What Students Say
Likes
- Plenty Opportunities to get a part-time job
- Teachers are helpful
- Can work in a Lab and gain practical knowledge
Dislikes
- Student intake is very high, which makes the competition tough
- Really good courses fill up really fast and it is tough to get courses of your choice
- Qualified professors are less in every domain making it hard to collaborate
Course Curriculum
- There are only a few courses which are difficult but they are very practical and you get to learn a lot from these courses. are very difficult to get into though.
- Classes - usually 2 classes for each course and mostly 3-5 classes per week, usually from 8 am to 4pm. Each class is 1:15 hours. The average number of students in our class is around 140. Indian students in MSCS is 90% but 20% if you get into a business course.
- Positive: Very practical and deep dive into topics and professors are very experienced (Course: SML, AI, DPS)
- Negative: Hard courses take all your time in projects and assignments making it hard to do anything else (job applications or social).
Admission Experience
- CSLB (Admitted), UMBC (Waitlisted), ASU (Admitted), Stanford (Rejected), CMU (Rejected)
- Rejection: It was very difficult to get admit from these colleges (IVY League), If I had a research paper at a good conference, my chances would have increased. I also should have collaborated with some professors in one of these universities before, that would have helped my profile a lot.
- ASU is a decent college. The CS ranking at that time was in top 50. Some professors are really good and in the field that I have interest in working. The process - Apply using Kaplan (No application fees), send your SOP, LOR and GRE, IELTS scores. They send admission results usually in a month.
- Minimum Score:
- GRE - 315, IELTS: 7, TOEFL: 100
- The admission process was a little tough as I had no experience writing SOP which affects your profile very much. It is always better to collaborate with a professor first in that college which would make your profile strong and give extra points to your SOP. Other than that it was very easy.
- I applied to Fall 23 intake, Mostly CS rankings and Fees and Professors of the university, and the tie-ups that Amazon hires a lot form ASU as it is closer to silicon valley.
- I took GRE in 2019 and IELTS by July 2022 and applied to ASU in December. Got my admit from ASU by late February, then I got my I-20 and visa by July, and finalized housing by August. Enrolled and attended orientation in August—took about 6-7 months overall
Faculty
- Faculty to student ratio- 1:50
- Taking only the good courses - very good content, starts from basic and go to the very depth, most of the professors want you to do something innovative and make things from scratch which helps in understanding how every algorithm works (but very few.) and most other professors are very dumb, they are not permanent faculty and just teach very bad courses, some don't even need to be taught (pre-historic courses).
- Faculty are really helpful in finding part-time and full-time either as a student worker or full-time with their connections but only if you work with them for a year they will recommend you. Faculty- Kookjin lee, Yanjie Fu, K Selcuk Candan, Vivek Gupta
Campus Life
- ASU is super fun, there are 4 campuses—Tempe (biggest, most fun), Downtown Phoenix (journalism, law, health), Polytechnic (engineering, aviation), and West (business, arts). Tempe is where most events happen.
- The campus has huge libraries, gyms, sports fields, medical centers, even gaming spots. Big deal here—football, basketball, swimming, all top-class courts.
- Homecoming, Devils on Mill (pre-game party), International Night. Coding, dance, music, some hindi clubs and regional clubs for Indian international students. Hackathons and biz competitions too.
Part Time Jobs
- Typically 1% of the students get TA, RA positions. Then around 10% get grader or research aide positions. Then around 20% get part-time positions like dining, working as a waiter, cleaner or something else. Maximum work allowed is 20 hrs/week. Hourly wages are different for every kind of job,. So for TA it is 30/hr with scholarship in reduced tuition. Graders are around 17 /hr and 14/ hr for dining jobs.
- It is very difficult to secure a job on campus and should be ready to face disappointment.
- Typically 17/hr. Students prefer TA or Grader courses and they can mention this experience in their resume and Linkedin also. Part-time students need to apply using an online process but you will only get it if you have a recommendation from another worker or have been working there with a professor for at least 1 semester. I had applied to at least 300 jobs and got through working with the professor on a project in summer and got the grader position in fall 24.
Placement
- The market is really bad right now in CS, so getting a job is not as easy. Still, most grads do get hired within 6 months, especially if they have internships or strong connections. Salaries? Usually between $80K-$120K, but can go higher for some roles.
- Students mostly find jobs through LinkedIn, referrals, career fairs, and applying online. ASU has some campus recruitment, but it's mostly up to you. Big companies like Amazon, Google, Intel, Deloitte, and Tesla hire from here.
- In my batch, some got jobs in software development, data science, machine learning, cloud, and finance—some joined big companies, some went to startups. If you network and apply well, you’ll find a good job.
Accommodation
- I used Facebook market=place , WhatsApp groups of students already there. Kaplan groups and The most problematic thing is finding clean houses, Tempe has a huge problem of bugs, and if the students do not live clean it will have cockroaches in the house.
- When searching for house only take the one with new lease, do not take sub-leased apartments as whatever damage the previous students have done will be on you and you have to pay the charge if you don't find any other new incoming student to sub-lease it.
- Here they have very strict sub-leasing rules and want the house in new condition so only take up a new lease from the apartment. My accommodation is 30 min by walk and 10 mins by bus.
Exams
- I took the IELTS/TOEFL for English proficiency and GRE, though ASU no longer requires it.
- Necessary: GRE score (not anymore), IELTS or TOEFL score, Statement of Purpose, 2 more Essays that they describe in their application process, Letter Of Recommendations (2), CV were only necessary but I don't know what documents are necessary right now. No, I didn't have to give any interview for admission in ASU.
Fees
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Fall 2024:
Fee Name Charge
Financial Aid Trust Fee Tempe $58.00
Graduate Academic Support Fee $140.00
Health and Wellness Fee $80.00
International Student Fee $200.00
Program Tuition GR Engr $450.00
Recreation Fee $25.00
Stdnt Services Facility Fee $100.00
Student Athletics Fee $75.00
Student Health Insurance OReg $1,045.00
Student Programs Fee GR $35.00
Tuition GR International $14,445.00 -
For Spring 2025: $7338
Fees is charged semester-wise
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Monthly Expense/Month (Including Groceries, Electricity, Rent, WIFI): $700.
Scholarship
- Many scholarships are available, but I didn't apply to them. I got a Grader job from a course I did in my second semester (I don't know if that counts as a scholarship).
- Yes, some got around $2000 off, or $1500 depending on the scholarships (you can find the name on their website). Around 10% students get it but if we consider Research AIDE, TA or Grader jobs then I think around 50% of students get a job at ASU.







