wayfaerer

What is your field of interest? That would help people identify what types of Universities would be suitable for you... That said, given your field of study and especially given the fact that you're Indian, try Edulix http://www.edulix.com/forum for similar questions... you should get some valuable insights into specifics of applications for Indian students... there are also probably more people studying in the field on that Forum than there are here. The CS section of this place has been a bit dormant of late... especially for University list and where to apply types of queries. EDIT: Edulix seems to be down now.. you could try later

Industry, Academics or your own business are all possibilities. Many people start of with a PhD because they have interests in Academic positions... i.e. becoming a Professor. But in CS, there are many many research jobs available for PhD's with a passion for research... Microsoft Research has some of the post prolific researchers in several fields. There are many many other such Research labs that focus on a subset of Computer Science.. for example in Graphics there are places like Nvidia and Disney Research.. there are equivalents in most sub-fields of the subject as well. PhD's don't normally get paid as well as someone with an MS or Bachelors degree... when I say this, I mean for the most part the salaries that you get post-PhD will be less than someone with 5 years of experience with an MS degree. Most people don't go for a PhD for the money... its more about being able to do what you love i.e. research. If this is not what you love, completing a PhD will be difficult, and getting into an industrial position and doing well there will be even more difficult. That said, these positions pay reasonably well... enough to be comfortable even with a family... but these salaries are unlikely to compete favorably with working after an MS. I'm guessing industrial positions pay better than University positions (I don't know how much more though.. maybe someone else can provide an insight into that)... but University jobs have their own set of advantages depending on what you want. Starting your own business is also quite possible... especially if your research is ground breaking enough, and practically applicable enough that you can produce something you can sell. The MIT Media Lab is one example where there are many people who start up their own ventures to market the products that are developed.. and I'm guessing there are parallels in other Universities as well. However, this is generally not the most likely line for a PhD. While there are several instances of this happening, more often than not someone who starts up their own venture has a strong business sensibility... something that does not always align well with a person who's passion is research. If you think you have both, then this is a viable option as well. Hope I answered some of your queries. The bottom line is that if you want to do research for a significant portion of your life... for whatever purpose, a PhD will give you the ability to do this. And for most people pursuing this line, the satisfaction of being able to get paid to do what they love is worth a great deal.

From what I've gathered, microkernel is right. The idea behind the test is to evaluate understanding of concepts, so those are of primary importance. That said, there are many concepts that only appear in Object Oriented languages... and from what I've gathered, some code samples from recent tests do test understanding of Object Oriented concepts. You have little to lose by using books that approach the subject using C++, so why not go with it. Chances are, if you don't know the language well already, it will also help quite a bit. If you do, then there's nothing to lose and possibly something to gain.

Rankings - Political Science - Graduate Schools - Education - US News and World Report EDIT : Oops. Just realized the thread is a year old!

Well you will have to send both scores if they are valid. Its definitely not an option. One thing you could be reassured by, however, is the fact that most colleges seem to choose your best score, and a few select your latest score. A very small number to use a straight out average (this is a theory.. I don't recall any website I've looked at stating this). So chances are its one of the first two.. either way, your latest score will be used. So don't worry too much

Firstly, there are no requirements to write the GRE (CS). The requirements are generally for US Universities. From many of the websites I've seen, US universities do not recognize 3 year Indian degrees. However, there are some that do... your best bet would be to start off your university research and check with the places you are interested in whether or not your 3 year bachelors degree meets their requirements. NIIT doesn't really count as education.. its a certification course. I'm not sure about this.. but in most cases, people do enroll in some sort of masters program. GRE(CS) is just one optional part of an application to MS/PhD programs abroad... it generally acts as a possibly boost to your profile, verifying that you know the content of the test, which essentially covers what a standard undergrad student should have studied through their program. If you're applying to the US, you WILL need to write the GRE general test. The GRE (CS) is an optional part, but in a vast majority of universities, the GRE (general) is not optional. You'll also have to write TOEFL as part of any effort to apply to the US, though IELTS is sometimes accepted as a substitute. The options are whatever you want.. its not like an entrance exam. You just use the scores as part of your admission. The GRE (CS) doesn't open any doors for you within India. If you want to know about good post-grad courses, look up websites and do some research. You can use rankings as a starting point if you wish....

