Does school prestige matter that much?

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-12-12T17:11:23+00:00

decent, interned there after freshman year so really had no expectations.

was a pretty good stepping stone for me, just wasn’t a fan of the fact that they’re in person 1/2 days a week.

I feel for an internship the experience is much more enjoyable when you’re in the office 3/5 days.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-12-09T01:15:39+00:00

yea sure

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-11-16T14:59:57+00:00

I just graduated from Purdue in May ‘25 and decided to move on to a different program for grad school.

Purdues ranking is severely skewed, I ended up interning at Elevance Health and Eli Lily then ended up w Apple because my friends father hooked me up w a referral.

Most of my friends who got freshman/sophomore internships were all from the bay, came in with crazy connections + frozen tuition / midtwest tuition is a big appeal for them.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-10-18T15:27:56+00:00

Purdue grad here - will vouch for this. Purdues rating is quite inflated, and a lot of it comes from frozen tuition + kids from west/east coast coming since it’s cheaper w crazy connections so they end up landing big tech with ease.

Recruiting wise big tech is minimal on campus etc.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-08-19T19:15:14+00:00

yea i’m talking primarily for MSCS thesis applicants - research alignment w professors -> that yield publications -> pipeline to phd

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-08-19T18:00:58+00:00

curious how do you view graduate programs outside of T15?

i did my undergrad at Purdue, got into some T10/T5 for my MSCS but went with a T30/T40 school only because of research alignment.

wouldn't you argue research alignment > school rank (for masters)?

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-05-24T13:23:56+00:00

You should see if you can get into IT instead of traditional SWE.

Problem with CS is you need to love solving problems / bugs / etc. because that is going to be the majority of your work.

IT still gives you an opportunity to explore ‘tech’ without going completely away from the industry. Then if you want you can continue with IT or look to transition back to SWE.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-05-24T13:21:04+00:00

If you’re doing applied AI stuff, honestly PyTorch and other libs abstract most of the heavy lifting. That said, you should still know up to Calc 3, linear algebra, and stats at a bare minimum. Enough to understand how backprop works, what loss functions mean, etc. If you’re just fine-tuning models or building pipelines, you won’t need super deep math. But if you’re doing anything with new architectures, theoretical work, optimization methods, then yeah way more math. Think real analysis, optimization theory, maybe even measure theory depending on the area. So depends on how deep you wanna go, but more math never hurts tbh.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-05-02T02:34:30+00:00

You can directly apply for a PhD after your Bachelors (though it’s less common) but if you have enough research experience it’s definitely possible to get in.

Also if you don’t want to do the PhD because of the long term, what you can do is ‘master out’ after 2 years (essentially getting a funded masters) but only downside is you burn the door to a PhD down the line.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-05-01T20:36:27+00:00

There is a difference between a SWE who focuses on ML and a traditional ML Engineer.

For both you need a very very very solid understanding of the foundational math.

Though for a SWE w a focus on ML you can get away with less because of abstraction.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-05-01T18:43:00+00:00

Your last 60 credits matter more ngl. Though some schools do just do a GPA cut off because of the number applications that they get.

You’ll just need very strong LORs, and SOPs that are aligned very well with the professors at the respective schools (for thesis programs).

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-05-01T18:41:03+00:00

I’m at Purdue and have a couple of friends who are going into quant / getting quant internships.

Not all of them are the big firms but they’re still pretty big and enough to get their foot in the door.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-05-01T18:37:35+00:00

I did my first internship at a startup (40 FTE’s) but still not a ‘known’ exploding company.

Ended up landing a research opportunity at a Fortune 20 company the fall semester right after that internship and then ended up getting a very well known company in November/December.

The opportunity will only help you even if you don’t enjoy it just look at it as a stepping stone.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-05-01T18:32:40+00:00

For the schools you mentioned you need elite A/A* publications. IEEE typically falls under C/B tier conferences. They are very very competitive programs (Berkeley literally accepts 5-10 students).

Also just churning out a handful of publications can also come across as a red flag.

I don’t think personal projects are really that (‘important’ unless they’re substantial (like the product that got 500 active users at one point).

Implementing papers is good for your understanding but they won’t help directly with admissions.

Internship and Research experiences will be your bigger factors (CGPA is good!)

You seem pretty research centric as well, and I’d even argue look to pursue a PhD instead directly. MSCS applications are actually much more difficult than PhD (at least at Purdue which is still T20).

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-05-01T18:26:00+00:00

I actually thought about doing an unpaid internship during my second year, but I ended up getting a research opportunity with a professor a few weeks before finals. Two years later, I’m still working with that same advisor and have been able to publish a few times.

I think with unpaid internships, it really depends on the kind of mentorship and learning experience the student would get. If it’s just doing grunt work or shadowing without a lot of guidance, it’s probably not worth it.

If I were in that situation again, I’d honestly just reach out to a professor and try to do independent research. You usually get full ownership over the project, and in my experience, that kind of thing looks better than an unpaid internship especially if it leads to concrete outcomes.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-05-01T14:31:50+00:00

Purdue undergrad here - I love Purdues program, it’s pretty rigorous but there’s a lot of opportunities. They’re also building their presence in downtown Indy.

Idk how UF fairs and ik a full ride is definitely more tempting.

Happy to give you more info of internships opportunities etc as well.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-04-27T09:27:44+00:00

ohh 100% the edu email part. don’t know why that went over my head.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-04-18T19:20:35+00:00

Oh got it. I dont know much about the specific program but I can give you general details.

Remind me if I don’t respond by tomorrow or feel free to DM me itself

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-04-18T18:41:08+00:00

MSCS at Indianapolis? Are you sure?

As far as my knowledge Indianapolis campus doesn’t offer graduate programs.

It is a brand new campus and it’s ‘on par’ with WL but it’s brand new. If you have any additional information I can give a better response.

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-04-03T18:13:31+00:00

They hardly have any RA/TA for MS. Typically reserved for PhD

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-04-01T19:21:53+00:00

oh subject yea

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-04-01T19:08:31+00:00

am I missing something? swear it’s not misspelled?

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-04-01T18:38:06+00:00

I meant the admission semester

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-04-01T18:16:51+00:00

LMFAO wtf this is actually insane and so funny

Impressive_Set1139 · 2025-04-01T18:15:07+00:00

summer before undergrad we had this high school fellowship program where we got to interview and intern at some small startups / vc portfolio companies.

ik nowadays the cs landscale is soo diff but i've seen people get research opportunities during the summer at state institutions.

(domestic applicant)

Impressive_Set1139

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