GRE CS Subject Exam with regards to my profile

[CalmLogic]

Regarding funding for an MS, it's usually either a sad story or one with a lot of suspense.

Suspense (funding sometime after the first semester): GA Tech, like most schools, doesn't seem to really award stidpends before the first semester (at least in any significant number). Funding varies widely, with a general trend that private schools offer less stipend positions than state schools; a private school like USC or Brown is a lot harder to get funding than, say, a state school like Purdue. To get a better idea of the funding at each school, Edulix has the most information. It also sometimes helps to read the websites of the Indian Student Associations (ISAs) at different schools.

Sad story (no funding at any point): At some schools with a lot of international students like UT Dallas and possibly NCSU, it seems most MS students are not able to get a stipend at any point. These students are able to get on campus jobs but these jobs don't provide tuition waivers and can only be for up to 20 hours a week, often/usually at less than $10 an hour.

Happy story (least likely; funded from day one): UIUC seems to offer aid to many accepted MS applicants. The Univerity of Utah seems to still offer some TA awards prior to the first semester.

So, given these uncertanties, a lot of people try to go to a school that is affordable since they may not get funding. A very popular choice is TAMU, which is pretty hard to get into because their tuition and cost of living is so low while their rank is very good. Another option is UF for their 40% tuition waiver that is awarded through their department of computer engineering.

This brings up another point you mention: Should you go to the best school you can afford or go to a school with lower tuition? Well, it really depends on a case-by-case basis because there are also visa issues that I am not very aware of. So I would recommend you look into the visa issue (such as at the visa forum at TestMagic). At least in some countries, my impression is that it seems the US government is less likely to grant an F1 student visa if a student loan is large enough (relative to one's finances) that lawfully returning to one's country seems questionable. (The burden of proof is upon the visa applicant.) This seems to be one reason why applicants like to know the I-20 information for each school. GA Tech has an I-20 that is pretty high relative to TAMU.

[CalmLogic]

To further complicate things, there are also fellowships to consider. Most notably, 2 people who applied to the MS at Boulder got a fellowship:

computer science boulder • thegradcafe.com

So if you apply to a school that is a safer option, there may be a financial surprise in stores. So that may be a reason to apply to safety schools that are less popular while applying to higher ranking schools.