Profile Review: Want to see if programs selected are reasonable

[tropicalpunch]

Hello, I am applying for PhD programs with a focus in Machine Learning and Robotics. The field is soooooooo competitive and I feel that I am not good enough.

(I copied this template from another user, but this is my current profile)

• Current institution: top 10 BS/MS program (on the lower end) with somewhat well-known professor
• Domestic female applicant (US citizen)
• Current GPA: 3.8
• Research Interests: robot learning, foundation models, reinforcement learning, 3D data, computer vision
• Research Experiences: 
  • 4 Publications (all accepted at top conferences)
    • 1 first author (done as part of an internship with a research company)
    • 2 second author (one spotlight)
    • 1 fifth author
  • Presented at overseas conference.
  • Presented at Undergraduate Research Conference as part of my school.
  • Also working on another paper (co first author) and assisting with another group's paper.
• Industry Experience:
  • 1 research internship relevant to what I'm working on.
  • 1 hardware internship with a big company when I was a freshman
• Other: I have extensive knowledge with working on robotic platforms. Familiar with PyTorch, sim environments, sim2real, cameras, RL, etc.

One paper I was a part on got spotlight and those students that were co-first authors all got into top schools. I am worried that I do not have a similar first author paper with similar performance or scholarships or awards to distinguish me. I feel my application is quite bland. 

**Here are some reach schools I am interested in for PhD:** 

• UC Berkeley
• University of Washington
• CMU
• MIT
• Stanford
• Georgia Tech
• Columbia
• University of Michigan

haha ... not getting into these

**Here are some safe schools:** 

• UCSD
• UIUC
• USC
• Rutgers
• Penn State
• Rice
• Arizona State University
• many others....

I'm afraid even my safe schools aren't safe enough. I'm trying to be optimistic but I also need someone to give it to me cold on where I really stand. 

What are some lower-tier schools I should consider? Also I'm applying for NSF, let me know if you have any recommendations for that.

tysm!