Undergraduate Degree:
Degree : B.E- CS
Percentage: 74.7% (last 4 semesters) & 75.8% (all 8 semesters)
Topper (Gold medalist) percentage : 85%
University: Visvesvaraya Technological University
College: Bangalore Institute of Technology

GRE:
GRE: 315
Verbal: 156 PERCENTILE : 71
Quant: 159 PERCENTILE : 75
AWA: 5.0

~Will appear for GRE again to increase my Quants score to >165. For now please evaluate on this score~

TOEFL : Yet to appear. Scheduled 1st Aug. Based on current proficiency expecting around 110.

Interested Specialization:

A bit confused to be very honest - Data Science/ Machine Learning/ Artificial Intelligence/ Advanced Algorithms.

List of universities considered:

Arizona State University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Michigan State University
Purdue University
Rochester Institute of Technology
SUNY Buffalo
SUNY Stony Brook
UCLA
Indiana University at Bloomington (IUB)
University of California - Santa Barbara
University of Southern California
University of Pennsylvania



~ Please advice on the initial list selected. I don't want to overshoot and at the same time, don't want to apply to all safe colleges either. I am also thinking of applying to a couple of German Universities just in case I face any hassles with education loan.
I want to apply to 9 US colleges (3 safe, 3 moderate & 3 ambitious) + 2 German colleges (1 moderate + 1 safe)

Also, in the current list if you think I should replace some university with another, please advise. So far I have managed to find only 7. There is still room for 2 more. ~


Additional Information

1 year Work Experience - Associate, Product Quality Operations at Google.

3 significant Projects at Google:-
a> API Integration of an existing tool (Tools development) (Role - Coder - C++ & python)
b> Project Manager of a new workflow (Role - Project Manager)
c> Signals Integration into current tool (Role - Analyst)


- No Internships on my resume
- Was the founder of a club in College - Literary Club.
- Was an active member of Rotaract club during College - Social work & leadership skills (was Community service director & PR director for 1 year each)
- Have taken around 4-5 MOOCs on topics related to MicroEconomics, Algorithms, Startup Engineering etc.

Thank You,
Piyush