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Brown SCMCS

Program Overview​

Two credits per semester, two courses, very light workload, leaving plenty of time for job hunting or research. Most students take a 2+2+2+2 schedule, evenly taking two courses each semester, which keeps the workload very light and is great for LeetCode grinding and job hunting. There is a shared office space where students can grind LeetCode together, creating a great atmosphere.

The benefit of a light workload is that if you take too many courses right after arriving in the US while also having to prepare for LeetCode grinding, behavioral questions, and projects, the pressure can be overwhelming. Brown avoids this problem — with only two courses per semester, the workload is extremely light.

Tuition is not cheap — over $70K for two years. There are assigned workstations (though personally I find them not very useful and prefer the library). Housing is affordable: if you live in university-acquired apartments, prices are $900 for a 2B1B, $1,100 for a 2B2B, and $1,500 for a studio.

This program is often compared with UT ECE (SES), GT CSE, CMU MSIN, and Columbia MSCS every year, but job outcomes do differ. Purely from a results perspective, it underperforms these programs in terms of landing SDE internships.

Admission Threshold​

GPA: 3.8+ (or 90+ on a 100-point scale; undergrads from top-5 Chinese universities get a slight boost)

TOEFL: 105

IELTS: Speaking score of 8 is a hard cutoff

Must be a CS major (the major listed on your transcript must be Computer Science)

Does not discriminate against undergrads from mainland China (meaning it won't almost exclusively reject mainland Chinese students the way UIUC MCS does)

  1. Michigan State University, GPA 4.0, multiple startup founding experiences
  2. Indian student, GPA 3.96/4, two years of full-time experience at JP Morgan in India
  3. Indian student, GPA 3.96/4, two and a half years full-time at Samsung, with two small-company internships during undergrad

Job Outcomes & Data Points​

Pretty bad — very few people landed offers (25 summer)

In previous years, it reportedly supported spring enrollment with CPT to complete two internships. Needs to be confirmed with the school.

Diversity may not necessarily help — in 2025, DEI programs have already been canceled. Only Microsoft still prefers to hire career-changers to CS / US undergrads. If you are strong enough, you can disregard diversity considerations when selecting schools.

Some strong data points from previous years:

  1. US R1 university CS undergrad with small-company internship, landed a new grad role at a small company
  2. PSU CS undergrad with small-company hardware internship, landed Sony
  3. Indian student with one CV internship, landed Bay Area MLE intern
  4. Indian student, two and a half years full-time at Samsung, two small-company internships during undergrad, landed Apple intern and converted to full-time
  5. Indian student, three internships during school plus one year full-time experience, landed Senior Financial Analyst at American Express
  6. Brown CS undergrad, two small-company internships, landed Meta intern
  7. Brown CS undergrad, one year-long internship, landed Jane Street intern and converted to full-time