r/MSCS

• College: BE CS at BITSP
• GPA: 9.3/10
• GRE: On Friday (whats a good enough score ? 330+ ?)
• IELTS: TBD
• Work Exp: SWE 1YOE as FTE + 6M Intern at famous US Fintech company, working on production LLM agent stuff and generic distributed systems/backend stuff for a product. Summer Intern at a Quant Trading Fund
• Publications:
  • 1 AAAI (special track, not to dox) - 2nd author
  • 3 Neurips/ICLR/ICML Workshop papers - First author on all
• Research:
  • 1.) Summer Intern in ML at famous Indian Lab (very well ranked on csrankings in India, AAAI paper at this lab).
  • 2.) Multiple small semester-long research projects
  • 3.) Last semester research with a prof that resulted in a neurips workshop paper
  • 4. Research fellow at semi-famous AI Safety program SPAR (part-time, online)
• LORs: 1 from work (Staff eng in my team) + 2 Academic (Indian Lab professor, CSE Prof from university with ws paper)
• TA exp: TAed for 2 semesters, one for DL and one for an intro to cs course
• Interests: Will align SOP along AI safety and interpretability research, will like to pursue this direction further in the program

Tentative programs list (need to trim/personalize):

• Stanford ? (moonshot, unlikely considering cgpa)
• CMU MSML
• CMU MS CS
• CMU LTI ? (unsure if I am competitive for this as I dont necessarily have a lot of NLP research, mostly just LLM and interp adjacent stuff that is the closest)
• UIUC MS CS
• Georgia Tech MS CS
• UT Austin MS CS
• UCSD MS CSE
• Michigan MSE CSE
• UCLA MS CS

Things i am confused about

• Columbia MS CS
• NYU Courant MS CS (Thesis) - Want to know if this is competitive and has good outcomes, havent heard about it much
• UWM MSCS (Thesis)
• UMD MSCS

Targeting more research focused programs, hence having a thesis component would be a filter. Would eventually aim to do impactful and publishable research at uni and work in the industry after.

For the uni list, i feel its too long right now, what can i trim ? Also any other programs I am missing that are strong research/thesis focused ?

• College: BTech EE at Tier 1 IIT (Minors in Computers Systems, and AI/ML)
• GPA: 8.84/10
• GRE: Tentative scores: 332 (169Q, 163 V)
• TOEFL: 112/120
• Work Exp: 1+YOE at US-based IB (MNC), working on distributed systems and generic SWE stuff. Will be over 2 YOE by Fall 2027; Summer Intern at UK based Product Company (MNC), worked around networks/security/swe.
• Publications: None
• Research: 1.) Summer Research Intern at a very prestigious System Security Lab in EU, targeting kernel/os security (side channels). 2.) Final year research under CSE prof at college, targeting side channel attacks + cryptography. 3.) Summer research under EE prof at college, targeting RL-based interception.
• LORs: 1 industrial (Managing Director at current firm) + 2 Academic (Foreign research Prof, CSE Prof at college)
• Interests: Will align SOP along computer systems and systems security.

Tentative programs list (need to trim/personalize):

Reach

• Stanford MS EE
• CMU MS ECE
• ETH MSc EEIT
• UIUC MS CS

Target

• Georgia Tech MS CS
• UT Austin MS ECE
• UCSD MS CSE
• Michigan MSE CSE
• EPFL MSc CS
• UCLA MS CS

Safe

• Purdue MS ECE
• Wisconsin MS CS
• Columbia MS CS

Please opine on the feasibility of me getting into these programs and feel free to make relevant suggestions regarding programs or my application. I am avoiding year-long degrees. I would like to maximize my chance for getting into industry after my masters, given the increase in difficulty after the CPT revision. Some additional doubts:

1. I also wanted to know if my final resume should be a 1-pager or 2-pager. The one pager is pretty apt and dense in terms of relevant information but loses out on a couple not-so-relevant project/experience, and extracurricular, volunteering part of my profile (which is not trivial).
2. Do extra-curricular/volunteering activities play a part in the applications? If so, should I try to blend them into the 1 page, or is it better to extend (and if so, does 1.5 page look bad)?

My original SOP was AI-assisted, so I understand why GradPilot/Pangram flagged it. I used the review mainly for feedback, then rewrote a paragraph myself in my own voice.
Weirdly, Pangram’s site first gave it ~50% AI, then after I rewrote the flagged section to sound more natural, it went to 100%.
My issue is that GradPilot apparently caps the Foundation & Focus score when AI is detected, and I actually want to see that score properly before trying to get it reviewed by someone else.
I’m not trying to “beat” the detector i just don’t want to throw away a flow/story I really like because a couple students and alumni have read it and they seem to like it
For people who used GradPilot/Pangram: what actually worked? Did you keep the same structure and rewrite everything from scratch, or just ignore the detector and focus on the SOP itself?

PS: this is in no way a critique of either applications, i find them quite useful infact but i might be missing a feature or something i can turn on but not that i can see so forgive me if the question is silly :)

Hey guys,

I’m planning to apply for ASU MSCS for Fall 2027 and I’m starting to work on my SOP and LORs.

I’ve been struggling to find good SOP and LOR samples, especially employer and professor LORs. If anyone who has already gone through MSCS applications can help a brother out, I’d be really grateful.

I’m looking for:

- SOP samples
- Professor/academic LOR samples
- Employer/manager LOR samples

Please DM me if you can help. I’d be really grateful for any help.