Target Schools for PhD in Computer Science

[sergeastorms]

I just took the GRE and am looking for advice on which schools would be a good fit for my interests and qualifications. I am looking to work in Natural Language processing: specifically, semantic networks, disambiguation of word and sentence meaning, and other NLP tasks. I also really like Douglas Hoftstadter's work on intelligent analogy-making systems such as CopyCat, and his other work at the Fluid Analogies Research Group @ Indiana University Bloomington. Basically I fell in love with his epic Godel, Escher, Bach, along with cognitive science in general. (i.e. interdisciplinary computer science, linguistics, psychology, philosophy, math). So although NLP feels right so far, I'm not tied down to it.

My quantitative stats:

*Computer Science major (5 years) @ top-50 overall university (large state school)

*effectively 4.0 GPA overall

*GRE general

>90 percentile Verbal

>80 percentile Math (Should I retake this??)

*I take the CS subject GRE in early November

*some academic awards from the College of Engineering

*no formal linguistics classes, only 2 credits of independent research

Qualitative info:

*Started research with a well-published researcher from a top 3 CS/Linguistics school this past summer in NLP & word sense disambiguation. I may publish in an undergrad journal or present a poster by end of Spring. I still narrowing down on a specific problem to work on, likely involving WordNet/FrameNet and word/sentence semantic disambiguation. I'd love to hear about any current or past projects on this or closely related subjects.

*Good recs: one from my advisor in Linguistics, one from a CS prof I've had 3 classes with, and probably one from a (top 4 CS uni) AI prof (but my current AI class is the first one I've had with him).

*My personal statement should be good. I am discovering that I really love research, and I spend all day thinking about NLP, puns/multiple interpretations, and analogy making. Hopefully this will come across well in my SoP.

*TA for a computer programming class for 2 semesters

*passable fluency in Spanish

Schools I am considering (for a phD in Computer Science):

-UC Berkeley

-Stanford

-University of Rochester

-WashU

-Indiana University, Bloomington

-CMU

-UC San Diego

So, what are my realistic chances? What schools would be good fits for my qualifications and (even more so) my interests? Any specific professor/researcher recommendations?

Thanks.