<p>tunadunk, what’s your specific area of study? that will also help to determine where you want to apply, as some schools are especially strong in some fields.</p>
<p>i just went through the whole process myself and applied to uchicago, berkeley, nyu, yale, northwestern, princeton, harvard, and upenn. they all have strong programs so you might want to look into these (if they haven’t already been mentioned).</p>
<p>also make sure to look into the funding at the various schools. columbia and nyu are notorious for not giving a lot, and the environment is therefore very competitive (lots of students competing for a small pool of money). some, thankfully, are fully funded - i’ll be getting full tuition plus a $25k stipend!</p>