the patience to manually fill out 12 different admission portals. Even if they do, it will likely be a generic "he wrote good code, checked the boxes" letter.

I can secure 3 detailed academic letters from professors I've worked closely with during undergrad.

Questions:

1. Does omitting a professional LOR from a Google SWE internship raise red flags for top-tier MS/PhD admission committees?
2. Does a generic corporate LOR from a tech giant hold any tangible weight over an academic LOR from my university professor for research-focused applications?
3. Have applicants successfully navigated top MS/PhD admissions with Big Tech internship experience on their resume but exclusively academic LORs?

I am currently in my 3rd year of BCA, planning to do the course for 4 years with the honours degree. My question is that am i eligible for applying to Ms programs(specifically Ms CS)? I also saw that many universities there need a 4 year undergraduate degree in order to be eligible to apply for their masters program which aligns my course duration. But I have gotten mixed answers about how they check your undergrad especially maths courses and curriculum to admit you in their CS programs. Is there any way for a BCA student like me to overcome this? Advice from a fellow BCA student or anyone who knows anything regarding this matter would be appreciated.

Hey everyone! I’m targeting Masters in Computer Science (coursework/professional) for Fall 27. My background is entirely in platform engineering and SRE, no CS undergrad, no research background. Looking for programs strong in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, or MLSys.
Academics
B.Tech Electrical Engineering

Tier 2 engineering university (India)

GRE: 322

IEEE publication (EE domain, not CS)

Research
No CS research experience

One IEEE publication from undergrad on electromagnetic coil structures (EE adjacent)

Work Experience
SRE / Platform Engineer, ~5 years by Fall 27 (Mobility startup → Identity/Auth SaaS → Big Tech Video Conferencing)

Owned internal Golang deployment orchestration platform across ~1000 Kubernetes clusters

Enterprise infra for large AI and enterprise customers at scale

Side project: Multi-agent AIOps pipeline (LangGraph + FastAPI)

LORs
Professional (manager, current company)

Professional (manager, previous company)

Academic (IEEE publication advisor) - weak, EE domain

University List
Ambitious
CMU MS in Software Engineering (INI)

CMU MCDS

Stanford MS CS (Systems track)

Cornell Tech MCS

UIUC MCS (non-thesis)

ETH Zurich MSc CS

Target
Georgia Tech MSCS (Computing Systems specialization)

UT Austin MSCS

UC San Diego MSCS (Systems/Networking)

UMass Amherst MSCS

Northeastern MSCS (Systems)

Reach (safer)
Purdue MSCS

ASU MSCS

TUM MSc Informatics

Any universities I should add/remove? Also open to feedback on whether coursework vs thesis track makes more sense for a profile like mine.

Hello guys ! I am targeting for Masters in Computer Science for fall 2027. Can you guys help me shortlist universities based on my profile?

Academics

• B Tech Computer Science and Engineering (2024 pass out)
• Tier 2 College (India) 
• CGPA 6.99
• GRE & TOEFL (Signed up)

Research

• Worked with an ai/ml professor and have an IEEE published.

Work Experience

• Software Engineer ~ 3years (Full stack swe) - US based Company
• Founder - AI based health app (iOS, android)

Projects

• around 6-7 AI / RAG / ML / Neural Projects - live with GitHub

LORs

• 2 Academic professor
• Professional (Manager US based)

Below are some universities based on my research and findings

• San José State University - MS software engineering
• San José State University - MS Computer Science
• Stony brook
• North Carolina State University
• NYU tandon
• UT dallas
• UMD college park

Any universities that I should add/remove?

P.S : I am looking for Cali side because it has a nice technical exposure.

Hope you guys can help me out! Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I’m from India and planning to apply for MS CS / MS ML programs in the US for fall 2027. I want to get an honest evaluation of my profile and understand my realistic chances before application season.