I think you are referring to the Barrons high-frequency list. The full list is a lot bigger. Its more than 1000 at least.. don't remember the exact number. I found that list a lot more useful, since the high-frequency list has a whole lot of words which are, to put it simply, high-frequency even in regular usage. Although there are several which are not even remotely so. I must say.. I don't think its necessary to really know all the words on the Barrons list to do well on the GRE...

Firstly is this for an MS or a PhD? I'd guess its an MS, since I'd have expected a PhD student to provide details on research-fit and so on. Everything below is on my (limited) knowledge of MS programs. I'm applying only next year.. but I do read a whole lot of stuff online UMass has a significantly better reputation in CS as a whole... Second, they have some pretty well-known researchers in those two fields. Significantly more well known that the other two for sure. I'm basing this off a quick Microsoft Academic Search look up.. but I think it also would be expected, given the significantly higher standing that UMass has in grad-hopeful's mindspace. They have many labs around your interests there, so that should give you an opportunity to learn more too. Its also a much more difficult place to get in than the other two, from what I hear. These things make UMass the clear winner to me. I know its more expensive than the others, but I'd say its definitely worth it (I'm an international student too). Congrats on a great admit. I don't know about the second question... not enough into the field to judge. Both places do have a good overall reputation though. From what I've heard Minnesota is supposed to be good for really good for Data Mining and so on.. but you might want to check that out.

64% is 1.5?? I'm pretty sure thats a mistake. What would help a little more is something like the topper's percentage You might want to ask this in the GMAT section actually.. I think people are slightly more active there than in this forum. That said, one immediate bit of advice would be to not stick only to the US, in case you were only considering this as an option. GMAT expectations (from what I hear from others in similar positions.. I'm not applying to business school) are much higher in US business schools than they are, for example, in the UK... so a slightly low (if you DO get a low score) will probably hurt you a lot less in those types of places. For the rest of it, I guess you'll get better advice from someone who has written GMAT and is applying/has applied to business school.

Well... the two are slightly different.. so the first thing you might want to do is sort that difference out. Apart from that, from everything I know, in Canada M.Sc programs are more prestigious, and also more research oriented than MEng programs. They also include aid in most cases (I'm not sure about McGill, but I have a strong feeling I saw that on their website). Given these things, it really depends on your priorities as to what you want to study, how important finances are to you, and what type of situation you are faced with at both places. If it were me, I'd go with the McGill admit, since its an M.Sc .. mainly funding chances, but also because I personally want a taste of research. This second one would actually be a negative if you dont want such a taste.

from several past posts on this forum it is approximately 1 month from the date of the exam, give or take a few days

on the GRE website it says that Universities are supposed to accept the old format of scores until they expire. So it shouldn't be a problem.. there isn't much more detail though.

sorry I'm not goldust, but I think I can answer the second question. Whether or not the new rules make the test harder is a subjective think. Some people think so, others don't. Essentially the primary changes involve moving the focus on the verbal from vocab (antonyms, analogies) towards things that are closer to testing skills of understanding and comprehending english. This means more RCs, and probably more sentence oriented questions (expect things a bit more challenging that sentence correction). That is what I've been able to glean from the GRE site as well as various discussions going around. To me, this makes things easier.. others say its tougher because you can no longer study for it. Take your pick. My understanding of the changes in the math section are a bit more scant.. one thing involves adding an on screen calculator. So you can expect that questions that mainly involve clever calculation tricks and so on will no longer be around. I'm guessing they're trying to make the math section a little bit more challenging on the problem solving aspects (closer to GMAT style I guess). Whether or not this makes the math section tougher depends on how comfortable you are with things.... probably if you're really good at math, it will make the pressure of not making silly mistakes lower (since the tough questions would actually be tough for more number of people), on the other hand if you're having trouble with the problem solving aspect now, I guess that would make things tougher. The new changes will be rolled out in August 2011. Until then, all GRE tests will be on the old format. They have something up on their website about how they will score things (collecting data for percentiles). Basically you'll only get your results in November. So unless you are applying for Fall '12, or later... you'll only have to bother about the current format

anyone? it says 187 views....

