Fall 18 | MS | CS | G.R.E 330 (Q-170/V-160) | GPA 9.36 | TOEFL 117| LNMIIT,Jaipur

Objective: MS in Natural Language Processing related programs

Long Term goal: A well paying job in industry
Not a long Term goal: PhD



GRE: 330 (170 quant + 160 verbal+ 4.5 AWA)
TOEFL: 117 (R-29, L-30, S-28, W-30)
GPA: 9.36/10.0
College: LNMIIT, Jaipur (Deemed University in India)
Papers: 2 at CoNLL-2017 (Top-tier) {4th author out of 6} and ICON-2016 (National Level) {2nd author out of 2} [Both are in NLP]
LORs: Yale Professor+Stanford PostDoctor Researcher+LNMIIT Associate Prof
Internships (all remote): Yale University (Resulting in CoNLL Paper), Nanyang Technological University (Resulting in ICON Paper), NCSR Demokritos and a startup

Universities already finalized

1) Based on my own research, I've locked these 4 universities and already sent my GRE/TOEFL scores -> Stanford,CMU,Columbia,UPenn

2) Based on the recommendations of Masters/PhD grads from NLP, I'm strongly inclined to apply in the following universities as well->
UC Berkeley, UWashinton, USC

Only 2 quick points that need to be resolved


1) Please categorize these universities as Ambi/Moderate/Safe + If possible, please provide any specific points about why I should/shouldn't apply here- (Eg- Funded MS? Most Job Prospects? Good as a safety school?)

1) Harvard University
2) Georgia Tech
3) UT Austin
4) John Hopkins
5) University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
6) Cornell
7) UCLA
8) Princeton
9) UC San Diago
10) University of Michigan
11) University of Wisconsin Madison
12) Yale University
13) NYU, TAMU, OSU, ASU

2) I realize that the current finalized list is ambitious. I would appreciate any suggestions regarding moderate/safe universities that I haven't considered yet and why they would be good to add here (if possible).


I would be highly grateful if the awesome seniors here could guide me through this conundrum. Any peculiar details about any specific university would also be very helpful.

-Thankyou so much!!

You have an excellent profile and you would be welcome at the top schools. The key element in your application at this stage is your SOP and how well you write an original essay. Google me at Rao Advisors for help here. Berkeley, Stanford, CMU would be dream schools. [I am a CMU grad]. You should get into U Penn. Here's my school classification:

1) Harvard University - Core
2) Georgia Tech - Core
3) UT Austin - Core
4) John Hopkins - Core
5) University of Illinois Urbana Champaign - Core
6) Cornell - Core
7) UCLA - Suggest dropping
8) Princeton - Dream
9) UC San Diego - Suggest dropping
10) University of Michigan - Core
11) University of Wisconsin Madison - Core
12) Yale University - Core
13) NYU, TAMU, OSU, ASU - NYU and TAMU are safe; suggest dropping OSU and ASU