This was originally posted on DOU in December 2024

This is a series about my experience applying to and studying in OMSCS - the online Computer Science Master’s program at Georgia Tech. Here you’ll find practical information for anyone considering online CS grad programs, along with plenty of personal experience and subjective opinions.

This post covers an overview of online Master’s programs and admission requirements.

Why OMSCS

Back in my freshman year, I stumbled upon an article about a Master’s degree that costs less than your daily coffee habit. The author calculated that one day of studying at OMSCS costs about as much as a Starbucks coffee. You have to admit - that’s a pretty attractive price tag for an American degree from a well-known university.

Ukrainian CS Education (A Detour)

Skip this section if you’re not interested in the problems of Ukrainian higher education.

I earned my CS Bachelor’s degree at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. While I genuinely enjoyed studying in my first years, the later ones were a different story.

Firstly, I started working on a really cool project at GlobalLogic in my second year. Having spent 3.5 years there, I went from trainee to the meme-worthy “21-year-old senior” (feel free to comment that 20-year-old seniors don’t exist, title inflation is real, and you need at least 10 years of experience to be a true senior). The point is that I could spend my time earning actual money instead of chasing grades for a $50/month scholarship.

And this is super common. Motivated students start working almost from day one because everyone wants to earn money and gain industry experience now, not in 4 years.

Secondly, as you progress, courses become very specialized, and you can’t opt out. You learn what they give you, and everyone gets the same thing regardless of interests. Sure, there’s “choice” - usually between two different names of the same course. At my faculty, the only real choice was picking a department in year 3, which affected maybe 1-3 courses per semester. Your options were:

  1. chill courses
  2. algorithms, ML, cryptography (my pick)
  3. web development, but in a classroom setting

These two problems feed into each other. When you’re forced to take a course you don’t care about, there’s zero motivation to push through - you just choose to spend time on your job. As a result, most knowledge the university offers just passes most students by (myself included).

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think my faculty was bad. I don’t regret getting my Bachelor’s there and would choose it again. Firstly, for the networking, as some of the smartest people I know studied there. Secondly, despite everything I described, occasionally there are genuinely interesting courses taught by brilliant professors. The only catch is noticing this before the final exam, when you’re scraping by with a 60 because you skipped all the lectures.

So while I’d pick the same place for my Bachelor’s again, I wasn’t ready to choose it or any other state university in Ukraine for my Master’s. Feedback from former classmates who continued their studies confirmed I had made the right call. I started looking deeper into other options.

Alternatives

My requirements for a Master’s program:

  • Fully online and asynchronous, so I can easily combine it with full-time work
  • Reasonably priced
  • From a well-known, reputable university to strengthen my CV
  • Possible to complete while staying in Ukraine - I have no desire to relocate
  • Wide selection of courses

Turns out, there’s now a huge number of online Master’s programs, especially in the US. OMSCS was the first, and its success sparked many similar programs.

Quick note on Master of Science in Computer Science - you can check CS program rankings here:

Generally, most programs require completing around 10 courses at your own pace.

So, what do we have:

  1. Stanford - no questions about reputation, but $70k for a degree makes this a non-starter. Which is a shame, because I really enjoyed their MOOCs on cryptography and compilers.

  2. Johns Hopkins - similar situation, but “only” $53k.

  3. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Coursera), aka UIUC MCS. Price drops to $20k-24k - now we’re getting somewhere. Plus, a solid selection of 22 courses.

  4. University of Texas at Austin, known as MSCSO. The price is $10k for 10 courses. However, it has more limited selection of 18 courses. They also have specialized programs for Data Science: MSDSO and AI: MSAIO.

  5. GaTech, known as OMSCS. And here we hit the jackpot. This is the oldest, largest online MSCS program. About $7k for the entire degree. Nearly 70 courses to choose from!

This list isn’t exhaustive - there are many other programs. Check Coursera and EdX for more options. For choosing, I recommend Reddit reviews and YouTube videos.

Among these, the most popular programs right now are OMSCS, MSCSO, and UIUC. Considering price and course variety, OMSCS was the obvious choice for me, with MSCSO as runner-up.

Worth noting that if I were specifically into ML/DS/AI, I might have picked UT Austin because:

  1. It’s one of the top universities specifically for DS
  2. Course variety matters less when you’re studying exactly what interests you
  3. A $3k difference isn’t that significant for an entire program

About OMSCS and Admission Requirements

Besides OMSCS, GaTech also offers separate programs in data analytics OMSA and cybersecurity OMSC. However, I’ll focus specifically on OMSCS. I highly recommend browsing the internet about OMSCS beforehand, especially Reddit.

There’s a huge selection of courses. You need to complete 10, but you can’t just pick any random 10. After completing them, you must satisfy the requirements of one of 6 specializations. The easiest way to figure this out is to plan your courses in this planner.

The order matters too. In your first year, you need to pass 2 foundational courses (marked with an asterisk in the list) with at least a B. If you don’t, you’ll just be restricted in course selection until you meet this requirement.

Additional details: an academic year has 3 semesters - Spring, Summer, Fall. You can’t skip more than 2 consecutive semesters. You have 5 years to complete the program. Everyone recommends starting with 1 course per semester. In my experience, that’s solid advice.

Hopefully I’ve sold you on the program, so let’s talk about admission requirements. They’re described here.

  1. Bachelor’s degree in CS or a related field with a GPA of 3.0+/4.0. BUT! Don’t stress if you don’t meet this exactly - plenty of OMSCS students don’t have a CS background, or have a GPA below 3.0. Such applications are just reviewed case-by-case.

  2. IELTS or TOEFL at C1 level. More details here. Unfortunately, this one is strict and there’s no way around it.

  3. 3 recommendation letters. Preferably from professors who taught you during undergrad. If you’re an industry veteran who got your Bachelor’s ages ago, letters from your managers work too. The key point is that they should praise your CS knowledge and skills, not your willingness to fix broken prod at 3 AM.

  4. Resume and application form with some questions, but that’s just paperwork.

That’s it! If you meet these requirements and pay the symbolic application fee (around $70), you’re pretty much guaranteed admission. There’s almost no selection process, it’s like a massive MOOC where people simply drop out along the way.

Important fact: upon completion, you receive a diploma identical to what GaTech gives on-site students. GaTech also emphasizes that the online program is no different from on-site, and you’ll need to put in serious effort to graduate.