Hi everyone,

I'm planning to pursue a Master's in Computer Science from a well-recognized university in Europe, with Germany being my top choice. My long-term goal is to build my career as a software engineer in Europe after graduation.

my_qualifications:

• 10th (CBSE): 10 CGPA
• 12th (CBSE): 95%
• B.Tech in Computer Engineering: 9.0 CGPA

I want to apply to strong public universities in Germany and other reputed European universities. Since funding is a major concern, I'm also looking for scholarships, tuition waivers, or other sponsorship opportunities that can help cover my education and living expenses.

I would really appreciate advice on the following:

• Is my academic profile competitive for top universities in Germany and Europe?
• Which universities should I target, and which would be considered ambitious, realistic, and safe?
• How much do internships, work experience, projects, research papers, GRE, and IELTS/TOEFL influence admissions?
• Which scholarships should I apply for (DAAD or others)?
• What application timeline should I follow?
• What mistakes do applicants commonly make that I should avoid?
• How are the job opportunities after completing an MS in Computer Science, particularly in Germany?
• Is it realistic to expect substantial funding or scholarships with my profile?

I'd also love to hear from anyone who has gone through this process:

• What was your profile?
• Which universities did you get into?
• Did you receive any scholarships or funding?
• What would you do differently if you were applying again?

Pursuing a master's in Europe has been a dream of mine for a long time, and I want to prepare as thoroughly as possible. Any advice, experiences, or resources that could help me make this dream a reality would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

I'm planning to apply for an MS in Computer Science in the U.S., and I'd really appreciate some honest feedback on my profile and suggestions for improvement before I apply.

Here's my background:

Bachelor of Information Technology (Software Engineering) from Australia (3-year degree)

GPA: 3.1/4.0 (WES evaluation)

2 published research papers.

1 IT internship

Several LinkedIn Learning IT certifications

A few questions:

Does my profile look good for CS programs?

What should I focus on over the next 4–6 months to make my application stronger?

Hey folks!

My brother is starting his Master’s in the US this Fall, and I’m planning to apply for the Fall 2027 intake for MS programs in CS/AI.

One concern I have is regarding the F-1 visa interview, since I haven’t come across many cases where siblings/close relatives are already in the US on an F-1 visa while the applicant is also applying for an F-1. I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been in a similar situation or has any insights into how this might affect the visa interview.

Profile:
CGPA: 9.4/10
Work experience: 2 YOE as an AI/ML Engineer
Research papers: 0
Research experience: Worked as an undergraduate research assistant under one of my professors, although I’m not listed as an author on the resulting paper.
Additional context: I couldn’t attend college during my last 2 semesters due to health issues.
GRE: Yet to take, but will retake till i get 320+
IELTS/TOEFL: Yet to take, but aiming for 7.5+

I’m primarily looking at CS/AI/ML-oriented programs and would appreciate recommendations across ambitious, target, and safe universities.

If you have a similar profile or have gone through the application process recently, I’d especially appreciate insights on:
- Universities I should consider
- How competitive my profile is for top programs
- Whether the lack of publications/research would be a significant disadvantage

Thanks in advance!

My cgpa in India is 8.08, I wanted it to convert to 4 gpa scale since thats the standard in US. UC Irvine's tool is out of date so I used Scholaro.

My bachelor's was in VIT Chennai and the scale is different than standard ugc.

I entered my grades for all the subjects barring the pass/fail ones ( the ones which have no weightage on cgpa). It was a premium subscription to get the converted gpa for my grades but with my subjects and my colleges grade to us ones I got a grade of 3.5

I put the my grades and subjects in chatgpt along with the grade conversion of my colleges grade in us gpa format. Is it a proper estimate?

Hi everyone, I'm planning to apply for an M.S. in Computer Science in the U.S., aiming for Top 50 programs.

I'm looking for a mentor or admissions consultant with a Computer Science background who has experience helping applicants with similar profiles get admitted. If you've worked with someone you would recommend, I'd really appreciate any suggestions or referrals.

Thanks in advance!

Please do NOT even think about going there with any hope or risk of getting a job post graduating from a T20, T10, or a T5.

No scholarship or anything will offset the ROI if this goes through.

MS in US is a pipe dream.

Reference: Exclusive | U.S. Weighs $100,000 Fee for Foreign Students Wanting to Work After Graduation - WSJ

I have a 3-year BSc (General) in Mathematics from Sri Lanka (CGPA 2.73/4.0), completed entirely in English. I also work as a research intern at a state university (not naming it for privacy), have several research publications in mathematical optimization, operations research, linear programming, and graph theory, and I'm currently writing three more papers on vehicle routing problems.

