mvirtosu

Hi, Texas A&M University does not offer financial aid for MS CS students. And, as far as I know, it is not very high ranked in CS (some say it is a dead end for research in CS). U of Missouri, Rolla said there is financial aid available, but they did not offer me any (although I applied there as a safe school). I cannot tell you anything about the other schools because I did not apply there.

Yes, you are right. The GATech subject has been long debated here, and you should receive some answers (unless those people left on vacation). If I am not mistaken, gforce is heading for GATech, try asking him also. Fortunately for you, there is still plenty of time for you to decide (if you are going to apply for fall 2006).

I would suggest Columbia for no 3, UCSB for no 7 (since you said you love California) and Utah for no 8. Good luck!

Edit: sorry, double posting! Anyone knows how to delete one's posts?

Hi sakib: I cannot say McGill and Queen's can be considered safe. The process of admission to canadian universities works something like that: professors review the applications and they are the ones making the recommendations for admission. So if there is no professor there interested in your work, you are in trouble. I applied to University of Waterloo and U of Toronto. UW offered me admission and financial aid, and U of T no admission. No, I will be attending U of Utah, they offered me a TA. That's why I told you about the admission process as a lotery game, you may never know who admits you and who does not. I am sorry, I have no ideea about UCR. If you are really interested, you might start a new thread on the "university admission" forum asking this question. Mihai

Sakib, USC is indeed highly ranked when it comes to its PhD program and its computer science department overall reputation. The MS program admits a lot of students and it is therefore less competitive. However, I would love to hear other people's opinion. I applied to University of Missouri Rolla and North Dakota State University as safe bets. You won't even find them in the CS USNews ranking. :) However, they admitted me, but did not offer any financial assistance. Hope other people will post their views too.

Hi Sakib, Admission to US schools these days is resembling more and more to a lotery game. There were many cases in which people with less impressive backgrounds were in, and, at the same time, people better prepared were denied admission. And, although I woudn't want to discourage you in any way, I would suggest to play more safe. I did not apply to any of your safe schools, so I couldn't say much. Except for the fact that, from what I read on this message board, University of Florida (Gainesville, I presume) has a good reputation. But then, I might be wrong, please check with other people too. I did apply to Columbia and got accepted to their MS program, without aid. So if they admitted me, it is fairly easy to get in. However, their MS program is not so well known as their PhD program and it is also a terminal degree, meaning you cannot continue towards a PhD. I would say USC is more like a safe bet than U Florida, UCSB and RPI. I am talking about USC's MS program, which lacks financial aid as well. If you have other views, please post them. And you are right about CMU and I am glad you could find the financial resources in case you would be in. Good luck with that! Mihai

sakib, I don't think you will get any aid from the MSE professional degree at CMU. In addition to that, although I am not an expert in your field of interest/area of specialization, I think you should add a few safe schools to your list. If you have already done so, please tell me which of them you consider safe schools.

sakib, Unfortunatelly, I am not interested in graphics. And yes, to be admitted to some universities, they need to have your TSE score in order to be considered for a TA. In other places, they award you the TA and then you are required to take the TSE (and perform well) or another test administered by that university. With respect to this latter case, I can tell you that the University of Utah, for instance, requires international grad students who will be TAs to attend a workshop and take speaking tests two weeks before the beginning of classes (unless they already took the TSE).

Sakib, If you are interested in graphics, you can apply to U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or University of Utah. Both universities award financial aid to MS students and it is not necessary to take the TSE.

Thank you, bond.

What does "smu" stand for? Southern Methodist University? :hmm:

confused_sakib, Please do not hijack other TMians' threads. Post your profile, questions and concerns in a new thread on the "University admission: graduate" forum.

@ritwik: unfortunately, I have no idea. Sorry.

In France, the language used is mainly French (French people, generally speaking, do not know or do not want to speak English), although some PhD students write their internationally published articles, obviously, in English. I cannot tell you the best schools specifically for Computer Science, but I can tell you that best schools are those around Paris. And for engineering (computer science, translated as "informatique" is considered to be more like an engineering discipline rather than a science one) top schools are: Ecole Polytechnique, Ecole Centrale Paris, Ecole Superieure d'Electricite (Supelec) and Ecole Nationale Superieure de Cachan.