This ranking ranks the broad field of Engineering and Information Technology. In my opinion, this is not indicative of the quality of a CS department at all (for instance a strong electrical engineering department would boost the rankings of a university that isn't so great at CS... one such example I can see on this list isn't THAT well reputed for CS is Cambridge. Its a great name and all that, but I know of little CS related research coming out of it). I'd suggest you look for rankings that specifically focus on the CS department.. those would be better measures of the quality. Perhaps you could also look up resources like Microsoft Academic Search to find out how the professors at each university stack up in reputation. Although it relies only on citation count related data... you can find the top researchers of all time, last 10 years and last 5 years. However, the site seems to mess up affiliations, so don't rely on those. My method of using this is to look up the names of the professors in the field on the department website, and do a simple ctrl+f on each of the names, in each of the three pages mentioned. The ranking itself will give you some data on the professor's research. This still doesn't take into account teaching and quality of MS program.. I still haven't figured out how to research that, though it would probably be more important than the research oriented data that is generated by US News, ARWU and so on, which is more applicable to Phd. students

Congratulations on the admits! Do you have any specific sub-field interests? I think a lot would depend on that. For example, my interest is in Graphics... and I find that the faculty and Stony Brook that deals with Graphics are much better known/published/reputed as compared to those at McGill. In this field, I'd venture to say Stony Brook is in fact better. However, the opposite may well be true in many other disciplines within computer science. I am not too sure about the ranking of the CS department. As you might expect, McGill's CS department is not on the list of US News (which is where most people get information from). The only alternative ranking site that I use (to compare across countries) is ARWU. Although the methodology is a bit questionable, they seem to allot similar scores to both universities, and they are ranked in the same range. Most Canadian universities are recognized in the US.. that shouldn't be an issue. However, as far as jobs go, students with a post-grad degree from the US have priority with respect to work visas. That makes the hassle a lot less for most companies to hire you if they are located in the US. I'm not sure how big a deal this is... in some industries, there are enough jobs in Canada itself for it to not make a big difference (again, in the case of graphics.. this is the case. It could be very different for other fields). You might want to check up on this... There is also the obvious case of cost... if you have no strong inclination to a particular field within CS, you might wish to go with the cheaper option or the one with more chances for aid. Best of luck with your applications

btw.. Calmlogic isnt from India, he just knows about GATE :) The only mock tests that I know about are previous question papers, which were included in the ETS booklet in the past. You can find these on the Yahoo! GRE CS group. The group isnt active anymore, but the file section has a whole bunch of old tests, which should be very handy. I don't remember the url, but I found it quite easily while searching in the past. Apart from that, Titanium Bits is a very popular resource, and is available for download. Good luck with the preparation (I gave up on writing the subject test....... at least for now. Got scared off by the breadth required)

awa scores aren't easy to predict. Although one can get a reasonable sense of the criteria, its difficult to know exactly what is giving you a specific score. For example, when I wrote the GRE for the second time, I was totally sure that my responses on the second test in the writing section were far superior than the ones on the first test. However, I still got the same score. My conclusion is that unless there is a massive overhaul of structure/natural tendencies/ability to write... the scores aren't going to change too much. If you think you need to improve your score, I would suggest that you enroll in some sort of writing course, or work with an english teacher to improve on some of the drawbacks of your writing with constant feedback. Most likely, there are some structural flaws to your writing, in addition to grammatical errors. Those normally take a longer time to improve upon than the other sections. If you don't have the time for that, or don't think it is necessary.. then I'd suggest that you don't waste more money on another GRE exam..

oh wow thats awesome.. nice to know that there are ways to pay through a Stanford education that are accessible to MSCS students. gives a lot of hope

wow. I didn't realize either.. had this list of reasons about why UW with funding was better. lol

