Cauchy_Way

Interesting about the international competition. Care to elaborate on why students form say, Peking, are more qualified? I know its arguably the best school in China, but globally there are plenty of "state" schools within the U.S. that rank higher, given you believe the rankings are calculated without bias.

Here are my stats: Undergrad Institution: University of Colorado, Boulder Major: Mathematics, Computer Science GPA: 3.81 Type of Student: White Male Upper Division Courses: Math: Calc III (A-), Analysis I (A), Analysis II (A), Intro Linear Algebra (A), ODE (A), PDE (A), Operations Research (A), Numerical Analysis I (A), Probability Theory (A), Statistical Theory (A), Markov, Queues, Monte Carlo Simulation (A) Next Semester: Stochastic Processes (Grad Level) CS: Algorithms (A-), Artificial Intelligence (A), Machine Learning (A) Others: Generally A- and As in the basic maths and computer science courses. Two Bs (one in Calc II), several B+ (all non-related classes), a B- in a history class. GRE: 168Q, 165V, 4 Research Experience: year long research project with two professors in math department, undergraduate thesis in machine learning area Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Dean's List, several (recent) scholarships Pertinent Activities or Jobs: BB bank quant summer analyst, Data Science team, active with elementary/middle school volunteer programs Letters of Recommendation: -Two mathematics professors (research with both) -Computer science professors (thesis advisor) Plan to apply to (mix of MS/Phd Programs): Chicago, Berkeley, Harvard, MIT (CS only), Penn, Yale, CMU, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Toronto, Cornell, Texas (CS only), UCLA, Virginia, and a few "safes"... Am I reaching too much for some of these schools? I would rather not settle since I have an offer from the same BB bank I interned at, but I'd also prefer to further my education. Would working a year or two help at all?