I am thinking about applying for masters in CS in the US. It's already February. I thought about applying before but my mind was dominated by anxiety and the stress of classes. I applied many times before, but this is the first time that I am in a bad position. Ok, this is the first time perhaps I am aiming for a non-elite-tier school in my life. I am not applying for the top 10 or 20. And any excuses are just futile. Yeah, it's February 10th now. I am late. Ok, no judgements. I am going to try to apply for fall, if it doesn't work, I am going to try to apply for spring. I don't want to wait for too long.
School Tiers
I am applying for research masters in ML/Data Science now and eventually, I want to get a PhD. First I need to know the general tiers of universities in the US. So I am mainly aiming for tier 2/3 schools.
- Top: Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, CMU
- Tier 1.5/2, solid, not absolute top but very strong: UIUC, UCSD, UCLA, University of Washington, Georgia Tech, Purdue, UCI, etc
- R1/"Standard Research": UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, Oregon State, Rutgers, Virginia Tech, Arizona State
- R2/Regional/Mostly Master's and Bachelor's: Cal Poly, San Jose State. (while literally "regional" with lower rankings, there are very huge variations in outcomes depending on the locations if you compare San Jose and Anchorage, but I don't know if it's smooth for a master here to transfer into PhD)
- CCs: I don't want to go here
Ok, I don't actually care a damn about CSrankings. I am serious. CSrankings rewards spamming and long story short, I may not be able to endure through a school high in CSrankings but too "life-unfriendly".
My Grades/Courses
- TOEFL: 109(4 years ago)/105(2 years ago)/104(now)
- GRE: 155(Verbal)/166(Quant) (4 years ago)
So I am in USTC, studying CS. My overall GPA is 2.7/4.3.
- Freshman: 57.5 Credits, GPA 3.75/4.3
- Sophomore first semester: 21.5 Credits, GPA 3.35/4.3
- Sophomore second semester (So the first year we didn't chose majors, then I spent one semester in math, then I transferred to CS and simultaneously went to exchange at UC Berkeley): 16 Credits, GPA 3.77/4
- Summer (exchange): 8 Credits, GPA 3.65/4
- Junior first semester (exchange): 16 Credits, GPA 2.73/4
Ok, prepare for a big shock to see my burnout or "fall from grace". I promise you a movie doesn't go like that. I didn't start gaming. I didn't find a girlfriend (even now, I had no relationships so far). I didn't do drugs, party, or illegal stuff, though my sleeping schedule was erratic and messed up.
- Junior year second semester (back at USTC): 18/27.5 Credits, 3 courses failed, GPA 1.3/4.3
- Summer: I went to HKUST for 2 months to do some research, or rather no research at all
- Senior first semester: 13.5/18.5 Credits, 2 courses failed, GPA 1.75/4.3
- Senior second semester (graduation delayed by one year): 10.5 Credits, GPA 1.78/4.3
- 5th year first semester: 12 Credits, GPA 2.4/4.3
Are you happy? You can laugh at me, it's funny, even if I am crying or douting my sanity. I don't know if I should blame it on myself or the Chinese CS education. Because here are the courses I took at Cal with literally zero CS foundation in one year I took.
- CS161 Security(A)
- CS170 Algorithms(A)
- EECS149 Embedded(B)
- CS188 AI(B+)
- CS182 DL(B+)
- CS285 RL(C+)
- CS61C Architecture(C+)
And I came back to USTC, and I still needed to complete the standard CS curriculum in China, and I got slaughtered. I failed computer organization, database, mathematical logic, digital circuits, and digital circuits labs. I got 60 in OS, graph theory, and retaking database. I got 67 in retaking of digital circuits. And I am finishing my undergrad this year!
As for research? Spoiler: I did none so far. I was too busy dealing with depression and my mental health after the sophomore year. Good news is that I do not have suicidal thoughts right now. The tragedy is that I didn't do meaningful research in my undergrad. Looking in retrospect, it's divided into 2 phases, the first 2 years I almost didn't know anything about CS, then I was struggling/depressed. I don't blame myself anymore, but once I get my feet inside the master's program, I need to try to write and publish papers. I am very lucky (I am going to graduate from USTC soon after passing the failed courses), optimistic (things would be better almost certainly) and resilient of failure!
