How much emphasis should be put on GitHub reputation in a computer science MSc application? My undergraduate major was not computer science, but civil engineering, and I took five computer science courses in college. I worked as a software engineer for five years after I graduated, but not for famous companies. I love open source and I spend much time on it. Now I have a 2000+ stars GitHub open source repository and several 50-100 stars repositories.

My target is a top 30 computer science MSc program in the US.

How helpful are popular GitHub repositories like mine for applications, in particular when changing fields?
2000+ stars for a GitHub repository is an amazing achievement. This will definitely make you stand out if you know how to use it right.

You should tell a story in the cover letter/statement of purpose/or whatever it is called: what is your passion with coding and open source, how did you come up with the idea for that project, how well it was received by the community (explain a bit as people may not know GitHub), and how it helped other projects (search if any other repositories that use your tool).



This part is not an answer: ask yourself why do you want a Master? This is impressive for a PhD program too. If you just want a Master, then it's better to find a job with a top tech company instead of wasting two years, and a lot of money. Stack&nbsp;Overflow has a function that if you give them your GitHub account URL, it can refer you to employers.