Ace Credits and Master Degrees

[Merlin]

I'm trying to keep my GPA high but i already transferred 49 ECTS credits to my school and doing my Gen eds and some of my math courses with ACE. RA credits are so expensive and i can't afford them. My budget is very limited. It is $12000 maximum. I will complete my core courses from my regional university with a letter grade.

Completing your upper-level math and CS core curriculum from your university is the best bet if you want to get into a good CS master's program.

Given your limited budget, you may wish to investigate options for financial aid, grants, and scholarships. If you're working, you may also be able to get your employer to pay for part of it as well. I don't know about companies in Europe, but in the US, any business can provide up to $5,250 per year in tax-deductible educational assistance to each employee. So that is an option for some people.

You should also consider that these courses don't have to come from a big-name university or even a 4-year college. You can take them from any degree-granting college, even a community college or junior college (or the equivalent in Europe). As long as the school is regionally accredited (or the foreign credits are evaluated as comparative) then you're okay. So if you can take the math & CS courses from a less prestigious college and save yourself some money, then go for it. I know there are places in Europe where a college education is free or greatly subsidized, so look for those schools.

But was worrying about masters. Maybe i could apply for Gatech's OMCS masters but don't want to retake those ACE courses again.

The OMSCS seems to be pretty flexible on entry requirements. While they prefer students with a traditional bachelor's degree in CS (or a related stem degree like math, computer engineering, or electrical engineering), they will accept students with any degree as long as they have a 3.0 or better GPA and have the requisite academic background (as proven by having completed a decent number of core CS courses and earning a B or better in each of them). Even if you have a CS degree, they are still going to be looking at the grades you received in those core courses to judge your ability to succeed in their program.

To minimize your costs, you can complete all your General Education courses and any elective or other courses that are not directly related to a CS degree using ACE credits without any issue at GA Tech. But you'll at least want to take as many of the following as you can from your current college to give you the best shot at being accepted: Calculus (I/II/III), Discrete Math, DS&A, Computer Architecture, Operating Systems, and any programming languages you're interested in.

As long as you didn't already take most of those courses from ACE sources you should still be okay and not require taking the courses again. The idea is to take as many of them as you can from a proper college or university so you'll look good when they review your application. You want to have as few questionable areas as possible to avoid a denial. But this doesn't mean there isn't wiggle room.