As I enter my senior year, I currently have a 4.0 GPA in Computer Science (from a well-known state university), 320 GRE (165Q, 155V, 5.5AW), 2 semesters of research, and 1 semester of teaching assistantship.
Undoubtedly, GPA is the shining star of my profile. My question is, how do AdComs look at such a profile? Would my profile be considered “strong” based on GPA standards? Are top schools in my major such as Georgia Tech acad-centric? What are my chances?
One thing to keep in mind is that, at the graduate level, “admissions committees” are essentially just faculty from the department to which you’re applying. A good GPA is generally important, but they will be considering it in the context of how successful they think you’ll be as a graduate student, and whether or not your profile and research interests are a good fit for any of the department’s current faculty members.
Computer science is not my field, but your GPA, experience, and GRE seem competitive, and you probably have a shot at the programs you’re considering.
I would think they will more interested on your research. If you could publish a paper on that, I think they will admit you.
Are you looking for a Masters or PhD? For a Masters, having a lot of research experience might not be so critical although it will certainly help. Your GPA and GRE scores are certainly good enough to make you competitive.
Forgot to mention, I am applying for a Masters program.
From my experience, a 4.0 is excellent, but it doesn’t carry much more weight than a 3.9. As someone else mentioned, what’s really important is what you did in undergrad and how much potential you have to do more.
That being said, though, your GPA and scores are good and you have research and teaching experience to boot, so you should be competitive (but not solely because of the 4.0. Grad school admissions are generally way more holistic).
‘what’s really important is what you did in undergrad’
Apart from getting good grades, doing research, and having teaching experience, what other things could one possibly do in their undergrad?
The “what you did in undergrad” is usually what you mentioned - teaching experience and research experience. Experience in these kind of things really help bolster your application, and their quality also helps and makes a difference (working as an “RA” where you got your professor’s coffee every morning, for example, would not be the same as if you, say, did experiments with them and presented the work you did with them at a conference).
So, even if you have the teaching and research experience, it’s what you did with them (and how you sell that on your CV/personal statement/interview/whatever) that really makes the biggest splash, so to speak. Grades are important, of course, and can determine if you make a cut-off or not, but when you’re looking to specialize in a field and to do future work in it, schools really want to see what you’ve already experienced/tried so that they can assess how successful you’d be in their program.
So, since you’ve done a lot of stuff besides study and get 4.0s, you’re in great shape! If you flesh your experiences out in your personal statements and are a good fit with specific programs, I’d say that you have a good chance of admission.
Thanks for the elaborate reply. The research experience I have definitely goes well in with the field I want to specialize in. However, I don’t have any publications right now, so I am really hoping my overall profile makes up for that.
Publications as an undergraduate are difficult. It is simply a question of time. The fact that you are doing research and the letter you get from your mentor is the most important.