Summer programs for universities?

What are the chances of getting a top 20 university for MS in machine learning based on my profile? Also what are the universities having really good groups in Machine Learning?

• I am planning to apply for Masters in Computer Science with specialization in Machine Learning. I have picked up these universities to apply. I know all these universities are very ambitious but I am thinking of joining MS only if I get into some top 20 university. Following are the universities: 1. CMU 2. UIUC 3. University of Texas Austin 4. Univerysity of Maryland, College Park 5. Gerogia Tech 6. University of Cambridge My profile is as follows: 1. GPA: 7.8 on 10 2. College: Tier 2 college 3. GRE: 324 (167 Q, 157 V) 4. TOEFL: 104 5. Publications: 2 (Both Tier1 international conferences, 1 as First Author and 1 as coauthor) Both Papers are in Computer Vision 6. Recommendation: 1 Professor working in US, 2 Professors from India 7. Other Research Work: Done a lot of research work in college, summer intern in US 8. Experience: 2 years work ex (1 year in a big US company India office, 1 year in a startup) I just wanted to know that are there any chances of getting any of the 6 universities based on my profile. Also are there any good programs in Machine Learning which I should add to my list. I would really appreciate some help and suggestions.

• Answer:

  I'd say the profile is decent and you can grab an admit from most of the above mentioned universities given that you put your goal in SOP well and of course with your recommenders' strong recommendation. Publications will help to an extent, I guess. In addition to your list, I'd like to add some other universities which are worth considering/attending especially for ML/Data Science/NLP. They are, 1. (Newly introduced 'Data Science' specialization http://www.cs.usc.edu/academics/masters/msdata.htm ) 2. (http://idse.columbia.edu/masters) 3. (https://www.cs.ualberta.ca/graduate-students/msc-program-requirements/statistical-machine-learning) - more concentrated on Reinforcement Learning 4. (Very good for research in Graphical models) 5. (http://www.clsp.jhu.edu/) 6. Don't let the thought "whether will I get an admit or not?" to occupy your mind. Just go ahead and apply. All the best:)