behrang

at WashU are you going to work with Dr. Flores? if yes, I know she is an excellent researcher/advisor.

If you want joy UCLA, if you want to recruit by a prestigous university as a faculty or choose your faivorite job after graduation, definetely UIUC (especially if you are going to work with Dr.Shanon). My roommate is going to join his group as a PostDoc fellow.

I'm in contact with a professor at Columbia going to support me. Also I have a friend in columbia. with which professor are you corresponding? However, I'm at US right now. one suggestion, if I were you I definteley picked stanford without support, with load or any other sources. I'm sharif graduate and one of my friends at sharif with GPA:18.8 BS and 19.3 MS with a huge amount of conference papers got rejected from stanford. (of course he got admitted for MIT). don't loose stanford.