rahulc13

Hi All I am new to gradcafe and hence would request you all to forgive me if I'm going about it the wrong way, but I found this discussion to be the most apt for what I want to ask. I have applied for a masters leading to a doctoral degree [in essence I have mostly applied for direct PhD-s in absence of that term] at NUS Singapore, Rensselaer PI, University of Florida Gainesville, Yale, UMass Amherst, U Rochester, Penn State, UPenn and Columbia. Right now I have a bachelors in chemical engineering. My degree is called Bachelor of Technology and I received it from a prestigious T-school in India - the National Institute of Technology at Nagpur, India. My CGPA is 7.26 on a scale of 10 and I have some research work on a)Nanomaterials- their synthesis, characterization and use| and b)Heat exchangers- design, fabrication and optimization. My extracurriculars are quite nice and I have more than 18 months of work-ex as a systems engineer. My GRE score is 322/340 [164 Q, 158 V, 5.0 AWA] and TOEFL score is 113/120. Today I received a rejection from UPenn. While I wait for the others, I need to ask someone whether I have made a mistake in applying for PhD-s rather than Masters first? I have made it amply clear in my SOP that I would continue to a PhD as it is, and hence, I seek an admission to that, without having to go about it in steps. Does that make sense or am I going to get rejected by all the universities? Could someone please clarify?