Probable/Safety graduate school - physics

[Blondie__]

So, I'm from Romania, entering my third and final year as an undergraduate. I was considering going to graduate school in the US but I can't afford to spend to much money on applying to many programs. I have an average grade of 10 out of 10 (I guess that would be a 4.0 GPA?) at the moment and doing a summer internship in the UK with a possible publication at the end. I've also done a couple of posters at conferences. But I haven't taken my GREs yet and I'm a bit nervous about that because I don't know how much time I'll have to study for that. Supposing I get average grades there what are the schools I'd most likely get into and what are my safety schools? Also I wouldn't be wrong in supposing that I can try for a top 10 school right?

 

[twofu]

It's hard to say because I don't know much about foreign schools for graduate school but your grades look excellent. Committees will uses PGRE to "normalize" all the different grades from different Universities, so standardized testing will be important. As far as your safety school is concerned, use this tool.

http://www.physicsgre.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3421

it's a long and comprehensive list of students, with their grades, gpa, and GRE and what schools they got accepted/denied. Don't base your success on it but use it as a guide and look for people with similar profiles to yours.

Something to keep in mind is that even low tier schools have standards. So the notion of safety school doesn't fly when it comes to graduate school.

 

[Blondie__]

Thanks very much for the reply, I actually found that site very useful. I also wanted to ask if anyone knows any universities with good CMT or HEP(theory) groups, from the big universities but also from less well-known ones as well. Thank you.