How important are standard grades when applying for Universities?

Is it no point applying to top universities when all of them are ambitious?

• Admission in top universities, MIT, CMU, Stanford, UCB and UIUC to name a few, are a dream for any aspiring student like me. Even with a decent GRE score (320+), a research publication (IEEE) and good grades, I find people telling me that they are ambitious for me. Is it no point applying to them ? I don't think these universities will come in the moderate or safe category for anyone (though exceptions are always there), so, if everyone thinks they are ambitious, no one should apply to them !

• Answer:

  Ambi doesn't imply that you should not apply. It's ambi because of the admission trend of that university. You can get into an ambi university if you have a very good, compelling SoP, 1-2 publication in IEEE transaction[with lesser impact factor as well], 3 recommendations from people who are somewhat acknowledged and known, and good grades, GRE are also necessary. See, these things are highly dependent upon the application pool and other things. So, an ambi or mod doesn't tell you except some speculative expectation of the result. They may change with a high probability. No one can tell if you can get into an university or not; so they just tag ambi, mod, safe as per your profile and current trend. Also this profile evaluation thing varies. Some people give evaluation according to current trend, some people just follow profiles and give evaluation according to the long-held beliefs. So, if someone tells you that MIT is mod for you and you have 7 GPA, 315 GRE, No publication, that means he/she probably has looked into a skewed trend of MIT and gave your evaluation i.e MIT has probably taken those kinds of students last year.