Hey Harris Definitely your score in quantitative is lower. Congratulation! You have a good score in verbal. What about your GRE essay and TOEFL scores. I think followings are the major criteria most of the graduate student recruiting committee looks. 1) If you are international student, your TOEFL score: If it is >600 that is good for both TA and RA. Some universities asks TSE for TA 2) GRE: Verbal: >400, Quantative >700 and essay > 3.5 3) Recommendation letter, and who are the recommender 4) University: If your previous university is US University, you have great chance. If your university is from Nepal, they look from which university you are. Tribhuvan University is mostly well known in the world. 5) What is your GPA or percentage: if it is >3.5 or 70% that’s good. 6) How frequently you are in contact with the department advisor and professor under whom you want to work- it’s very important for getting admission for MS or PhD. If the professor wants you, GRE and TOEFL are no matter; he can admit you even if you don’t have TOEFL and GRE. 7) Your Statement of Purpose. How concise is your SOP, what is your goal, how much your SOP tells about your goal, did you get any ethical problem during your work or study and what approaches you considered. 8) Your academic work experience: Not very important, but if you have its positive 9) Your extracurricular activities: Not very important, but if you have its positive About university, I would say you apply in at least 6 universities. Four universities above the ranking 100 and two within 100. Go to http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/natudoc/tier1/t1natudoc_brief.php to see recent ranking of US universities. My suggestion for you is first write at least 50 department advisors and 50 professors who are working in the field of your interest and look how positive their responses are. Be in frequent contacts with the professors who positively responded you and do accordingly what they want.