The annoying thing is that you think you did nothing wrong, you followed your own logic, you worked normally, and you didn't think you did anything wrong, and you still failed spectacularly. In those scenarios you began to doubt your sanity or feel very insecure, and you are unsure about what to do in the future either. But after a while you eventually make a comeback and regain your confidence. Anyway, you begin to get fatalistic and less concerned with material matters. Grades and results matter less because there's no control over them, while the process of learning, the absolute truth, and the subject itself begin to matter far more. I mean, this is not the first time that I feel fatalistic. Back in my high school, one of the top in Shanghai but "too general", I was getting extremely poor grades on every subject except math and physics that I was almost doomed to fail in Gaokao. Yeah, even English, when I was reading full-length English novels and watching YouTube without problems, getting a good score in TOEFL. I was always one of the worst in exams. People didn't people it because I went to USTC at 16, but I went in through the special program where I only needed to take math and physics, and met a low baseline in Gaokao, which I just managed to met. In fact, I went in just at the line, one point less in Gaokao, or one point less in the specialized exam, I would be dead. But then I failed so hard in it ironically. Something similar happened when I was applying to high school, though I was a slightly better fit in my middle school as the class was explicitly "math olympic track". Although for the exchange year in Cal, that was less drama, I just applied and easily got in. Anyway, it's like, I am still going to work hard and be serious about the subject, but I am not going to blame myself anymore or try to force myself too much into solutions that clearly don't work. I had an existential fear and anxiety of falling. Last year I was failing a total of 14.5 credits, and if you fail more than 20 credits, you get expelled. But here I am.
Nihilism kicks in, along with strong cynicism and an excruciating amount of loneliness and pain. Turned out that all the battles I had over the years are just futile. There are no dopamine left in my brain. And through the emotional hunger and intensity there is nowhere to let it through. The problem with grinding forward while being extremely lonely is that you lose sanity. I had no social life in all these school years. I kept thinking whether I would have a social life in the next stage, and I was always denied of one. It feels existential. There was no teen life for me, and I need some life and vitality in the next stage. But here I am, repeating it like so many times in my life to myself but it never came. Then came the dread. It is existential, the feeling that you are losing control. I am not only desperate about academic performance, I am also desperate for a balanced gender ratio and some social life. What is the point of grinding on? I do not have motivation anymore. And so I pracrastinated till the end of February doing nothing. The problem is that I just don't want to present myself. I can face myself and I am honest, but when you are failing so bad you want to be saved by someone, you want to be told by a university automatically that they would accept me. Unfortuantely, there are no such things happening to me.
- This is the post about my primary school: https://jimchen.me/a/44793e
- This is the post about end of middle school: https://jimchen.me/a/8f2934
- This is the post about high school and getting admitted into USTC: https://jimchen.me/a/67abaf
- This is the post about applying to Berkeley in my second year here: https://jimchen.me/a/53e031
- And this post is about applying to Masters from USTC in my fifth year.
Which School to Apply for?
I want
- Research masters for transition to PhD
- A big city or a city with proximity to tech
- A balanced gender ratio (not a male-only, life-unfriendly university), so not a "tech institute"
- Relatively easy admission (so tier 2/3 are fine)
Some backup:
- Cal State Long Beach
- Cal State East Bay
Ok, most of these universities are still open to applications until March 1st or later, so I are still within time.
Applying
- [x] Transcripts (2 exchange, 1 USTC)
- [x] English Tests (TOEFL, GRE)
- [x] CV
- [x] Statement of Purpose (SOP)
- [ ] Letter of Recommendation (LOR)
| School/ Website | DDL | Need LOR? | Status (TODO, Pending, Reject, Admit) |
|---|---|---|---|
| UT Dallas | TODO | ||
| NJIT | May 1 | No | TODO |