Are these aims realistic?

[lzxnl]

Hi everyone. I'm an overseas student looking to apply for some (possibly out of reach) top tier universities and want to know about my chances of getting in. Here is a quick summary of pertinent parts of my application.

Currently: final semester of two year MSc (Applied Mathematics), top university in my country

General GRE:
Q: 170 (96%)
V: 165 (96%)
W: 6.0 (99%)

Maths GRE: 890 (92%)

Research experience: 1 summer project on fluid mechanics + student conference, masters thesis on rarefied gas dynamics which my supervisor is rapt about, writing a paper soon, original work
GPA: 4.00, average score of 90% in masters
Prizes: freshman maths award, scholarship in masters all semesters for academic merit, dean's list first and third year undergrad (not second year because exchange)
Have tutored every maths subject completed in my first two years of undergrad, as well as a few from my third year and one from my masters.
Extra useful info: masters supervisor works at Caltech half the year as a professor (which means supervision in that semester is indeed challenging ): )
Wish to apply for: MIT, Caltech, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, all under Applied Maths, although I will probably apply for engineering too. Will, of course, apply for others, but my chances at these concern me the most at the moment.

Am I being too wishful here? Any tips for what I can do? I suspect I could email some potential supervisors, but I've been told that is of limited utility at American universities.

[ponchan]

I mean, anyone hoping to get into MIT or Harvard is being wishful, apart from the handful that have reason to be pretty certain. The truth is that no one on here can give you much useful info since we're all undergrads in the same boat. It would be wisest to ask a faculty mentor, since he or she would have more useful data and insights.

[lurenjia12138]

Any papers?

[lzxnl]

In the process of writing one as a result of my masters thesis. Probably won't have it published before applications though.

[lurenjia12138]

In the process of writing one as a result of my masters thesis. Probably won't have it published before applications though.

OK, I think you have a very good profile which would I believe results in multiple offers from these top university you mentioned. Good Luck !

[math94]

OK, I think you have a very good profile which would I believe results in multiple offers from these top university you mentioned. Good Luck !

this is way too wishful and misleading

don't apply only to the top 5 places in existence, that's a recipe for disaster. add other safer schools to your list.

[lzxnl]

Ended up applying to Harvard, MIT, Caltech, UCLA, NYU, Brown, University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Let's see how this goes. Thanks for all the posts, guys!

[lzxnl]

OK, I think you have a very good profile which would I believe results in multiple offers from these top university you mentioned. Good Luck !

this is way too wishful and misleading

don't apply only to the top 5 places in existence, that's a recipe for disaster. add other safer schools to your list.

Well, I got into MIT, so maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.

[math94]

OK, I think you have a very good profile which would I believe results in multiple offers from these top university you mentioned. Good Luck !

this is way too wishful and misleading

don't apply only to the top 5 places in existence, that's a recipe for disaster. add other safer schools to your list.

Well, I got into MIT, so maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.

"I played roulette and won so maybe gambling isn't a bad idea"

Congratulations though. To be fair applied math applications aren't as cutthroat as pure so maybe this was safer than it seems.