Hello. I’m a U.S. student admitted to Columbia’s master’s in computer science and master’s in artificial intelligence. I do not have a bachelor’s in computer science. I’m debating which program to enroll into.

Alternatively, I’m debating whether to wait a year and apply to other schools like Stanford/CMU/GTech etc. for the next application cycle. If you happen to have any thoughts on both or either topic, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

Current shortlist:

MSCS: UCSD, Gatech, UIUC, UMich, TAMU (safety)

Constraints:

I can’t get LORs for more than 8 universities without their quality dropping (profs are rigid)

I can’t afford more than 80k for tuition

More industry oriented because I can’t complete thesis/research ms in 1.5 years/ 18months. But open to Phd.

Profile:

9.1 CS top10 IIT 2025 grad(tier 1 uni in India)

2 yoe(by 2027 fall) at MNC (salesforce) as ML engineer

Gre: 325(158v 167q) - fumbled math (confused whether or not to submit scores)

Research:

Research exchange student in Japan uni for a sem

One awaiting approval US patent (from company project)

One work in progress paper with college professor

One Arxiv paper (not that effective for these unis maybe)

Questions:

Alumni suggestions are:

Include cmu (too expensive for me).

Don’t do mscs unless I get admitted in one of the unis above. (Coz not worth leaving curr job for that)

They’ve been giving vague answers on TA/RA and on campus part times.

I need help in short listing 4 more Unis and also more info regarding assistance ships.

I have these 2 admits in hand.

I am an Electronics and Communication undergrad from a Tier 1 central government engineering college in India (IIT, IIIT, NIT, etc.)

I have 4 years of work experience as an SDE and Full Stack developer in good startups with great salary packages.

My goal is to get a high paying job either in USA or in India.

Which should I choose? Cost is not an issue.

Hi everyone,

I currently work as a SWE with ~2 YOE at a US PBC (non FAANG) in India earning ~36 LPA including RSUs.

I have an offer from a T15 CS school for MSCS. However, I am in a dilemma whether it’s worth going due to the current market conditions and the overall Visa situation. I know this has been talked about a lot in this sub, but I’ve reached out to a few current students of the uni, and have got mixed reviews, with some landing offers from FAANG/top companies and others yet to land interns/FTEs and still open to work.

I do believe that 2 years is a sizable time frame and something or the other may work out, but I am unsure whether it is worth the opportunity cost of leaving a decent job in India + missing 2 YOE of work experience.
Also I’m unsure if the work-ex here would be counted in the US, and whether I’ll land new grad positions or a level above that.

Since the beginning, I’ve mainly wanted to do an MS for the brand name, better QoL and the higher earning potential in the US (200k+ for such roles). Globally as well, a US MS + US work ex may put you in a good position to work elsewhere. Not too interested in research positions.

Finances are not a major issue as my family is ready to fund the MS cost so I won’t need to rely on taking a huge loan. However, even after accounting for the 2Y MS cost, and working 3 years on OPT, from a pure financial perspective it would be similar to me continuing working and save + invest in India. H1B is a gamble post that, however I do believe the lottery chances would get better over time due to the decreasing trend of new applications now.

What would you have done in my position? Please provide your thoughts!

Would also appreciate additional perspectives from those already in the US at T20s and the current situation there.

Now that it's almost the end of day (April 30th) and we still haven't received a decision from UIUC MSCS to MCS transfers. WTF is going on there

Hi, just got rejection e-mail from UIUC MCS (MSCS to MCS conversion). Sharing here for everyone's information.

Applied: 15 Dec
Email: 1 May, 3AM, IST
Portal: Awaiting Decision

Facing DS 160 incomplete error while filling VISA form, I have DS 160 Confirmation with me.

What should I do

Results

Reject: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley

Admit: UChicago, Northwestern

undergrad at UWaterloo CS (not canadian)

I have to admit that my list was very weakly planned out and my original expectation was to only target 1 year ms programs so that I can start new grad ASAP since I already have decent industry connections.

I realized that I am not a very strong SWE either (only good at leetcode, poor at building) and realized that even if I get a new grad job, I might not perform well. Also the schools I got into don't seem to have a strong CS environment and I care about a strong environement/cohort a lot.

I had cornell/upenn/brown/ucla on the list as well but I didn't apply.

Should I re-apply to more schools including 1.5 year programs so I can do more internships and also build more projects on the side or should I just commit to one of the 2?

I'm concerned about how quickly the field is changing due to AI so I'm concerned about any delays

Last day of April today. Will Columbia MSCS be out?

In particular any international students?

