<p>it also depends on school and major. For CS and EE, I don’t think the OP would have a shot at MIT, Stanford, or CMU. His best bet might be to stay in UIUC. I had friends from UC Berkeley with a lot higher GPAs (3.7-3.8) and research even get rejected for a MS this year. If he were say civil engineering, material science, or industrial engineering, I’d change my stance, as MS admissions for these other engineering majors are less competitive than EE or CS.</p>