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UIUC MSCS

Program Overview​

UIUC's flagship program. Can be treated as a PhD application -- it's best to reach out to professors before applying. Fully funded, target PhD. Students from UIUC itself have a 5-year BS-MS program that leads to the MSCS. (Reviewer's note: some friends applying for 25 Fall have reported that UIUC MSCS is no longer guaranteed to be fully funded, which somewhat reduces its value proposition.)

Admission Preferences​

Extremely high difficulty. Best to reach out to professors before applying. A UIUC CS professor stated that in 2023, there were 2,427 applicants and 103 offers, for an acceptance rate of 4.2%. See the image below for details.

Admission Data Points​

  1. UIUC CS+Math undergrad, GPA 4.0
  2. IIT CS undergrad (female), rank 1
  3. University of Toronto CE undergrad + AI minor, CITIC internship + Canadian small company internship
  4. Monash University CS undergrad, GPA 4.0
  5. UIUC CS undergrad, GPA 3.91
  6. UBC CS+Math undergrad (female), three years of RA experience
  7. McMaster University McMaster University McMaster University Mechatronics Engineering undergrad, GPA 11/12

Job Outcome Data Points​

  1. IIT CS undergrad (female), cumulative ten months of internship at small Indian companies, landed Amazon SDE intern
  2. UIUC CS undergrad, landed Apple internship, ultimately went to OpenAI as SDE
  3. UIUC CS undergrad, small company internship, landed Databricks internship
  4. UIUC CS undergrad, landed Dropbox DS intern
  5. UIUC CS undergrad, landed Chicago small company intern
  6. IIT CS undergrad (female), multiple research internships, landed JP Morgan Quant AI