<p>Basically, schools like Brown are out of my reach, and my first choice of research university is UCB, which doesn’t have such flexible curriculum but I don’t dislike this school for that reason. I assumed that they are at a disadvantage because many people in CC and other websites encourage me to stay in the US to maximize the chance. But since I became to suspect the reliability of their advice strongly, I asked some PhD programs about the chances. I think asking the adcom in PhD program is the best way to ask this sort of subtle questions. </p>