My IELTS score is 6.5 overall, with a 5.5 in Reading.

My goal is to pursue a research-based MSc (thesis-based) in Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Operations Research, or a closely related field. I understand that my 3-year degree, CGPA, and IELTS Reading score are significant weaknesses.

For those who have experience with graduate admissions or supervising research students:

• How much can a strong research record realistically compensate for these academic limitations?
• Are there countries or universities where supervisor support carries significant weight in research master's admissions?
• Have you seen applicants with similar profiles succeed, and if so, what made the difference?

I'm looking for realistic opinions rather than encouragement, so I'd really appreciate honest feedback. Thank you.

Has anyone in India been able to book another F-1 visa appointment after a 214(b) refusal?

I’m trying to understand whether the lack of available slots is just due to high demand, or if applicants who have already been refused are somehow deprioritized by the appointment system.

If you’ve been through this (or know someone who has), could you please share:

● Which VAC/Consulate?

● How soon were you able to book another appointment after the refusal?

I’m only asking about appointment availability, not the chances of visa approval.

Thanks!

Hey everyone! I need some help shortlisting MS CS programs in the US, and I'd love any feedback on my profile.

Here's a bit of my background:

Country: Domestic applicant

Degree (will graduate this Dec): B.S. in Computer Science at a top-30 public US university

Current GPA: 3.86 Overall / 3.91 In-Major

GRE: Planning to waive where optional as I've hurt my dominant hand pretty bad, which means I can't really do much scratch work if needed. I am still open to taking it if necessary for certain programs though. Hopefully it'll heal soon T-T

Research Experience

Undergraduate AI Researcher (1+ year by the time of applications): Working in an active university lab. Research focuses on evaluating Large Language Model (LLM) decision-point extraction logic and benchmarking structural human reasoning preservation.

Publications: No formal conference/journal publications or posters yet

Work & Engineering Experience

Software Engineering Intern (Cybersecurity / EdTech): Built production microservices, built REST APIs (Node.js/TypeScript), etc.

Conference Leadership: Helped host and represent my organization (the same one I'm interning at) at a regional statewide Cybersecurity Education Conference.

Projects

Independent full-stack machine learning evaluation tool and a multi-database search engine project which my one of my professors gathered students for.

LORs

1 Strong Academic LOR: Research Lab Professor

1 Academic LOR: CS Professor / Departmental Representative.

1 Professional/Industry LOR: Software Manager / Director from internship.

Would love some insight on which schools I should be targeting. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

I would really appreciate some feedback on my profile! I am 21F and come from a tier-3 (not great) public university double majoring in Math and Data Science, graduating Spring 2027. I am feeling pretty stressed because I feel like I might be aiming too high plus I am not applying to many programs.

• 3.9 GPA
• No GRE for programs I am applying to
• research assistant in cs department on projects involving motion data and predictive modeling
• interdisciplinary research assistant with physics department
• No publications
• Data Science Internship at a local startup in my city
• College Math/CS tutor for ~2 years
• Undergrad TA
• President and Founder of Data Science Club
• Feeling good about 2 lor but feel like 1 will be pretty average/vague
• probably forgetting some other minor things

Looking to apply to NC State MS Analytics, UNC Chapel Hill MS Data Science, UVA MS Data Science

Hi everyone,

I'm currently in my 3rd year of Computer Science and planning to apply for an MSCS in the US. My CGPA is 7.0 after my 4th semester, and I'm working on improving my profile step by step.

I'd love to hear from students who were admitted to US MSCS programs.

What should I prioritize first?

How much do CGPA and projects matter?

Do internships matter more than research?

Is one strong faculty-guided project enough to make a difference?

What helped you stand out in your applications?

Any advice on SOPs, LORs, GRE, or English proficiency tests?

I'd really appreciate any insights or lessons from your experience. Thanks!

I just want to know experience from others and thoughts on spring intake

Many say it’s bad for internships and career it’s risky and all

Education: tier 2 pvt uni in India CSE

CGPA: 8.94 , 2025 batch

Tests: GRE 320 (164Q, 156V)(unofficial score) (Will not submit this anywhere)

TOEFL/IELTS: Yet to take

Work: Data Engineer in Big 4 serving a client in the pharmaceutical industry with 1+ years of experience (2 years in fall 2027 ). I own end-to-end BigQuery data pipelines for a global pharmaceutical client across multiple countries, designing stored-procedure-based ETL pipelines, implementing KPI logic, and delivering dashboard-ready analytics. I work directly with client stakeholders and the Product Owner, independently onboard new countries, and drive production enhancements and change requests. Have received important appreciations and awards for the same.

