please evaluate

[varun120]

I have just completed my engineering (comp science) from mumbai university ,India.. have given GRE and my score is 1410 with 780 in quants and 630 in verbal AWA -4.5 ,TOEFL 115/120 ....have a whole bunch of certifications and publications (2 publications in the CSI(computer society of india) journal ,2nd place in all india engg quiz (delhi) 3rd place in robocon IIT ,all india 12th position in CSI YITP(computer society of india young IT professional ) ,completed all three lvls of math olympiad back in school and jr.college and several other awards)...have done 4 major projects which have been presented in IIT innovations (TECH FEST)2nd place ,CSI YITP(12th in country ) and my final year project ..have strong LOR from HOD and CSI mumbai div head as well ....my main area of concern is my UG score ... its only 58.5 % which comes out to be 2.89 GPA out of 4

please help me out in selecting universities ...cause of my low UG score i am targeting universities ranked between 30-70 .. according to the list on usnews.com.... could i aim for universities like univ of california irvine ,santa cruz or santa barbara (ambi list)...do i have any scope to get into NCSU ?? and what about UTD ,arlington ,SUNY buffalo ,Iowa state univ , MSU and george mason univ, northeastern university and university of rochester ..university of rochester is my prime target cause it is known for its research work ....kindly help me out on this

Any suggestions are appreciated!

varun

[surprisecake]

I"m not particularly qualified to give you advice because i'm a medical student but I do have a whole lot of engineer friends who have gone to the U.S. for their postgrad degree.

As indians we have it drilled into our brains that our school and college percentages are the most important thing in the world but it hardly matters when you're applying abroad.

There are so many Indian engineering applicants that a 55 or a 65% barely makes a difference even though it may seem like a world of a difference over here.

95% of my friends are typical students who studied hard, avoided ATKTs, went to classes for GRE, got great scores and got admitted to Rank 30-50 colleges because that's the path most students here blindly take.

One friend of mine passed Maths-II after 4 attempts, took SIX years to graduate and ultimately got 53%. He did however have great passion and genuine skill for engineering and won at Robocon and other IIT competitions and did some valuable internships in the industry and wrote a convincing SOP. He was eventually admitted by a top 10 engineering school. I really think you should aim higher because you have strengths that the typical engineering undergrad does not have; the ones that foreign universities value a lot more than a +5 or even a +10 on your undergrad score. Plus, awesome GRE.

Edited August 4, 2010 by surprisecake