BU and NYU

[terrence]

I would like to have some opinions on whether Boston University
and NYU are within my reach or not, based on my profile.
I am also applying to very top schools, but those are reaches
for any international

I made a search and found that someone claimed BU had
400 applications last year...I was a little surprised, so I
wonder if BU is less accessible than its ranking could suggest.

[Mataka]

Well there is not much in your profile so it's hard to tell, try to fill it in completely. But from what's in there, your profile looks good, you can probably apply to several top schools (you should certainly not consider BU and NYU reaches)

[terrence]

I added more details to my profile (I will certainly post it in the
profiles thread later, by the way).
When I prepared my list of schools, I thought of NYU and BU as
"safeties", but now I wonder how safe they are actually.
NYU enrolled 10 out of 156 applicants in 06/07 (gradschoolshopper),
while BU had approx 400 applicants for 20 spots last year (info found
browsing this forum).
If these numbers apply to this year's cycle too, NYU and BU are going
to be quite competitive...anyone who has applied to these two schools
has thoughts about this?

[Mataka]

I think your profile is very strong, especially because of "2 publications in JHEP (1st of 3, 1st of 4)", you shouldn't worry too much about getting in BU or NYU ... which country in Europe are you from ?