
Thanks for checking my first post!
I am an international student from Japan and planning to apply to U.S. grad schools this winter.
I saw in old topics that international applicants can be competitive only if they are the very best at their home universities, i.e. if they have quite high GPA and GRE physics scores.
But I still wonder what is expected for my case (which is shown below), so if there is anyone who have any idea whether I can be a competitive applicant, please leave a response.
My backgrounds are:
GRE Scores:
Verbal 380 (25%)
Quantitative 800 (94%)
Analytical 4.5 (52%)
Physics 920 (91%)
TOEFL Scores:
CBT 270/300 ( Reading 26, Writing 27, Listening 28 )
GPA:
3.56 overall, 3.45 or so in physics (which is horrible...)
Experience:
Summer research at UCLA on high energy experiment (while studying abroad, no publications)
Senior thesis on particle theory (no pubs)
One-semester TA experience (of E&M exercise class)
No awards

Recommendations:
two average recommendations and one good one from an assistant professor who used to be a mirror fellow at UCB.
I am applying to:
UCB
UCSB
UCLA (where I have studied abroad for one year)
UIUC
UMichigan
UChicago
UMinnesota
UPenn
Boston U.
NYU
and probably other back-up (i dunno if i can say this, though) universities like URochester, Northwestern, etc.
If you need more info to give a response, please ask me.
Thanks a lot!