UG-EEE, MS-Theo. Phys., Intl: profile & school evaluation

[rasa]

I did my undergrad in EEE. After a year long engineering consultancy job and then join as a lecturer in a private Uni (trust me it is possible here to teach undergrad student with a mere undergrad degree, if your undergrad institution is prestigious enough within the country), I decided to enroll in graduate study as I prefer academia to 'boring' jobs of our country. However, I felt I have a propensity towards more fundamental physics than applied type engineering. So, I decided to enroll for an MSc in Physics within our country first. And as I mentioned, since my undergrad is from a publicly prestigious institute in our country I managed to convince another prestigious institute's Theoretical Physics department to enroll me. However, things were not that easy as I thought and I was prepared for that as Professors warned me earlier. Though I could grasp the introductory condensed matter physics, statistical mechanics and General relativity courses but quantum field theory and particle physics courses was highly elusive for me with my smattering QM knowledge. So, I took my time, did self-study for one year and then attended final exam taking readmission with the next session students. I had to take GRE, PGRE, TOEFL exam within 2 months and not that great score for an international student. Here is my profile:

Undergrad Inst: a distinguished engineering institute within the country
subject: EEE (No concept of Major/ Minor in traditional sense)
GPA: 3.51/4.0
Length of Degree: 4 years time period (but took almost 5.5 years due some reasons related to unstable political/academic system)
Position in class: some 40 percentile-ish, (our transcripts are rude enough to mention the position )
Masters inst: another prestigious and the largest uni of the country
subject: Theoretical Physics
Length of Degree: 1 year time period (again it took me 1.5 years for 'session jam')
GPA: expecting 3.5-ish (might not get formal result before applying but might get a certificate from department mentioning courses grades)
Type of Student: International, Asian

GRE Scores :
Q: 164 (88%)
V: 153 (59%)
W: 3 (15%)
P: 820 (74%)
T: 101 (s-20 , others 27)

Research Experience: A masters thesis in HET phenomenology(Review type)
No significant honors or accolade

Primary Selection for apply: (all are in HET/GR/Cosmology)(according to usnews ranking)
Not really hoping:
Penn state
Northwestern
UC Davis
Hoping with reservations:
Florida state
Iowa state
U Pittsburgh
U Iowa
Virginia Tech
Syracuse
U Tennessee-Knoxville
Louisiana state
U Connecticut
Tufts
U Hawaii-Manoa
Wisconsin-Milwaukee

So, are these selections too ambitious for me? If you have any suggestions about any changing-include/exclude please share.

[rasa]

Can anybody help?? please!!!

[nerdhead]

Bro I have registered in this forum to ask the same problem

[nik]

1/3rd will throw out u'r app. 1/3rd will accept. the remaining 1/3rd have 50-50 chance.

[McLovin]

We have a few grad students with engineering background (i.e. EE or nuclear). As long as you went through the standard physics curriculum, you should be fine.
If you weren't applying for HET, I would say that you definitely should get accepted somewhere.
I mean, this field is a jungle.