FYI, Berkeley doesn't really have a Master's in CS, and the Master's program at Stanford is very different from the PhD program (you have to pay tuition and tak

FYI, Berkeley doesn't really have a Master's in CS, and the Master's program at Stanford is very different from the PhD program (you have to pay tuition and take a bunch of classes, whereas the Stanford PhD program has very few course requirements and you get much more departmental support). I understand where you're coming from -- when I was initially thinking of applying to graduate school, starting with a Master's seemed like the safer and more sensible choice. But after talking to several people about it, the unanimous advice was to apply straight to the PhD program, for reasons similar to those enumerated above.