//Latte Macchiato// Thank you for your advice. It made me feel better
//Mocha// Thank you for so eagerly and honestly replying to my question
Well, for answering questions you've asked, I have graduated private UG outside of US, nationally well known in my country(I have my doubts that it will be familiar in US) and no I do not have experience in any US institute. As I have stated earlier, my interest is mainly in virology(host-viral interaction), especially related to HSV(I am just curious about mechanism of it and how it has so greatly adapted as a parasite, and its almost ubiquitous presence among human). However, although I agree that it might be good to have specific area of interest, it could be somewhat broad in range at this stage.
I went to immunology lab at first because the only one professor studying virus was in her sabbatical year and I thought it would be helpful to gain knowledge and experience in lab work elsewhere, since I had no idea what was going around in research lab. The reason I came out of the lab was my interest did not seem to fit in immunology as much as I expected and the very reason that I still am interested in studying virus. Also, I made up my mind to try out for studying abroad, to US - a little after coming out of the lab.
And yes, lack of time to do any quality research, that is what bothers me the most.
I say safety school, but I know myself that there are no 'safety' schools in graduate level, only that chances of admission can be somewhat higher and the outcome cannot be determined.
I have done some web searching and found one of the professors in UIUC was doing research related to my interest. I plan to apply for it and several other graduate schools. Following are the lists of graduate schools I intend to apply, though it might change over time.
Baylor college of medicine, Brown, Northwestern, Indiana Bloomington, Dartmouth college, Rice, U of Florida, U of Utah, Purdue - West Lafayette, U of Maryland, WUSTL and Tufts.
I appreciate any kind of comments. Thanks.