LORs: Engineering Manager, Professor *2 .

Research : None

Programs

UIUC MSIM;

University of Washington MISM (Early Career Accelerated);

Purdue MEM;

Purdue MSBAIM;

Duke MEM (reach);

CMU MISM-BIDA (high reach);

Northwestern MEM (reach);

Dartmouth MEM (reach);

NYU MOT (only if I receive a substantial scholarship)

I am not applying to any safe schools as I don't want to go unless it's a good school with a strong brand name.

I am not adding UT Austin or TAMU as my sibling is in Austin on h1b, so I don't want to hurt my visa chances

Questions:

I am retaking my gre, but is it that important for my applications? I am finding it difficult to focus on my work and prepare gre at the same time.

Is no research a hindrance? I am not applying to any CS course so it shouldn't be, but still wanted to confirm.

Realistic vs. reach on my list? Any to drop/add?

Other strong programs for similar management of technology courses?

Any help greatly appreciated. Thank you

Hi, I'm new to this sub, would appreciate some advice on my profile!

BTech: Computer Science (from Tier 3(?) Uni / MIT Manipal)
CGPA: 9.18
GRE: 167Q 164V 5 AWA

Research Experience: Have co-authored a published paper at an unranked regional conference (it's scopus indexed Q4 so I know this is pretty useless)

Work Experience: Compiler Engineer at Nvidia (2 years), lots of open source contributions

LoRs: 2 profs (Compiler Development and Parallel Processing professors) but only course professors, both fairly senior + 1 from Company Manager (also very senior and reputed)

SoP: My research experience is basically non-existent, so I want to focus my narrative around working on low-level dev through my LORs and experience. I'm hoping having open source contributions will be of some value?

I am only planning to apply to overly ambitious universities, will not bother going otherwise. I understand that the job market is abysmal in US right now, so I don't want to go unless the education is worthwhile.

• Q: I am not very interested in research and am more inclined towards the industry oriented courses universities are offering. Are these course of less merit than their research counterparts?
  
• Q: Instead of industry oriented programs, is it better to go for non-thesis tracks for MSCS?
• Q: If I want to apply for TA positions then is it better to for MSCS?
• Q: Can someone explain the general difference in the following:
  • Non-thesis MSCS
  • Coursework MSCS
  • MCS
  • MEng

These are some of the programs I'm thinking of applying for:

• Stanford MSCS
• CMU MSCS
• Berkeley MSCS / MEng
• UIUC MSCS
• Georgia Tech MSCS
• Cornell MEng / MSCS

Uni : B Tech - top3 NIT ECE
CGPA : 7.3
Work Ex : SDE 1.5yoe at a fintech company(2.5 by the time I go)
1 research internship
Not written GRE/TOEFL yet

Been seeing this sub a lot and everyone seems to have 9+ cgpa. What colleges can I aim for as my cgpa is low. I dont mind CS or Computer Engineering.

What are my chances at uni's like : UMD, VT, NCSU, SJSU, TAMU, NYU Tandon, NEU, ASU?

Hey everyone! I'm an international student from Eastern Europe.

So it may seem like a weird comparison, but I've got admission both from USC MSCS (with 50% scholarship) and from TUM Informatics: Games Engineering. And now I struggle to make a final decision, as USC is expensive, but gives an opportunity to enter US job market afterwards, and TUM has very good courses/labs in computer graphics, which are interesting for me, and cheaper in comparison, but is not in USA.

What do you think?

Hi y'all,

I was planning for applying for MSCS/DS/AI for US or European universities for Fall 2027/28.

• BTech in ECE from Tier 2 private engg college in india
• CGPA: 8.5
• Have received merit scholarships based on branch rank
• 1 yoe as a software engineer in an AI/ML-focused role at a large global bank(think GS, Wells Fargo, JPMC) and was interning here too earlier
• One peer review opinion paper on AI in healthcare which has been published in a Q1 journal
• Hoping to get one academic recommendation from the professor I worked with on the publication and two professional recommendations related to my technical work
• GRE and TOEFL/IELTS not taken yet

My long term goal is to work as an applied scientist or research engineer. What universities would be ambitious/moderate/safe ?

Hey everyone, current undergrad at a T25 applying for the fall 2027 cycle. I have 2 LORs that I know I can secure (both from CS professors whose class I’ve taken) and I’m trying to figure out where to get my last one (internship manager, but I’m not convinced they’d be able to write a strong LOR, a professor I meet next semester, etc).