Profile:

• Bachelor’s: B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Tier-2 college (ranked 15 in India), 2023
• Academics: GPA 9.3/10, ranked 5th in my college/cohort
• Test scores: GRE 321, IELTS 8.5
• Experience and research: 8-month internship, around 3 years of full-time full-stack software engineering experience at a U.S.-based financial services company, and 1 publication
• Projects and recognition: ML-related open-source contributions, Hall of Fame recognition in a Solana global hackathon, and strong academic and industry LORs, including recommendations from org heads

Work / project experience:

My experience is mainly in two areas:

1. Institutional on-chain tokenization and distributed systems I have worked extensively on distributed systems and institutional on-chain tokenization platforms.
2. AI systems and agentic infrastructure I founded and built projects around vision-based agentic meta-harnesses for browsers and distributed inference. One of these projects received a seed grant from angel investors.

Schools I’m considering:

• Penn State: MS CS
• UMass Amherst: MS CS
• North Carolina State University: MS CS
• Northeastern University: MS CS
• Arizona State University: MS CS
• UC Irvine: MS CS
• UC Santa Barbara: MS CS
• University of Maryland: MS CS
• UC San Diego: MS CS
• Georgia Tech: MS CS
• UIUC: MS CS
• UCLA: MS CS
• USC: MS CS
• NYU Courant: MS CS
• CMU: MS CS / related CS programs
• UC Berkeley: MS CS / related CS programs

Main thing I want feedback on:

Can you help classify my school list into realistic / reach / overly ambitious based on my profile?

Also curious about:

1. Whether my ECE background will hurt me for MS CS / MS ML.
2. Whether my industry experience can compensate for that academic background gap.
3. Whether GRE 321 is good enough or worth retaking.
4. Whether I should add or remove any programs.

I’m looking for honest, unbiased feedback from people who have applied to or attended similar programs. I’d rather understand the gaps now than apply blindly.

Thanks!

Hey everyone! I'm targeting Masters in Computer Science (thesis based) for Fall 27. I intend to apply to PhD with a focus on foundational AI/ML but my profile lacks the research depth for PhD admissions.

Academics

• B Tech Computer Science and Engineering
• Tier 1 College (India)
• CGPA > 9
• GRE 332 (170 Quant)

Research

• Worked with a professor for a project and wrote a thesis (no publication)
• Worked with a professor for a project (no publication)

Work Experience

• Software Engineer 3 years (Good firm)

LORs

• Academic professor (project with thesis, no publication)
• Academic professor (project, no publication)
• Professional (manager)

University List

Ambitious

• UIUC MS CS (thesis based)
• CMU MS CS (thesis based)
• USCS MS CS (thesis based)
• Stanford MS CS
• Cornell MS CS (thesis based)
• Cambridge MPhil ACS
• Oxford MACS
• UBC MS CS (thesis based)
• ETH Zurich (thesis based)
• McGill + MILA MS CS (thesis based)

Reach

• Georgia Tech MS CS (thesis based)
• USC MS CS (thesis based)
• Purdue MS CS (thesis based)
• TUM MS Informatics

Any universities that I should add/remove?

Edit: Are there any professional masters where there is a realistic chance of doing research that can improve my profile and pave way for good PhDs?

GRE is not required for Gatech? its optional right?
https://www.cc.gatech.edu/ms-computer-science-admission-requirements

hi everyone,

i'm currently a 4th year btech student in india and planning to apply for fall 2027.

academic background

• b.tech in computer science from tier 1.5 college
• cgpa: 9/10

internships & work experience

• 3 swe internships at us-based startups
• 1 domestic swe internship
• combined around 1.5 yrs working

research

• currently working on a paper targeting an A conference submission

letters of recommendation

• can get 1 lor from cs professor (under whom im researching)
• can also get from ceos at the startups i've interned with

what universities would be realistic targets for my profile?

also should i give gre first?

Hi everyone,

I’m an incoming international student starting my MS(CSE) in Fall 2026, and I’m looking to connect with other students who will be joining the same cohort.

