<p>First, you might want to check [Physics</a> GRE Discussion Forums](<a href=“http://www.physicsgre.com%5DPhysics”>http://www.physicsgre.com), which is quite like this board, but for prospective graduate students in physics and related fields.</p>
<p>It is a fact that international students, especially ones from India and China, have stricter admission criteria for graduate school, and quicker you accept this the easier it will be.</p>
<p>Another depressing fact that you should know is that no matter how brilliant you are, it is practically never guaranteed that you can get into one of big name schools, like Harvard, MIT and Stanford, because the admission board looks at so many aspects. However, there are some ways of knowing if you are (virtually) guaranteed not to get accepted.</p>
<p>First is GPA. In the U.S. scale 3.5 out of 4.0 seems to be the absolute minimum you need to have. I don’t know too much about Indian grading, so can’t tell what that corresponds to there.</p>
<p>Second is GREs. Anything below 780 in quantitative section will very probably block you out, but as you are a non-native English speaker I don’t know what is a competitive score in verbal or analytical writing sections, but they are likely quite unimportant. There is also a Physics subject GRE. I have heard Indian and Chinese people who get into top U.S. grad schools have usually near the max PGRE score, but I’m not sure if that is strictly required or not. However, I could again almost guarantee that you won’t get to the top schools with PGRE anything below 950.</p>
<p>Of course, because the admission board tries to see the big picture, nothing I said above can be taken as an absolute truth. If you have a very famous recommender praising your godly intellectual capabilities, it will obviously help. As will any publications you have, especially in peer-reviewed journals.</p>
<p>I am not sure if you know this, but in the U.S. it seems a custom to skip Master’s degree and begin PhD studies after graduating as a bachelor. The strong upside is that almost every PhD student is funded by someone other than the student or his family whereas I have heard Master’s students usually pay their tuition and living themselves. Downside is of course that it is more difficult to be accepted as a PhD student. Also, three-year bachelor’s international degree doesn’t necessarily meet the prerequisites U.S. PhD programs have, as their Bachelor’s degree takes four years to complete. I am not sure about this, though.</p>