MDK

Where did you do your undergrad? and what's your class rank? Have you ever published in an international conference?

You need to take advanced courses in probability and statistics, these two courses are really the backbone of Machine Learning.

Thanks man, especially for mentioning the Robotics course. Oussama Khatib is really awesome, I googled very hard last year to find his lecture notes, but I couldn't find anything. Watching his lectures, is too fancy for me !!

You will definitely get into USC, Arlington and Dallas, so you are good for the safe choice part. But because of your GPA, I can't suggests any ambitious schools.

Does it match your passport?

Ancalagon: Weren't you heading to TAMU? what's happened? I remember you got a a PhD admit from one of the UCs also.

You only need to know the code of the department which offer the degree, since most of the degrees are offered under the CS department then you enter 78. People keep posting that California is great for jobs, and it's a wise choice to pay huge tuition at USC in order to stay in California. In my opinion, this is not necessarily true, I have seen people from Gatech interning in Microsoft headquarters at Washington and people from Penn state working in NYC. The point is, location is not everything because most of the jobs and internships applications are available online. If you are concerned about on campus recruiting, it doesn't affect major companies (Microsoft, Google ..etc) because they come to every big university. It only differes at the state level companies which may be numerous of them in CA. About Detroit, I don't think there are plenty of CS jobs there, a friend of mine is planning to leave Detroit after finishing his MS because there aren't many technology companies there.

I think USC accepts students from EE background to their CS program, in addition it's easy to transfer from EE to CS once you are at USC.

Umass, Gatech and UWashington.

This is list is too ambitious for your profile, it's full of super ambitious schools. Specially that you have BE in Electronics not in computer science. Besides you are not sure whether your GPA meats the 3.0 cutoff and most of these schools prefer toppers. I don't know if you are depending on excellent LORs from well known professors to crack this list, even though this list still too ambitious. UCLA, UMich, Yale, Pudue, UIUC are super ambitious for your profile (unless you have something I'm not aware of). You should consider replacing these schools with less ambitious ones ( Gatech for example).

I am not saying that, I am just telling the truth that such LORs won't have any role in admitting you to that institute. These kind of LORs will be used to waive the 3 LORs required for admission but without any significant boost to your profile. Sorry to say that, but I was in the same boat with you guys. For PhD, I would get as much as I can LORs from professors and reasearchers. I don't think an LOR from your boss would be of any good unless you were working at some R&D organization. Dude, it's a PhD not master's, they are seeking to recruit the best researchers not the best co-workers.

I don't agree with you because your referee might have excellent verbal abilities specially if he has studied in the US. But if the admission committee don't know your referee then it doesn't really matter whatever he/she mentioned in the LOR even if he/she promised you'll be next Einstein.

Thanks Tino for clarifying :)

Some schools require a degree in computer science or other related degree, while other only ask to see prerequisites in your undergrad transcripts. So it depends on the school.

Do they sign the I20? I remember reading that I20 must be signed by the consular however, I received my I20 along with my Visa with no signature. Somebody please clarify