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Stanford MSEE

Program Overview

Stanford is one of the CS Big Four, with a top overall ranking, located in California -- proximity is a huge advantage for job hunting. Being a TA covers tuition and pays $3k/month. Track selection is very flexible -- you can build an entirely software-focused course schedule, such as CS229 or CS 245 Database Systems Principles. When you apply, you'll fill out a questionnaire to choose your track, with options including Machine Learning, Software Systems, Architecture, and more. Admission-wise, Tsinghua admits 5 or fewer per year for mainland China, and Peking/Fudan/SJTU/Zhejiang each admit at most 2. Applying to Stanford requires a TOEFL score; if your TOEFL is below 109, you'll need to take a language class. IELTS is not accepted. Joint-program (Chinese-foreign cooperative) students can apply for a language requirement waiver. Stanford's course selection and graduation tracks are very flexible, so switching to CS is easy. There are also many other courses available, such as tennis, violin, or 1-credit language courses. CS undergrads coming into MSEE can take almost entirely CS courses -- very flexible.

Joint-program students can waive language requirements. Admission is more accessible than MSCS.

Admission Preferences

This program is arguably the ceiling for mainland China undergrads applying to MS programs in the US CS space. It's basically a lottery school for every applicant. Many apply each year, very few are admitted. Getting into Stanford comes down to fate.

Here's a summary I posted on Open CS: Female, high GPA (above 90 is fine, not strictly required), AI publications (must have actual top conference output), overseas connections (strong overseas recommendation letters add a lot -- for example, a very strong recommendation from Monash or ETH could get you into Stanford). For joint-program (Chinese-foreign cooperative) students, there's a significant boost. For example, UESTC's Glasgow College produces multiple Stanford MSEE admits every year -- it's suspected that MSEE does targeted recruitment from the Glasgow College. The MSCS admission threshold is higher than MSEE. For MSEE, US undergrads from top 30 schools with high GPAs have a chance. For MSCS, you need to check whether alumni from your school have been admitted in previous years -- if not, don't force it. Spots are allocated by school.

MSEE admitted around 120 students total; MSCS admitted 150. (MSEE is more friendly to mainland China undergrads. Even CS applicants can choose the AI track. There are data points showing that mid-tier 985 universities can get admitted. MSCS is more friendly to international undergrads, but you need to be from a target school, such as Tsinghua CS, UT, UBC, Georgia Tech, etc.)

Representative Data Points

  1. Penn State University EE+Physics, GPA 4.0, three and a half years of RA experience
  2. UESTC Glasgow College EE undergrad, GPA 3.95+, Microsoft internship
  3. IIT undergrad (female), GPA 9.67/10, 2 years of RA experience, Siemens internship
  4. NTU (Taiwan) EE undergrad, GPA 4.25/5, two publications, small company internship
  5. University of Maryland EE undergrad, GPA 3.9+, Tesla intern
  6. Tianjin University EE undergrad, National Scholarship, GPA 3.9
  7. Purdue EE undergrad, GPA 4.0, one and a half years Tesla hardware internship
  8. Vanderbilt University Math+CS undergrad, GPA 3.96, Tencent intern
  9. Peking University undergrad (female), GPA 3.7+ with three strong recommendation letters
  10. Top 30 US undergrad from a strong engineering school (female), GPA 4.0, two years of on-campus research experience
  11. Mainland 985 undergrad (female), GPA 3.9+ with one publication
  12. Joint-program (female), GPA 3.9 (rank 1) + MITACS research internship
  13. Wuhan University Physics undergrad, GPA 3.96, small company intern, one top physics journal publication
  14. Indian student, IIT EE undergrad, GPA 9.91/10, rank 1, two Google internships, three years of on-campus RA experience
  15. UCLA EE undergrad, GPA 4.0, Tesla intern

Job Outcome Data Points

Every Stanford MSEE student I know has found good internships in the US regardless of whether they had prior internship experience in China. One friend applied to Nvidia through a departmental recruitment email and got an interview scheduled within 30 minutes -- comparable to interview scheduling speed in China. Oracle and Nvidia are particularly fond of recruiting from Stanford.

  1. PSU EE undergrad, landed Apple
  2. Tianjin University EE undergrad, no internship during undergrad, landed Apple
  3. Vanderbilt University Math+CS undergrad, landed Meta intern
  4. UCLA EE undergrad, landed AWS intern