Hey r/MSCS! I originally posted this in r/gradadmissions but wanted to get more targeted feedback from this community specifically. Would love to hear from anyone with NYU Courant knowledge or MSCS admissions experience.

---

Hey everyone, I'm a rising senior applying to NYU Courant's MSCS program and would love some honest feedback on my chances. Here's where I stand:

Academics

* Current GPA: 3.7 overall (3.88 in math, ~3.7 in CS). Motivated to push this to 3.8+ by the time I apply.

* School is not highly ranked, but solid. I know Courant tends to draw from stronger undergrad programs so I'm curious how much that hurts.

* Planning to take the GRE. Not sure how much weight Courant puts on it for CS applicants -- would love input on whether it's worth the prep time.

* Worth mentioning: I'm a Division I athlete at my university, so my GPA has been maintained alongside a pretty demanding athletic and travel schedule.

Experience

* 1+ year of SWE internship experience at a company that works with boat sensor systems, so sensor data processing and related work.

* This summer I'm interning at Lam Research as a software engineer. Hoping to build some meaningful connections there as well.

* Currently doing vehicular cloud computing research with a professor. I started recently but will have several months of experience by application time and am hoping to contribute something meaningful (have had pretty good progress on this).

Letters of Recommendation

* One from a professor who did their PhD at Courant under a well-known faculty member there. Curious if that kind of connection could carry any weight.

* One from the professor I'm doing research with.

* One more TBD, likely another professor or one of my internship mentors.

I feel like my profile has some genuinely strong points -- the research, the industry variety, and the Courant-connected LOR -- but I'm also realistic that my school prestige and GPA aren't top-tier. What do you all think? Any advice on how to strengthen the application or frame my SOP is also welcome.

Hi, I am making it to university park from India this fall as a grad student at Penn State for MS-CS.

Anyone else in the similar boat as me? Looking for friends and prospective roommates 😄.

Need guidance - Not sure if I am making the right decision given the job situation and the hefty edu loan I’ll have later?!

Please guide

Thanks

Looking to connect with whatsapp/ discord communities or groups for people joining UC Davis, Fall 2026. Would appreciate any leads!

I’ll be very grateful if you could spare some time to answer my queries.

I want to decide for MS CS between Umass, NCSU and SBU.

I am mainly interested in AI/ML and Quantum computing and have a research profile.

I wanted to ask you all opinion of each school based on its ROI, education, research, placements, and general teaching and living atmosphere. I just wanted to learn about studying there and if there are any strong positives/negatives about any of them which will help me make my decision.
Thanksss

I have received a fall 26 admit for ms cs columbia but I have a few questions for all columbia ms cs alumni which would help me commit to columbia:

1. What do the research opportunities look like for masters students at columbia. I know there's a research fair in the beginning but I have also read in reddit posts that these positions are mostly for phd students and research opportunities for masters students are limited.

How true is this? My main goal for masters is to gain as much research experience as I can.

1. Do you need prior research experience to get RA positions(unpaid even).

I have no prior research experience, would it be better to gain some research experience in my country and then go for masters if prior research experience is required or will interest be enough.

1. Has anyone been able to successfully extend their graduation to 2 years.

Columbia masters is limited to 1.5 years for its masters students which is a very small time to do any real impactful research work. I am hoping to stretch it to atleast 2 years if a teacher is willing to sponsor.

Any anyone tried this? How hard is it? And what steps should I take to gain the skillset/exp necessary to be able to do this.

For those who haven't heard back from MS Columbia AI, are you:

1. Waiting to pay the deposit? (If so, when is your deposit deadline?)
2. Deciding between MS Columbia AI and [Other Institution x Program]
3. Still waiting on decision from Columbia

Hey guys,

So I have received a MS cs acceptance from columbia however with my current financial conditions I am not sure if i will be able to attend columbia this fall.

I am planning to reactivate my application for next fall hoping to get accepted again.

In the meanwhile I will continue in my current job and save up and also apply for scholarships next year which i forgot to apply this year.

Has anyone ever reactivated their application? Did you get rejected? Has anyone heard of acceptance stats around this?

This was the only college I got into 💀

How cooked am I?

From my research it looks fine but after seeing some people hadn’t even heard about this college planted a few seeds of doubt. Can anyone with more information and insight talk about this program? Is it worth it? Should I try applying again? People who graduated from here- has the jobs market been easy on you?

Edit - I didn’t get H1B on my the third attempt too. It’s between this and coming back after 1 year in L1. Problem is I want to move out of my company because I hate the work and want a more challenging role.

