aseembehl

@CalmLogic I took your suggestion, and started taking courses at a local university(IIIT Hyderabad). With a full time job, I could only take one course(Artificial Intelligence) last semester, and am currently taking Machine Learning this semester. I have also written a research paper in the domain of Complex network theory and Natural Language Processing(NLP). It is under review in an international conference(not tier-1,2 conference), but me and my mentor are pretty confident that we would get published. Moreover, I should get a recommendation from my mentor who works in MS-Research. I am applying for Fall 2012 for MS in CS-AI/ML. This is my initial shortlist of the universities. 1. NUS, Singapore 2. NTU, Singapore 3. UT-Dallas 4. University of Southern California (USC) 5. Arizona State University (ASU) 6. Simon Fraser University, Canada 7. University College Dublin 8. Northeastern University The shortlist is based on factors on the following factors: 1. How good the universities AI/ML research lab/faculty is. 2. How flexible is the university in accepting non-CS undergrads. 3. Plan to go for PhD post MS, so looking to join university with strong CS research culture. Can you please take a look and advise.

Thank you oldprogrammer, CalmLogic and Anand for the info. I did some more research on this and found that: 1: Most higher/moderately ranked schools require these pre-reqs to be completed before admission. 2: UT-dallas has 7 pre-reqs not required to be completed before admission. 2 courses(CS-1 and CS-2) could be waived off based on work-ex. 3: UT-Arlington has 6 CS pre-reqs again not required to be completed before admission. The "MS-guide" says they may offer waiver exams for 3 out of these 6 courses. 4: Some lower ranked cs departments (on us-news rankings) have fewer pre-reqs(2 to 4). I still have following doubts: 1. Even if one is admitted to UTD or UTA, wouldn't 5+ pre-reqs be extremely difficult in terms of finances and duration of the MS? 2. USC is one good university which seems to relaxed regarding the non-cs background. Their admission page doesn't clearly state the pre-reqs requirement. I also didn't get any reply to the mail I sent them regarding this last week. I would really appreciate if somebody with knowledge on this could apprise us. 3. I have a strong inclination and aptitude to study CS and am sure I would do well once I join, therefore I am not going for courses such as Information Systems(IS) where I could get into a much better university as their is no CS requirement there and my work-ex profile matches with the program. I have a few apprehensions studying at a lower ranked university: 1. Poor peer group, faculty, and course content. 2. Post-ms jobs are difficult coming from a lower ranked university. 3. Its hard to get into a good university for Phd after ms. It would be a great help if the seniors here could comment on the validity of the above apprehensions and does it make sense to go for a lower ranked school for CS instead of going for higher ranked university for IS?

Thanks CalmLogic! Yeah, I have checked out UT Dallas and betting strongly on that, hoping to score atleast 1300 in GRE. But even they are pretty erratic with their pre-reqs, people switching branches have got anything between 4 to 7 pre-reqs. There are a lot of other schools(generally lower ranked on US News CS Rankings) which don't have any pre-reqs prior to admission. The problem is the number of these deficiency courses one has to take and what is probability of waiving few of them off by talking to profs or taking tests. Also, is there a chance of getting any aid, based on good GRE score with a non-cs background.

I am planning to apply for MS in Computer Science for Fall 2011. My undergraduate degree was in Civil Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering(69%). Writing GRE this october. I am currently working as a Java/ActionScript developer at Deloitte Consulting, India. I have also cleared SCJP certification. I understand since my undergraduate degree was not in Computer Science I will have to take some pre-requisite courses. I have been researching for universities for the number of prereqs required and how receptive they are for such a switch. Number of prereqs is important, since anything more than 5 is just not possible considering the additional financial burden and duration of the program. During my research on admission websites of universities, I found some schools having more than 10 pre-reqs(Brigham Young University), most around 7 pre-reqs and very few less than 5(IIT Chicago, 3 prereqs). Still most of universities don't mention the number(SUNY Buffalo/Albany/Binghamton, UT Arlington, and many others) of pre-reqs required. Also I read on some forums that a lot of times majority of these pre-reqs are waived after talking to the professors. It would be great if anybody on the forums here having first-hand experience of this or knowledge of this could help me out by pointing universities which have a reasonable amount of prereqs or universities which generally waive some of them off.