u/Forsaken-Elephant471

I saw on a lot of grad admission's FAQ's that they do consider your undergrad institution somewhat when looking at your application. By undergrad reputation, do they basically only mean the rankings, or is there some general consensus around schools that are more rigorous than others? In terms of weighing your GPA etc.

I'm really interested in pursuing a more theoretical area of CS in grad school, and I'm currently pursuing a math major alongside CS.

The problem is that while I enjoy math, I'm honestly pretty terrible at it, especially pure mathematics. My Mathematics GPA is around a 2.8, compared to a 3.8 GPA in Computer Science.

For people who have applied to theoretical CS grad programs (especially things like theory/algorithms, ML theory, etc.), how much did your math grades matter, or how much do you think they matter?

I'm an undergraduate graduating in 2.5 years, so I don't have a lot of room in my schedule. I'm interested in pursuing graduate school, likely in an ML-adjacent area or the more theoretical side of CS.

I've already taken one machine learning course. Now I'm deciding whether it would be better to take another ML course to build more depth, or take something like quantum computing, which I'm honestly a little more interested in. This is my last semester, so I can't take any more in the future.

However, my main concern is what would look slightly better to graduate admissions committees. Do they generally value showing depth in a specific area by taking multiple advanced courses, or is it better to demonstrate breadth by exploring adjacent or more theoretical topics?

I’m trying to get a realistic sense of my chances for top CS graduate programs, especially funded/research-oriented MS or eventual PhD-track programs. Do I have any chance anymore?

An important distinction is I need funding.

Background:

• Domestic applicant
• CS + Math at a semi-known university in the US
• Haven't taken the GRE yet but I've gotten close to perfect on every single practice test online so I should do well.... hopefully?
• Graduating in 2 years (Rushing through school has unfortunately taken a toll on my GPA...)

GPA:

• Current GPA: ~3.5 (After two semesters). Second semester didn't go too well, mostly in my math courses.
• Hoping to finish around 3.7 if next semesters go well

"Experience":

• TA for CS and Math courses
• Competitive Programming: top 2% in the world
• Several years building software projects and leading small dev teams (mostly in an extracurricular context, however)
• One of my projects/products unexpectedly became fairly large online with a semi-large user base.
• Projects that I've worked on have accumulated
  • 1M+ downloads
  • 10M+ aggregate content views

No Research yet but will soon have some, but likely only a couple of months experience before applying.

Couple of questions:

1. How much will the GPA hurt me for top programs? I can expect the answer will be "a lot" but I don't know if it takes me out the running or not.
2. Does graduating in 2 years help, hurt, or look neutral?
3. Can strong engineering/project experience compensate for weaker research? I assume not.
4. What tier of programs should I realistically target for funded admissions?

Would appreciate honesty lol. Or what I can do (besides getting involved in research) to help my application in the little time I have left. Thanks