graduate admissions - Do I have a chance to get into a great cs grad school?

I am an undergrad from India from a good university( not IIT,NIT). Our GPA is calculated on a different percentage scale and mine is 73-75% which is a very good score according to our system. My GRE score=1600. I have an internship at a major company. I am thinking of writing a research paper but have no research experience. Do I have a chance at the top colleges like UC Berkeley,or Michigan or even Carnegie Mellon?

Answer

Maybe. There's really no way to tell without looking at your complete application.

If you applied to my department's research MS program, your good grades and GRE scores would probably attract enough attention that someone would actually review your application. Most of our MS applications are rejected without review. But that's as far as grades and test scores will get you.

Since you claim not to come from an IIT or NIT, there might be some question about how good your university is. If we've never admitted someone from your school before, we don't know how to calibrate your grades or recommendation letters. Every year we seem to get applications from two or three new schools in India that even our Indian faculty and graduate students don't recognize. We do sometimes admit one or two truly outstanding students from unknown schools as a way of gathering data.

Having an internship is definitely good, especially if you did something creative and independent, and not just "My boss told me to implement this thing, so I did."

But the admission decision would really depend on your research statement (or "statement of purpose") and your recommendation letters. As I have written many times before, graduate admissions committees at top departments are looking for potential for research excellence. My committee would judge that potential from the content of your statements and letters, and from the credibility of your letter-writers. Research experience is certainly helpful, but it's not necessary, especially for an MS.

This is really an question for your letter writers. Ask them directly if they can write strong and substantial letters that focus on your research potential. If they look uncomfortable (or they don't know what "research potential" means), you should probably aim a bit lower.