Can't determine safe school

[loyola]

 Hi. Going to Ph.D for Fall 2011. I want to know what would be safe-schools for me

My profile:

Graduated from: diploma from Unknown State Technical University (Russia)  

Speciality: CS&EE

Major GPA: 5.0; overall GPA: 4.7/5.0

TOEFL: 28/27/27/20 total: 102

GRE: v430/q740/a3.0

two average (not high-quality) publications (1 in physics, 1 in Microprocessor systems)

3′d place at Regional Physics Olympiad

1 year working in the Research Institute (but actually doing engineering there)

participant at Microsoft Research Summer School (Russia) and Embedded Systems Summer School (France)

Area: 1) Embedded systems

                 2) Maybe bioinformatics

I can’t choose safe schools. Please,help

Edited October 20, 2010 by loyola

[beanbagchairs]

I dont know if what you're referring to diploma is a bachelor degree or master degree (I remember that Europeans have that 5 year BS-MS and calls them "diploms").

Anyway I'll assume that it is a bachelor.. and I'll only comment on your second area of interest (bioinfo)

I dont know how your GPA system works, but it looks like that your GPA is almost perfect..

I dont know what's a good score for TOEFL, so cant comment on it

GRE is a bit on the low side, but not low enough to exclude you.... esp the quant .. We are applying for quantitative programs, you need to get near 800s.. Although great pubs will get you VERY FAR despite your GRE score.

Your research exp looks great.. you want to emphasize that on your SOP... I'd also put why your background in physics is particularly great for your future in bioinformatics.

I cant tell you safe schools, but I'll give you some suggestions:

maybe schools:

boston university (GREAT research), george mason u, USC, johns hopkins, duke

I find these univs that have decent CS programs but IMPRESSIVE bioinformatics/biomedical programs.. so basically, it's another way to be advised by those great bioinformatics profs without having to compete with the whole population of bioinfo-hopefuls:

UC santa cruz, WUSTL, johns hopkins

With that being said, also apply to those dream schools... just in case you get lucky... and I'm pretty sure you know what are those dream schools are..