PhD profile evaluation + can I get rejected due to my nationality?

[ANerdHasNoName]

Hi all,

It has been quite the journey for me to post on this forum. I tried creating an account multiple times but got some type of error before successfully creating it using a gmail account. Anyway, I'm from a senior year undergraduate from Nanyang Tech in Singapore and I'm considering a PhD in the US (in machine learning). As the deadlines approach in a couple months, I can't help but wonder if I have chosen the right universities to apply to. Some background about me:

• 3.54/4.00 cGPA (approx.)
• I was on the accelerated program, completing a 4 years bachelor degree in 3.5 years
• Specialisation in intelligent systems and data science (machine learning, data science, intelligent agents, those sort)
• about 1 year ++ research experience in machine learning due to my senior thesis
• submitted a first author paper of said research to a conference recently (but let's not assume it'll get accepted)
• working on a short 2 month long research project with a prof in the US (via Skype and stuff - his alma mater includes Boston U and MIT, though I'm sure he's been out of academia for some time)
• Started my own business in my second year of college
• Have an internship with IBM on software developing, but could potentially work on some machine learning related stuff
• GREs: not yet taken, but I am confident of scoring well
• TOEFL: some universities may not require this from Singaporean students but I'm also confident of scoring well (since English is my native language)
• LORs: 2 strong/relatively strong letters plus 1 from a prof who asked me to draft the letter so he could sign (I guess its up to me to make it a somewhat strong letter)

I don't think my GPA is great, but I was on the dean's list for my final year of studies. For what it's worth, some of my uni's undergraduate level courses are taken by masters students so maybe it is somewhat equivalent to a graduate level course in the US. These are the universities I have currently narrowed out (in order of preference):

1. Columbia University
2. NYU
3. UCLA
4. UPenn
5. Boston U
6. Stony Brook
7. CUNY Graduate Center

If anyone has any suggestions on which universities I should add or remove from the list or just anything in general, feel free to comment! Grad school admissions aren't exactly straightforward so I'm having a little trouble deciding on which universities I should apply to. Oh and I should mention, I was offered a PhD position in my current uni but it isn't exactly my first choice.

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On another note, I am concerned that my nationality might be a problem, especially after Trump took office. I am originally from Malaysia, but immigrated to Singapore as a baby. I've had a permanent residency status in Singapore for my entire life, but never converted to a citizen so my nationality is Malaysian. As you may or may not know, Malaysia is a largely muslim country. I didn't think this was a problem until a bunch of my friends mentioned it. Will this pose as a problem for grad school applications?

[Warelin]

Malaysia is not currently on the travel ban list. As such, I don't believe it will currently pose a problem for grad school applications. However, it should be worthwhile to note that there are less spots available for international students than there are for domestic students due to the higher costs of sponsoring international students. Private schools are less likely to be impacted by this than public schools.