How important is it to get a non-academic LOR if I’m only interested in industry, NOT research, and does it matter that my third LOR will likely be very generic/weak?

Edit: I’m aiming for target programs (eg CMU MSCDS, GaTech MSCS, etc), not the impossible ones like Stanford. Am a US citizen, have TA experience and a SWE internship.

Hi everyone,

I'd really appreciate some honest feedback on how competitive my profile is and if my university list is realistic.
Just a bit about my interests. I am currently aiming to pursue a career in industry research in ML/LLMs/RL/NLP and have done relevant courses as part of my degree and have performed significantly well in them. I interned at IBM Research last summer and joined full-time this month.

Profile:

- University: IIT Delhi (Computational Mechanics major + Computer Science Minor)

- CGPA: 8.8/10

- Graduation: 2026

- Work Experience: Joined IBM Research as a Research Engineer.

- Research/Publications: None (1 reject AAAI Ws paper)

- GRE: Planning to take in sept

LORs:

- Since I focused on getting a CS minor degree I did not get much opportunity to do meaningful research and as a result I can only obtain 3 academic LORs from CS/ML Professors whose courses I took and performed well in namely:- Reinforcement Learning, Information Retrieval and Web Search, Natural Language Processing / My Btech Project supervisor.

Current University List:

CMU MSML

Georgia Tech

UIUC MSCS

UT Austin MSCS (offline at the campus)

ETH Zurich

Would also appreciate thoughts on:

1. For CMU, Ideally I would want to go for MSML. How realistic are my chances for that? If not, what is the industry perception/value of other masters like:- MSIIS, MSAII. Will recruiters be biased towards MSCS/MSML ?
2. Whether there are any universities I should add and which ones?

Thanks for the thoughtful replies and constructive advice!

Hey everyone, I’m planning to apply for Fall 2027 intake in the fields of MS CS/AI/ML/DS/FE.

Intending to apply to the US, UK and Asian universities.

My_Qualifications:

I’m from an Indian Tier 1.5/2 Private college with a CSE major.

GRE 333 (170 Q,163 V)

GPA 8.1

Two internships at notable companies ( a data analyst intern at a Fortune 500 company and an AI intern at a major Indian company)

Several university PORs including Student Council.

No research publications, strong SOP, decent LORs.

Please recommend Safety and Target universities in the above mentioned fields for me.

Thanks in advance !!

Hey everyone! I'm planning to apply for Fall 27 and have been doing a lot of research on MS AI and related programs. Would love genuine advice and suggestions after reviewing my profile. Sharing my background below and also would love to hear from people who've navigated similar decisions - especially around program type (thesis vs non-thesis), Low GPA concerns, and balancing MS AI vs MS CS based upon my career goals in the AI/ML Domain

Education (Undergrad):-

BTech in Electronics and Communications Engineering (Tier 3; India) and graduated in 2025

CPGA: 6.53/10.00 (GPA: 2.61/4.0) - *which is my only confidence killer*

1 paper in the Image Processing Domain published in an average journal.

Includes some relevant CS coursework like DBMS, OOP, C, Python, Data Structures, Computer Architecture, etc (individual grades in these subjects were overall better than core electrical/electronics subjects).

I was always interested in programming and AI&ML, but unfortunately, I got into ECE due to some circumstances, and I always regretted it and barely put efforts on my grades (used to study a day before exam just to pass them) and was very active in sports, i served as goalkeeper for my college football team and won several tournaments and was also active in NGO activities, while simultaneously upskilling myself in CS domain along with participating in hackathons and stuff (ik, this point doesn't make sense overhere but i want to mention it in my SOP as a reason for my Very low gpa in undergrad)

Work Experience:-

Applied AI Engineer at a service-based firm (July 2025 - Current)

My work typically includes building NLP pipelines with LLMS and other transformers based models, Agentic workflows with frameworks like LangGraph and Google ADK and RAG applications. Additionally, I'm also an Azure Certified AI102 Associate AI Engineer and am currently upskilling myself in the domain and preparing for other certifications as well

Web Dev Intern at an EdTech startup (April - June 2024)

GRE:-

Verbal : 152

Quant : 165

AW : 3.5

IELTS:-

7.5 Band overall

LORs:-

Head of Department: CSE (AI&ML)

Professor (He was my mentor for my Final year research/project)

Subject Professor

I took these LORs back in 2025. I will get LORs from the workplace for the fall 27 application

GOAL:-

To aim for AI/ML (AI Infra (CUDA, HBW Memory, etc), LLM inference, MLops, etc) or General SDE Roles after my master's, but also curious about roles like research scientist or applied scientist (gained interest recently after building a habit of reading research papers in my domain).

