My Chances?

[kirbata]

Hi. I’m an undergraduate student at Michigan Technological University, and I was wondering about both my chances of getting into selective graduate schools, studying in Computer Science, as well as what I might do to enhance my application (I’m going to be applying next fall).

Here’s some information about me:

Year: Currently 4th year senior
Major: Computer Science
Double Major: Mathematics
Current GPA: 3.50
CS GPA: ~3.5
Major application flaws:

-During my second year of college, I slept through an exam, and was unable to take the course. It was an easy course, which is also relative to my computer science major. Since the exam was worth 20% of our grade, I received a C in the course. This probably looks pretty bad, since it’s such an easy course.

-For the next semester (still my second year of college), I was so upset and discouraged about the C in the CS course that I just wanted to go home. My attitude was pretty poor to say the least. So, I received a D in another CS course the next semester. The only consolation to this was that I retook the course last semester, and received an A in the course. Even so, a D is still on my transcript.

-Last year, when I studied abroad, one of the credits that I had thought that I had dropped was actually not dropped, and I received a low grade for the course. On the Michigan Tech transcript, however, it just says EF for “Exchange Fail”. I’m thinking that this is pretty bad, and for whatever reason that I provide, explaining it will just be an excuse.

-Basically, I think that these three grades are going to look pretty terrible on my application. It really looks like I was lazy my second year. Added to this, the CS course that I received a D in at this time was an upper level CS course, which I’ve heard are weighted more importantly.

Miscellaneous:
-Last year I studied abroad in Japan; That’s why I’m going to be in school for another year. I learned quite a bit of Japanese, but this is unrelated to Computer Science.

-Last semester I took 20 credits (the “normal” maximum for our school is 18 credits), concurrently working/doing a co-op for a minimum of 15 hours a week at a programming job located near Michigan Tech (it’s called “Technisource”, which is in alliance with Smiths Aerospace). Even with all of the business, I received A’s for 16 of the credits, and a B for the remaining 4 credits (this was one course).

-This semester, I am enrolled in 21 credits, and for two of the courses, I am participating in undergraduate research/directed study in computer science. One of the studies is in the area of artificial intelligence, and the other is in the area of human/computer interaction. These have been good experiences, and I am confident that I can get “A’s” in the courses, however, being that I already have a high course load, I don’t know if I can produce any extraordinary research. Probably, it’s just typical. In regard to research, when I studied abroad, I also participated in a year-long research project developing an AI for the game of HEX. This was interesting, but, again, I don’t have a great deal to show for it, except for simply explaining what I did.

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I’ve heard that GPA and GRE scores are heavy factors in the application process. My GPA isn’t the best for a selective graduate school, and I’m afraid that my transcript is probably pretty horrible.

Of course, in other courses, I have many A’s, and everything, but when I look at my transcript, the poor grades haunt me.

I am confident that I can obtain a good score on the GRE if I study hard. If I try hard enough, I think that I can obtain around an 800 in the math portion of the GRE, and maybe around a 500 in the verbal (I’ve done many practice tests).

Please tell me if I have ANY chances of getting into a selective graduate school, and also what I should do to enhance my application.

Thanks,
Brian

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