Chance me please

Graduate School
1

<p>Going to be a senior this fall at a 50-60 ranked undergraduate mechanical engineering university.
Current GPA: 3.7+, will probably be 3.8+ when I apply or finish senior year
Research experience: unpaid 2 years in laser&Plasma diagnostic lab or 3 years after senior year, a summer REU at a diff university. no publications
Internship: a summer internship
GRE: 780 Q, 550 V, 4.5 writing
EC(not sure if relevant for grad school): 500+ hours at habitat for humanity, decent leadership position in ASME
Will probably get a really good letter of rec from the associate professor I'm working for in the laser&plasma diagnostic lab, another from a professor for my senior design class, last one from REU professor.
I'm asian (not sure if that matters)
Schools I have in mind of applying for, but not all: purdue, princeton, cornell, umich, georgia tech, virginia tech, ucla, ut austin, texas a&m, northwestern. I probably won't even apply to half of these, but they are just ones I have in mind.</p>

<p>I plan on applying for directphd programs, although I am a little confused on if I get declined from the directphd do I have to apply again for the MS or are they going to offer me admission into the MS? If I can't get into a phd program at these schools I will probably finish my master's at these schools then apply for the phd, assuming that I get admitted.</p>

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<p>input would be appreciated</p>

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<p>By 50-60 ranked undergraduate mechanical engineering university, you mean 50-60 in general, or 50-60 in terms of mechanical engineering?</p>

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<p>mechanical engineering. tho its in the 60-70 rank for grad school, but 50-60 for undergrad. I never trust statistics but that’s the only way I can describe the “rank” of the school I go to.</p>

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<p>Those are pretty fit (almost reach) school given your GPA, GRE, Lots of Research!</p>

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<p>thanks and what does almost reach mean?</p>

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<p>can someone give me more opinions?</p>

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<p>A reach school is one that will be tougher for a particular school to gain acceptance to; so an “almost reach” is a school which is a fairly good fit, but somewhat on the difficult side to get admission to. (In numeric terms, acceptance chances at a safety school are 90%+, at a good fit school are 50% to 90% and at a reach less than 50%.)</p>

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<p>oh i see thanks for explaining</p>

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<p>Sorry for not explaining that, but agree with violindad.</p>