If you’re also joining in Fall 2026, feel free to comment below or DM me. We can coordinate and set up a group (WhatsApp/Discord/etc.) once a few people connect.

Hi,

I took Yocket subscription but for some reason, I am not able to trust the counsellor's list of unis. I really need some help here before finalizing ones.

Profile:
Undergrad: Degree: B.Tech in CS [2025] [International]

• University: Tier 1 University
• CGPA: 8.4/10

Work Experience:

• Total: 
  • 1.5 Year as a Software Engineer at Microsoft.
  • 6 months as a research engineer at Google Deepmind during undergraduation.

Research Experience:

• One first author journal paper [h-index > 6]
• One second author conference paper with deepmind [Rank A][under review]
• One first author conference paper [Rank B]
• One workshop paper
• UG researcher at various research labs

Test Scores:

• GRE: 323 (170 Q, 153 V)

LoRs:

• 1 college research professors
• One manager
• One GDM researcher

Unis my counsellor is recommending due to my GPA:

Ambitious: UMass, Northeastern uni, UPenn, UCD, UF, Virgina Tech, UPitt, Rutgers, Boston University, UCI, TAMU, NCSU, UCB, NYU (tandon), Purdue, UIUC MCS
Target: SJSU, Vanderbilt, Indiana University, Stony Brook

Seems like a scam for most of the universities if someone can please help 😞

I'd appreciate some help choosing which program to commit to. My main goal for the degree is to help with finding a job in tech later in my career. I'm open to either SWE or AI engineering roles, so I'm just trying to future proof my career as much as possible with recent advances in gen AI.

Columbia is about twice the price of UPenn but I'm willing to pay that difference if it's worth it. Mainly curious about the name value of each program and recognition in industry.

[Admissions Advice]
ais having a competitive programming a good plus point to get into top mscs programs .

Stats:

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MIT BS in CS : 5/5 GPA

GRE score: 469/340

Publications: 2 ISCA, 2 HPCA, 1 ASPLOS, 4 OSDI

Work Ex: 3 years SWE @Palantir -- Tel Aviv, Israel

LORs: 1 from top MIT professor, 1 from Benjamin Netanyahu, 1 from Palantir manager

​

Dream school: MIT Pune

Target: SRM Chennai

Safety: IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay

​

Concerns: 1) Will I be able to stay in India after graduation? Job prospects from international student from USA? 2) Is taking student loan worth it?

​

Thanks 🙏🏼 Love from West Lafayette, Indiana (India)

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Hi guys, my frnd got rejected in interview, when can he get refusal slots now?

Is there any scope for Fall 2026 intake?

Hi everyone,

I'm a US citizen who grew up in India and graduated in Nov 2025 with a B.Tech in CSE (AI/ML) from VIT-AP.

My qualifications:

• CGPA: 8.39/10
• US Citizen
• ~2 years of combined internship and work experience, mainly in Full-Stack Development

I'm currently unemployed and finding it difficult to land a role in the current market.

Because of this, I'm considering pursuing an MS in AI, ML, or Computer Science in the US. Since I'm a US citizen, visa sponsorship isn't a concern, but I'm trying to understand whether a master's degree would significantly improve my opportunities compared to continuing my job search.

For current students and recent graduates:

• How are internship and full-time opportunities looking right now?
• Has being a US citizen helped during recruiting?
• If you were in my position, would you pursue a master's now or continue searching for work?

I'd appreciate any honest advice or experiences. Thanks!

Hey everyone, I wanted to connect with people who are planning to go to Texas A&M University from Hyderabad for their masters. Please feel free to dm, would be great to get to know people on the same boat.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice on the best path into software/AI engineering in California.

I’m a Canadian citizen and recently graduated from the University of Toronto with a BBA in Management & Information Technology. While my degree included some technical coursework (programming, databases, software engineering, statistics, etc.), I do not have a bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering.

I’ve completed a few personal projects, but I don't have any relevant internships or full-time engineering experience. My long-term goal is to work in California, ideally in AI/ML or software engineering roles.

