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CMU MSML

Program Overview​

A flagship program under SCS. The curriculum is almost entirely ML-related courses, with 9 required ML courses. Working as an RA can cover up to 75% of tuition, though this depends on whether your advisor is willing to pay and how much. If you transfer to a PhD within the department, you only need one additional course, which is great. Many friends around me have transferred to PhD. ML is a closely connected department with frequent events and seminars, so everyone knows each other well.

Admission Threshold & Data Points​

  1. International student, GPA 3.9, GRE 333
  2. Math + Physics undergrad, GPA 3.96
  3. IIT CS undergrad, GPA 3.92, FAANG RS intern, 2 publications
  4. IIT CS undergrad, GPA 3.88, one publication
  5. International student, GPA 3.97, MSML PhD downgraded to master's admission
  6. Indian undergrad, GPA 9.5/10, had MITACS research internship
  7. UW CS + Statistics undergrad, GPA 3.9, multiple US AI research internships
  8. WPI CS undergrad, GPA 4.0, worked as RA at Harvard Medical School for 2 years and 3 months
  9. TAMU CS undergrad, GPA 4.0, Facebook internship
  10. Indian undergrad, GPA 9.47, rank 1, long-term RA positions at NUS, IIT, and Harvard
  11. Indian undergrad, GPA 9.52, multiple ML internships including one at Intel
  12. Indian undergrad, 3 years full-time work experience at Walmart + Microsoft

Job Outcomes & Data Points​

Main career paths are SDE and MLE. Almost everyone lands at top FAANG companies: Apple 3 people, Google 3 people, Meta 3 people, Microsoft 3 people, Citadel 1 person, LinkedIn 1 person, OpenAI 1 person.

  1. Cambridge, graduated in 3 years, had multiple small company internships, landed ByteDance
  2. TAMU CS undergrad, Facebook internship, later returned to Meta for LLM post-training