Profile Evaluation - Materials Science & Engineering PhD

[yepyepBamboo]

Hey everyone,

I'm looking to get some insight about my standings for my overall application, and whether or not I should consider applying to more schools.

My current list of schools are (all PhD):
UFlorida - MSE
Harvard - MEMS
UT-Austin - MSE
JHU - MSE
UIUC - MSE 
UPenn - MSE
UCSD - MSE
& CMU - MSE

Stats:
First Generation Hispanic/Latino, White Male
3.71 Cum. GPA/3.69 Major GPA/3.91 Junior Year GPA from a moderately respected state school
GRE: 151 Verbal (50%)/163 Quant (86%)/4.5 Writing (80%)
Research Experience:  A year in one lab (not relating to what I want to get into), a summer REU at a top 10 MSE school (research again not really related to what I want to go into), and about 2/3rds of a year in another lab (getting closer to what I want to do, but not quite there yet)

Publications/Presentation:  
Non-first author publication from REU (in the process of being submitted), a talk/poster presentation for the REU, and another poster presentation back at home institute where I won 1st place for Best STEM poster.

Activities:
Currently an Undergrad lab TA (helped develop the curriculum for this lab, wrote a section of its lab manual), have been a learning assistant for the math department since my sophomore year, and I'm actively involved in recruitment for our department.

Letters:
My REU Professor (I didn't even have to ask him for one--he told me before I left that if I ever needed a letter, that he'd be more than happy to write me one since he knows what I want to get into and we spoke a lot about it), my current Senior thesis professor (Assistant Professor who knows me personally and has seen me "grow" as a student [didn't do so hot my first few semesters of engineering, including her class, but made up for it in her grad level class/research], so I'm going to say a strong letter), and the department head of my department (again, I'm sure this will be very strong since I used to work for his lab/I actively help him with recruitment).

I think my personal statement is above average quality.  I've had it read over by professors and other students and they've mostly really liked it.

Finally;  I'm on the fence about applying to fellowships for this year.  I'll definitely be applying if and once I start grad school, but it's kind of late and I don't have things down for them.  Will answering "no" to the "have you applied for any funding" question on applications hurt me that much? x.x

People are telling me I should be more ambitious with schools that I'm applying to, but I'm really not trying to spend money on applications for schools I don't want to go to/know I won't get into (Berkeley, Cal Tech, etc.).  Only reason I'm really applying to UIUC is because my REU professor did his PhD there, and I thought I might as well have one top top school and some of the research done there really hits the nail on the head as far as what I want to get into.

I'd appreciate any input! 

 

Edited November 21, 2015 by yepyepBamboo
typos, added info