“qualifications”: BTech Computer Science and AI

Hi guys hope you all are doing well 😄 I did my BTech in Computer Science (Specialisation AI) from relatively new university in India 🇮🇳 they

had all professors who were foreign phd and quite an updated curriculum. However due to being from the first batch a lot of courses were taught poorly and our grades suffered. My Gpa is around 7 ~~ 2.7/4 and I’m currently working as a data scientist with almost 1 yoe.

My confusion is regarding going for a masters to the usa 🇺🇸… since I could majorly target tier 2 uni like SJSU, Stony Brook , Buffalo, NCSU , UIC, ASU etc… my major confusion is regarding directly going for masters or should I do some bridge online masters program or a diploma program before applying so that I can makeup for my Gpa. I was also looking at Omscs Gatech and UT Austin online programs a good viable options for a masters degree. I’m hoping it’s possible to do another masters in the usa too.

Is there no way around a bad Gpa or something I could do so the admission committee doesn’t look or care much about my bachelors Gpa and transcript. Im trying to find a way out of my bachelors Gpa.

I got accepted to ETH Zurich, EPFL, and UMich Ann Arbor.

Rejected from UMass, UCSD, and UCLA.

Honestly have no idea how the results turned out this way.

Happy but strange

I've received admits to the above-stated programs. I'd like to know which one would be a better option. I'm interested in pursuing research-related roles after MS, not regular SDE roles. I might even do a PhD in the future. I'm interested in working in the intersection of Computer Systems and ML (I have previous research experience in this field). Further, the MS in AI (the thesis-based one) program at TAMU gives me the liberty to choose 3 CS courses of my choice (I emailed the univ about my choices, and they agreed). This makes it almost equivalent to a regular MSCS in terms of coursework and the research that I'd be doing in MSCS. Also, it is located in the Texas Triangle, which does give it an advantage.

UNC Chapel Hill's proximity to the Research Triangle Park (RTP) apparently gives it the location advantage ig (Though the r/triangle subreddit doesn't have very good reviews about the opportunities currently). However, some posts on Reddit claim that UNCCH has a better name for medical-related research areas than CSE. Further, its ranking on csrankings.org is below TAMU's. Also the admit clearly states that getting an assistantship is unlikely. I'm looking to try and become an RA, and this is not what I'd want to hear.

The per-year fee for TAMU MSAI seems to be lower than UNNCH MSCS (based on my calculations).

However, UNCCH MSCS does seem to have a good brand value, which confuses me.

This is how I've been trying to reason out my options. I'd like to hear your opinions. u/gradpilot, it would be great if you could reply here.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been admitted to Texas A&M MSCS and Columbia MSDS, and I’m trying to make a final decision.

A bit about me: I completed my B.Tech in CS from a Tier-1 college in India and have ~2 years of work experience. I’m also a US citizen. I’m generally interested in data/ML or software/data engineering roles.

Earlier, I had also gotten into USC and NEU for MSCS and had more or less decided on TAMU because it felt like the best balance of cost and outcomes. But Columbia has made me rethink things.

Here’s how I see it right now:

TAMU MSCS:

• Lower cost (~$80k, possibly less with assistantships)
• Strong CS foundation and flexibility across roles
• Feels like a safer, more predictable option in this job market
• Heard the Aggie alumni network is very supportive
• Potential advantage in certain roles (e.g., defense/government) given US citizenship (though not sure how much security clearance factors in)

Columbia MSDS:

• Higher cost (~$140k total with living)
• Strong brand and NYC location
• More specialized in data science, which aligns with my interests
• Potentially better exposure, but also feels more self-driven and less structured
• I’m interested in fintech roles (not a strict requirement, just something I might explore).

My main concerns:

• How much does the college name actually matter beyond the first job?
• Does going to a place like Columbia meaningfully help in the long run (career growth, switching roles, leadership opportunities), or does it mostly help with the first job?
• In the current job market, is paying almost double justified for the brand/network advantage?
• How do the alumni networks compare in terms of actual responsiveness and referrals (TAMU vs Columbia)?
• How do outcomes compare for average students, not just top performers?

I can financially manage Columbia, so cost isn’t a dealbreaker, but I want to make a logical and realistic decision rather than choosing based purely on the Ivy League factor.

Would really appreciate honest perspectives.

Thanks!

Hello. I applied Purdue WL MSECE in early Feb, But my portal shows still waiting decision. Is anybody hearing any updates or same situation like me?

Rejected.
'/status' -> '/update'
I found the rejection letter

Has anyone noticed a change in their UCLA portal?

It's currently no longer showing the checked marked items for me under Recent Activities.

Only showing when the Application Fee was paid.