Computer Science Graduate School Admission Results

No GRE. 1 year work experience. 1 publication. From University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Hi any groups for Spring 22 admits?

MEng Program in Northern Virginia

Waitlisted on May 11, 2021

TTPB: Yeah, you've got it correct mate! I am 2019 USC graduate student and working at Amazon. I am here because my brother was kinda obsessed with USC and getting a reject was depressing for him. I thought my viewpoint might help others in a similar situation as well. First of all there is a notion of California obsession among Indians, I was no different. After I got into USC I was like I have achieved everything in life. No doubt USC is a good school or maybe even better but USC isn't GOD. If you don't have the potential, USC isn't gonna provide you jobs. Here at Amazon, my group of SDE-1 has people from many Universities which I didn't even consider during my applications. Those people completed their masters with almost half the expense than what I paid at USC. Any company in the US isn't gonna pay you based on the university from which you graduated. I saw many people on gradcafe opting for Spring without even thinking twice. I have friends who came into Spring semester, the internship search made them anxious as there was only 1 summer break. The 1st summer break isn't productive at all if you aren't from research background. Now, I had an admit from TAMU where I could have completed my masters saving lakhs than USC. My very close friend at work graduated from TAMU and got debt free in like 6 months or even less whereas it took me around 12 months to do so. At that time even I was obsessed with USC and I repeat again, this is general notion about california and usc, but people don't speak about the other side of the picture. I know currently many people might think I am speaking bad of USC or anything of such sort. But I am trying to be neutral. Once you start with the job no one cares about the university. Just get out of the obsession and think 10 times before making a decision.

TTPB: Yes I heard the same things from my seniors. Tbh, whenever you ask a senior who has recently joined the university, he'll always have positives to talk about. People say they left gatech and columbia for usc. It's better to ask working professionals who graduated from USC and are working for like 1 year or so. You ask any working professional, 95% of them have the same opinion, that as long as the university is decent enough, nothing matters more than your calibre. My brother graduated from Rutgers and is currently working in California based company and his coworkers are from USC who are getting equally paid. He was able to waive off his debt in like 10 months, whereas his coworkers are still in debt.

(Ignore WL) For anyone STILL waiting for Columbia's MS CS decisions, I just called the school to ask about my application because I submitted mine before the first priority deadline back in January and it has been more than 5 months without any updates. They told me that they are still reviewing applications, and that the delay is due to the pandemic. They said that there are still chances of acceptance and thanked me for my patience.

the time they took to send out rejections is a bit absurd.

Got an email asking me to check the portal.

I contacted one of my seniors who went to USC in Spring 19 to know his view points. Posting it here so that many can benefit: 1) Major drawback is the internship opportunities. According to him, many students had really hard time finding internships. Now people say that you get 3 semesters to prepare for internships. So, then what about jobs? You waste 3 semesters in preparing and finding internships. Then there's only 1 semester to search for jobs and conversion of internships to jobs is really less. 2) Acc to him, wasting 6 months in India and then wasting 3-4 months in summer break is of no use. Yes, you can part time jobs in the break but is part time jobs > Your precious time in life and finding internships? 3) Many good professors at most universities including USC won't be available for Spring term as they are busy with research work. So for core courses, he had to take classes of some professors which weren't that great. 4) He graduated in December last year and is working at some Cali based startup that pays around 80-85k. Acc to him, his co-workers are from UT Dallas, UCSD, UIC, Penn state, NEU and NCSU. All these people are having the same pay. 5) His last view point was that career fairs at USC were total shit. They have some lottery based system to pick colors and you can only attend companies that fall under those colors. So, he advised me to go ahead with the other admit and not to obsess over USC.

Applied for Fall 21 and got an admit for Spring 22, instead. Not accepting it though. Don't want to waste 6 month unnecessarily, have an admit from equally good university. All the best to everyone

I actually deferred my admit from Winter 21 to Spring 21. Is there any group for fall/spring incoming students? Thanks!

I got an admit to spring 22 but I don't wanna join then cause that means wasting my summer. Can I defer my admit to fall 22 instead as I already have a job so I can make up for the months this way instead of wasting my student visa duration in US ?

To everyone who was admitted after being "waitlisted": when did you apply?

No GRE, 4 Publications, Admitted to DS and AI

Spring admit. Will not be accepting the offer since spring means that you are unable to do a summer internship. Will be heading to a similar ranked (top 25) university in Fall 2021 instead.

Finally some reply from USC. Waitlisted for 2 weeks . Got the offer for admit in Spring 2022. Going to accept the offer