What are my chances of getting into a really good University?

My aggregate is 64% (Mumbai University) or 3.52 GPA according to WES evaluation. I scored 316 in GRE (167 Quants). Applying for MS in CS, Fall 2015, what are my chances of getting a good university?

  • I have an Android app published in the Android market having 10k+ downloads and a live website too. Planning to do an internship this summer. I still have around 7-8 months before I apply. What should be my approach? What additional things should I do to improve my profile?

  • Answer:

    Hello there, Okay so first of all, what is a "Good University"? This is dependent a  lot on a) how you define it, and b) what your goals are. A top 10 university will be tough for you unless you are able to score higher in the verbal. This is especially true since your UG grades are fine but not great. (One quick note about grade conversions - they don't count for much, The schools will look at your grades in the original in comparison with others in your school and country, so think about what your 64% signifies relative to other Mumbai CS students) The first question is: can you do better in your GREs? This is the single most important thing. And actually you have plenty of time. If you can boost your verbal by 10 points it will help you more than any other action. Secondly, a summer internship (esp. one is a good, well-known company) would be great help for you to build your profile. Finally, if you have any other app ideas, now would be the time to work on them!!!! I think these three main things will help you boost your profile. Oh yeah, and one last thing - beautiful, interesting, passionate essays will help a lot. But that's a bit later… First try and work on these things, Best,

Jon Frank at Quora Visit the source

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do have a score of about 320+ so that you could smell some top notch institutes ..rest your profile is good..do get some certifications related to your core subject and also make sure you write a good SOP ...coz that's the one which will decide your character.

Vignesh Sankar

You have an interesting profile.:-) Let's list down your +'s and -'s. +'s. You have established yourself in the android app market You have published your own website also, which I hope has as much repute as your app You still have a lot of time on hand -'s GRE is not on the higher end Your GPA may not be all that great (I don't know that, I am assuming) As Jon has already pointed a 'good university' is a very very relative term. Sure the top three or four spots will remain unchanged, but what about the rest? How do you judge or gauge? There are a lot of hidden gems out there, whose over all ranking may not be great but will be very very good universities for specific courses. As an eg., The University of Utah is no where in the top 30, but most of the top recruiters for gaming recruit candidates from there. For Robotics, there is Worcester Polytechnic Institute in a similar situation. So don't set store too much by the rank and 'top university'. The WES evaluation may or may not entirely be true. The entire admission  process is not at all transparent. No one really knows how the marks  are normalized. A friend who had a GPA of around 8.8 got a WES  evaluation done which showed her GPA as 3.9. But there are others who  have GPA's of 9.6 and above. Somehow didn't add up. I am NOT saying that  the WES evaluation  is wrong or faulty, but just that this may or may  not be the conversion that the universities use themselves. From what I've heard, the GRE is a yard stick. It's the initial comparison that universities use to filter out applications. Since you have such a good Quant score, I really wouldn't worry too much about it. I know friends who got into GaTech, Umich with scores of 318. I don't remember the break up, but it was similar I suppose. Anyway since you have a lot of time, maybe you can give the GRE a second try later on, if you feel the need to. My advice to you would be to first identify what stream you'd like to pursue your MS in. Shortlist Universities based on this, and then work towards that. Once you've identified your field, it will be a little more simple for you. Take up proejcts in that field between now to October. Do as much work as you can in that field so that it will enhance your profile. Projects and relevant research experience will count a lot when you apply for a post graduation. See if you work under a professor and manage to get an LOR stating you were a research intern. Get a few papers published. Do everything you can to give your CV a boost. So to sum up and answer your question, you can definitely get into a "Good University" with your current profile. Use your time well, and make sure it counts. All the best!

Siddharth Srivatsa

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