My Masters Admission Journey (Part 1)

Let me start off this writing by saying that it will be a long read. I’ve broken it down into 4 parts. So, you won’t have to digest too much information in a single read. I’ve tried my best to articulate my admission journey as I’ve experienced it. Your mileage may vary, but I hope you can take away some important pieces of advice.

The target demographic for this writing is primarily people who are looking for master's opportunities in computer science at US universities. But even if you’re from a different background, you’ll also find some of the sections applicable to you.

Part 1 will cover the following:
1. Graduate Record Examination (GRE)
2. Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)
3. How did I shortlist universities?

1. Graduate Record Examination (GRE)

GRE is a standardized exam designed to test the analytical abilities of aspiring graduate applicants. It comprises three sections — Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA). The baseline score for the Verbal and Quant sections is 130, with the maximum being 170. AWA section is scored on a 0–6 level, with 0.5 increments.

The significance of the GRE in the graduate application process has been declining. The pandemic triggered a lot of universities to waive the GRE requirement. The universities can be divided into the following categories based on their GRE requirements:

1. GRE requirement is waived, but you can self-report your score. It will mostly be used for a tie-break, which to be honest, is pretty rare.
2. GRE is waived and it will not be used in making admission decisions.
3. GRE is optional, but strongly recommended.
4. GRE is mandatory.

The trend of not including GRE scores in admission decisions is mostly noticeable in higher-ranked universities, while some of the lower-ranked universities continue to make GRE a mandatory requirement. You should reach out to the particular admissions committee if you have any doubts regarding the use of GRE scores in the admission decision.

A higher score on GRE alone will not guarantee your admission as graduate admission is a holistic process, taking a number of factors into consideration — CGPA, Publications, Educational Background, Letter of Recommendation (LOR), Statement of Purpose (SOP), Work Experience, Research Focus, etc. But there are some rules of thumb:

1. If your program requires GRE or doesn’t require it but recommends it strongly and you want to be considered for funding, you should definitely prepare well for the GRE.
2. The quantitative section is important mostly for people from engineering/science backgrounds. If you are from such a discipline and want to be considered for funding, you’ll want to score at least 168 in this section.
3. For verbal, I would say anything between 150–160 is a good score. But it might vary depending on the program/university.
4. Sometimes the admissions committee looks at your AWA score also to measure your writing skills, which will be a major part of your graduate research career. So, try to score at least a 3.5 here.

In my opinion, a 320+ score is good enough but there are other factors as well. For example, there may be other applicants with much higher scores. But don’t worry too much about it and just try to put in your best effort. As I said before, GRE alone is not a decisive factor. You may fare well in other categories.

Let me touch on GRE preparation. For the quantitative section, you can follow Manhattan 5lb book. Go through each individual chapter and carry out timely practice sessions. Keep an error journal for each section — it will come in handy later on. You can also practice from ETS’ official book. Moreover, look into the ETS math review guide.

One resource I would definitely recommend is GregMat. He has a paid subscription for 5$/month which I think is worth it — especially when compared with the Magoosh’s subscription cost. If you don’t want the paid plan, you can check out his YouTube channel — he has tons of free resources. Start with introductory videos and then watch the videos on-demand, as you encounter each topic. I followed GregMat’s 2-month plan but couldn’t finish it properly. But it certainly helped me organize my preparation.

When your exam is near, take the POWERPREP tests to see how you fare. You can also practice the quantitative section from the KMF website.

For the verbal section, steer clear of any resource other than ETS’ official book and the old ETS Big Book. One thing I like about GregMat is that he religiously followed this strategy. Third-party resources are crap for the verbal section. They don’t capture the nuances and subtleties of sentence structure the way ETS does. Similar to the quant section, keep an error journal for the verbal section as well. Learn any unknown words as you encounter them.

For the vocabulary section, my suggestion would be to blindly follow GregMat’s list. The last time I checked, it had close to 900 words. One mistake that I see most test-takers make is to be too hung up on learning esoteric words. This time could well be spent actually practicing the verbal section. Believe it or not, you won’t suffer too much if you don’t know some of the words in the actual exam. But you will surely suffer if you don’t know the tactics and strategies needed for tackling verbal questions.

For the AWA section, you can go over GregMat’s videos and create your own template. AWA prompts are all listed on the ETS website. So, you can pick any random prompt and hold yourself to timely practices. There is a website called testbig where you can grade your AWA essay for free.

Lastly, just be relaxed at exam time. Giving a real exam will not be like practicing in the comfort of your home. So, you should be mentally prepared to face any unpredictable circumstances. That’s why it’s important to take the POWERPREP tests as you would take the real test. That means actually replicating your exam day — starting from sleeping on time the day before, waking up early, and taking breakfast as would do on the test day to making sure nothing disturbs you for the hours allocated for the POWERPREP test.

2. Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)

TOEFL is an English proficiency test. Usually, it is required for international students applying to US universities. Some take IELTS instead of TOEFL. It is a matter of preference, but ensure your program does accept IELTS. One visible difference between the TOEFL and IELTS is that the speaking section of the IELTS is conducted face-to-face, while in TOEFL, your voice is recorded by a computer.

There are 4 sections in TOEFL: Reading, Listening, Writing, and Speaking. Each section has 20 points, making it a total of 120 points. Compared to GRE, the difficulty of TOEFL is much less, as it will only test your language abilities, not your analytical abilities.

My advice for TOEFL would be to be aware of the test format and thoroughly practice the section(s) you know you are having trouble with.

For the reading section, you can actually practice from the official TOEFL test guide. TOEFL paragraphs are not as dense as the GRE ones, so you won’t have too much difficulty here.

For the listening section, you can try watching YouTube videos or documentaries without subtitles. Also, make a habit of taking notes while you listen to get the gist of the conversation. Note that you’ll not have the ability to go back to previous questions in the listening section. So, check that you’ve properly absorbed the conversation in your mind.

For the speaking section, practice speaking in a timely manner with an unseen prompt. Record your response. Check if you have any awkward pauses in your recording, ensure your pacing is not too fast/slow and your pronunciation is clear. Confirm that the reasons you state for the given prompt are indeed logical. The Noteful Speaking is a particularly useful resource.

For the writing section, you can follow templates from GregMat or TST Prep. Furthermore, you can give free mock tests on TestGlider and they will grade your response. It’s particularly helpful for the Speaking and Writing sections. There is also a TOEFL official software that you can to give practice tests.

On the test day, just be mindful of the surroundings when you start your speaking section. There will be a lot of chatter and everybody will try to speak as loud as possible to make their voices heard. Don’t freak out when this happens. Plan what you’re going to say in the 15-second pause and then proceed to speak at a gentle pace. You want to make sure to not end your speech abruptly.

Usually, to be considered as a teaching assistant, you need a high speaking score (28+). Similar to GRE, a higher TOEFL score itself will not guarantee admission, rather it will mostly work as preliminary filtering criteria. It may be used later in the process, in scenarios when the admissions committee faces difficulty choosing between two equally capable candidates.

3. How did I shortlist universities?

I searched for states that have cities hailed as tech hubs. Once I shortlisted the states, I searched for universities that are within rank 1–150 according to USNews. As you can probably guess, the shortlisted count would probably be a lot. Indeed it was. As I the shortlisted universities across all the states, the final count was just north of 60. Obviously, it would be a nightmare to apply to 60 universities. So, I had to cull the list to an even shorter one. The problem was — I had no benchmark to refer to. I knew that after graduation most of the alumni from my alma mater apply only for Ph.D., and any solid information about funded master’s admission is hard to come by. So, it was a rather bold decision on my part to only apply for master’s programs. But I decided to go forward despite my reservations.

I initially planned to apply to around 20 universities. To evenly distribute my choice of universities and make sure that I don’t overshoot/undershoot, I picked the universities as follows:

A. Pick 6 universities in the 1–50 range
B. Pick 8 universities in the 51–100 range
C. Pick 6 universities in the 101–150 range

I visited each of the originally 60 shortlisted universities in order to figure out whether or not they offer funded master’s admission. The information I extracted from the universities’ websites could be divided into three major categories:

1. Universities mention that they fund master’s students. Students who wish to be considered for funding should apply by the priority deadline.
2. Universities mention that they do not offer funded master’s programs.
3. Some universities mention that they do fund master’s students, but funds are rarely available/offered on a competitive basis and Ph.D. students are prioritized over master’s students.
4. Some top-tier universities guarantee funded MS. For example, UC Berkeley, Cornell, etc.

There were some universities that do not fit in the aforementioned three categories. For example, in some cases, I did not find anything about funding for master's programs. What I would suggest here is to look for alumni in those institutions on Linkedin/Facebook, connect with them and ask a few questions - eventually extracting information about funding. This has also the added benefit of getting to know new people and expanding your network. If you do end up going to one of the universities, it will come in handy.

As my research focus was on Computer Security, I also looked at the csranking’s website, filtering rankings by security. Based on these two criteria, I was able to arrive at an even shorter list of 20 universities.

But soon I realized that even 20 universities would be a lot for another reason. This nicely segues into our next topic — Letter of Recommendation, which we will cover in Part 2.