My chances of getting admitted to Stem Cell PhD program

[esinstra]

I am an international student who will apply for graduate school

in the end of this year. I am now considering Stem Cell-related

PhD programs in several schools, such as Harvard, MIT, Yale,

Stanford, Wisconsin-Madison, Duke, WUSTL, Stony Brook (for CSHL),

UC Irvine, NYU, MSSM, and UMMS.

My academic record is shown below:

GPA: 3.5

GRE: 420 (38%)/770 (88%)/3.5 (20%)

IBT: 98 (25/22/22/29)

Publications:

Stem Cells (1st author)

FASEB J. (3rd author)

Cell. Singal. (2nd author)

one submitted paper

one conference poster

Could anyone give me any suggestion or critique about my chances of admissions?

Thank you!

[esinstra]

For more details of my research experiences:

I obtained a Bachelor of Science in Life Science in Taiwan with 3.5 in average GPA and 3.8 in last 60 credits. I started my research career for one year in Taiwan and then went to UMN as a research specialist for over two years. At UMN, I mainly participated in the research of cell metabolism and embryonic stem cells. This year I just had my own peer-reviewed publications in the journals Stem Cells (1st author in ESC research), FASEB Journal (3rd author in metabolism and immunology), and Cellular Signalling (2nd author in metabolism), as well as one submitted paper (2nd author in metabolism), one Chinese article (in Biomimetics) and one conference poster (1st author in metabolism) at Experimental Biology, Anaheim 2010. One of my strong recommendation letter comes from an Honorary Fellow at AAAAI, also a Harvard alumus. As for my extracurricular activities, I have served as an editor of Chinese scientific news as well as a Chinese translator in MIT OpenCourseWare. I also made the military service as an officer (second lieutenant) at Coast Guard Administration in Taiwan. However, I am not sure whether my extracurricular activities will help in my application.

I am now looking for stem cell-related graduate programs, which are mostly parts of the umbrella programs in many schools. As far as I know, universities in California, such as Stanford, UCI, UCSF, and UCLA, are especially outstanding in ESC research due to the strong support from California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). In eastern coast, Harvard just established the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (SCRB) in 2007, where there are many excellent scholars, including George Daley, David Scadden, Douglas Melton, and Konrad Hochedlinger. In MIT, Rudolf Jaenisch is of course the leading expert in ESC research. And in Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, James Thomson is worldwide well-known for his contribution.

These experts are all top scientists around the world, and most people interested in ESC research would love to join their lab although not everyone is accepted. Here I would like to ask whether any experienced person could evaluate my chances of admissions at these prestigious dream schools as well as provide with some advice on my academic records and choosing schools in addition to forementioned universities.

Thank you for your patience!

PS: The schools I am considering is listed below:

Harvard: Biological and Biomedical Sciences

MIT: Biology

Yale: Biological & Biomedical Sciences

Stanford: Biosciences

Wisconsin: Cellular and molecular biology

Duke: Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Training Program

WUSTL: Developmental Biology Program / BBS

UC Irvine: Cellular & Molecular Biosciences