I personally think that service is just a rip-off. I'm guessing professors are used to writing recommendation letters for their students, as its quite a common thing required for most graduate programs... at least that is my understanding. Generally, professors would write the same recommendation letter, and make 10 copies of it, not really a burden. Moreover its quite important that there is some stamp of authenticity.. in the case of posted letters of recommendation, this does not come into the picture at all.. however most admission departments today ask for a direct online recommendation letter as well. From what I noticed while researching grad programs, most of them request that the letter of recommendation be sent directly to them by the recommender. Again, the credential service acts as a middle man, and would reduce the perceived authenticity of these recommendations. For most grad students, ETS is already ripping us off. What with the GRE, and TOEFL (if you are from a country that requires this), best not to let them do so even more than needed PS: Just my opinion about this from reading what they had to offer... got it in the mail with my GRE scores

@ikkokusenkin anytime :) Yeah, thats exactly the one I'm talking about. The free one mind you (no way I'd pay ETS any more than I already had to.. that was my second GRE) It gives you the question number, amount of time spent on the question, the type of skill being tested (vocabulary, inference etc) and the type of question (antonym, sentence correction etc.). No details on the questions, but that breakdown provides quite a lot of information... so you can figure out to an extent what went wrong. Asking them to fix it definitely sounds like a good idea... I've heard other people saying similar things about it not working, though I didn't face any problems myself. Congrats again on the score btw

Actually, I got a 700... and when I checked out the diagnostic it turns out I got all but 1 of the RC questions right. The vocab did me in on the other ones... (I'm a native speaker, and read a lot... but that doesn't always help in the GRE vocab). Each to their own I guess. But ikkokusenkin, you should definitely not be unhappy with a 720, regardless of what you were scoring in practice. Thats a great score.. and the difference between the two is more likely to be because of bad luck with the order of questions, or one word misread. I cant really think of too many programs that would look down at such a score either

Kaplan is a lot lot better than Barrons for math. The Big Book, from what I've heard, isn't the best resource for math at all. I didn't use it myself, but I did check out the one free paper-based test that was available online.. the problem with the big book is that it is from a different era of testing, where the focus was on solving many problems in a much shorter time. Now the questions are a bit harder, and you are given more time. My advice would be to pick up Kaplan. The strategies were (for me) not so efficient.. I found it was possible to solve the questions much more easily using my own methods, but the questions were really good and the tests are really helpful.

Hey there.. I used to be on the GRE forum quite a bit before the server crashed.. anyway, I was wondering if I could pick the brains of a few people on this forum. I've been trying to do some research on MS programs, specifically in Computer Graphics. I don't intend to continue on to a Phd. I've searched through the various forums and identified universities.. but most of them are researched from the US News Rankings. I was wondering if some of you here might be able to give me a little more insight into this. I'll only be applying in Fall '11, and don't have a great profile as yet... but hopefully 6 months down the line I'll be a bit better off. Have about 75% so far in my Undergrad studies in Computer Science (from VTU in India.. though I doubt that will help too much), which is an alright score. Not really top of the class or anything like that. I've got a one month internship lined up in China, at the 'State Key CAD and CG lab', at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou... thats supposed to be the extra push on my profile, since its supposed to be a relatively important lab. GRE scores are quite alright on the second attempt (790 quant, 700 verbal, 5.0). Scores from the first attempt were (770 quant,600 verbal,5.0), in case its relevant. I'm looking at applying to GOOD graphics related programs, and am not really bothered about splitting between ambi/mod/safe and so on. It'd be great if you could add on a few more to the list, and split them into categories or something. I saw a thread like this on edulix, but there was nothing much related to Graphics there It'd also be great if someone could suggest what I could add to my profile to improve my chances(and which ones I should give up hope on totally). Carnegie Mellon - Entertainment Technology Center (sounds super interesting to me at this point) Cornell - MEngg. (Anyone know how much this interfaces with the Program in Graphics?) Stanford - (Real World Computing Track.. ie Graphics) Georgie Tech - Graphics specialization UNC Chapel Hill University of Utah - Graphics Track ETH Zurich - Visual Computing Track RWTH Aachen (Germany) - Masters in Media Informatics (joint with Bonn and Fraunhoffer Institute) USC - (either Game Development, or Graphics and Vision) UPenn - Computer Graphics and Game Technology program Columbia - Graphics as concentration area UW Madison University of Maryland at College Park UCLA - (very little on the website) UMich at Ann Arbor Sorry for the super long post with so many questions, but maybe this could be some type of information gathering for the others out here (don't know how many) before the start of the next application season.