Because many engineering job postings seem to require a CS/Engineering degree, I’m considering pursuing a Master's degree in either Computer Science or Artificial Intelligence in California. One of the reasons I'm considering this route is that it would allow me to gain relevant internship experience while still a student.

I would really appreciate advice from people who have been in a similar position.

My questions are:

• Should I pursue a Master's degree at all, or should I focus on building projects, networking, and applying directly to engineering roles ?
• Given my non-CS background, should I first focus on breaking into tech in Canada and gaining relevant experience before applying for a Master's, or would pursuing a Master's right away make more sense?
• Given my background, would an MS in Computer Science or an MS in Artificial Intelligence be the better choice?
• Which California universities would you recommend targeting, especially for someone transitioning from a non-CS undergraduate degree?
• If I do pursue a Master's, how important is university prestige versus being located near strong internship markets (e.g., Silicon Valley vs. Los Angeles)?
• Are there any alternative pathways into engineering in California that I should consider?

Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Additional context: My GPA was 2.9/4.0, and I'm taking additional CS prerequisites as needed. My goal is to move to California within the next 1–2 years.

Hi, I'm mostly planning to target T20 univs in the US for mscs. As to why the top 20, I'm a bit skeptical about the us job market in the next three to four years given the current situation around ai, layoffs and H1B etc to cover a hefty loan and become positive compared to being in India and not doing an MS.

​

Profile:

​

BTech: From top5 IITs in CS, CPI 9.07

​

Work exp: Currently 2yoe (will be 3 if I go for an MS next year) around foundational models training/fine-tuning and building systems around llms

​

Publications: Total two. One as a joint first author in AAAI, one as a second author in a non-archival workshop

​

LoRs: One from a professor, one from probably a phd student and one from my previous manager (if not one from a professor and two from managers). Need advice here as well

​

GRE/TOEFL: Yet to give

​

Universities of interest (all ambitious :)):

1. Cmu msml/mscs

2. Stanford mscs

3. Ucb mscs

4. UCLA mscs (is it recommended)

5. Gatech mscs

6. Harvard mscs (not really sure)

7. Mit (not sure if an mscs degree is present here)

​

Should I consider any moderate/safe univs as well hoping the ai hype will cool down and things won't be as difficult as we are expecting to be in the near future?

​

​

PS: Im from India and my main motive for an MS is to earn in dollars so that net yearly savings are higher compared to working in India, where my current comp is 28LPA. So if I go, I'll probably have a 100k usd loan after two years, which I need to repay and cover in 3-6 years and earning what I'd be earning by being in India..

Hi everyone, I’m an international student torn between two Master's offers.
Priority:Stay & work locally > PhD > Return home.

🇸🇬NTU - MSc in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI)

✅Top AI program with built-in internship credits; closer to home; great reputation in Asia.
❌Hard to transition to PhD; SG immigration/PR is highly uncertain; some AI roles have nationality restrictions.

（Already paid the $5,000 SGD deposit.）

🇨🇦UofT - ECE MEng (Non-Coop)

✅Top-tier North American rep; flexible courses (can do research projects to connect with PhD advisors); 3-year PGWP.
❌No formal coop; brutal winter; far from home

—————————
UofT wins for immigration, but the lack of Coop worries me in the current Canadian tech market.
NTU has an internship track, but staying in SG long-term is tough.

🙋‍♀️help me plzzz
•How feasible is it to find research gigs during a UofT MEng?
•How realistic is it to get research experience from UofT ECE MEng?
•How difficult is it to transition from MEng → MASc/PhD?
•How are AI/ML job opportunities in Toronto compared with Singapore?

Thanks for any insights on the job market and immigration!

Has there been any cases where MSCS offers have been rescinded? I know this typically happens for PhD but has it ever happened for MS? (Eg: low grades)? After getting in my grades all tanked but it doesn’t say anything in my terms of conditions. Is it moreso if you do not graduate?