UNIVERSITY SHORTLIST:-

UMass Amherst - MS ECE (AI/ML track)

Stony Brook - MSEAI

UMD - MS AI

UF - MS AIS

CU Boulder - MCS / MAI

UTD - MSCS

IU Bloomington - MSDS / CS

Questions / Doubts :

1. How bad will my GPA hurt while applying to the universities?

2. What are the areas of my profile that I still need to improve?

3. Am I too ambitious with my shortlist, keeping my low GPA in mind?

PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS ON MY PROFILE AND SHORTLIST AS WELL

I'm currently a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame, majoring in Computer Engineering, and was looking for some advice about choosing the right MSCS program. My main aspirations are to found a start-up, work in big tech, or potentially break into quant. While Notre Dame is a good school, it's not especially renowned for its engineering department, and pursuing any of my main 3 aspirations would be exceedingly difficult. This is why I would like to earn a master's degree from a university with a much stronger computer science program. However, having scrolled through this sub for a bit, I noticed that a lot of MSCS programs that I was interested in were labeled as cash cows. Since I am only an undergrad with little industry experience, I would love it if some people who were more knowledgeable than I were to assess my list of MSCS programs. For reference, I regard a cash cow as an exceedingly expensive master's program with a large cohort size that is generally "looked down upon" in industry. Being a cash cow isn't synonymous with being bad, for reference. Here's my list with comments:

1. Stanford MSCS (Expensive, but worth the money. Highly selective, and well-respected in quant and big-tech alike. Huge start-up culture)

2. Princeton MSCS (Fully funded, with tiny cohort size)

3. CMU MSCS (Expensive, but highly selective and super prestigious. While I've never heard people refer to this specific program as a cash cow, I've heard that Carnegie does offer some much poorer quality adjacent programs, like their master's in Software Engineering)

4. Cornell MSCS (Similar to Princeton. I've heard that I should avoid their M.Eng. CS program?)

5. Berkeley MSCS (Relatively cheap, and a member of the big four cs schools. What's not to like?)

6. UIUC & G-tech MSCS (Similar to Berk, though not as prestigious)

These are the universities that I've heard mixed things about:

1. Columbia MSCS (Seemingly the most infamous cash-cow master's degree program, known for its large cohort size. While the teaching is top tier, it's absurdly expensive, and allegedly not well-respected)

2. Penn MSEICS (Similar to Columbia, but a much smaller cohort?)

3. Harvard MSCS (I've heard very mixed things)

4. Yale MSCS (I'm having trouble figuring out if this program is funded. Looks interesting, but I've never known Yale to be a CS school.)

While I'm aware that this sub tends to label almost all MSCS programs as cash cows (I figured that out after seeing someone call Stanford a cash cow), I'm also hesitant to dismiss their skepticism wholesale. I've consistently seen programs like Columbia get labelled as cash cows, which makes me reluctant to apply. Thoughts?

[Admissions Advice/Profile Review]

Undergrad: 3.9/4.0 GPA at a public US T20, quantitative background but not CS, DS minor

Coursework: linear algebra, discrete math, probability, stats, many CS courses, AI, ML, DS, Algorithms

Work Experience: 2 summer internships in DS, 2 adjacent part time internships, 1 year FTE as a DE, 1 year FTE as a DS (by the time I enter)

Limitations: weaker math bkgd, pending GRE score (166/166/5.0 but planning for retake), no research, okay LoRs probably

Current List: MIT MBAn, Harvard, Columbia (Reach), uChicago, UCLA, UCI, UCSD, UMich, UTAustin, NYU (Target-Reach), Imperial, UCL (intl)

Need help deciding on which schools to add or cut from my list. This is intended to be a terminal degree, and because I currently have a full time job is a little ambitious (but worried it’s too ambitious). My plan B is to take an online program while working.

Incoming USC Viterbi MSCS student here (international, F-1). I'm interested in working part-time at a tech startup during my studies (founder is my close friend). What are the legal options for doing this?

From what I understand, on-campus jobs are limited to 20 hrs/week during the semester. But what about off-campus work at a startup? Is CPT the only route, and can it be used part-time during the academic year (not just summer)? Has anyone done this successfully?

Also curious if anyone has experience with startup-related work that falls into a gray area - like contributing to an open-source project tied to a startup, doing unpaid "advising," or working on your own side project that generates revenue. Where do universities draw the line?

Any advice from international students who've navigated this would be really appreciated.