A Curious 2nd yr Mumbai University Undergrad

[MDK]

Yes, the competition is really tough. But you should also consider that most IITians and students of other top universities don't usually post their profiles in open forums. The Majority of them don't surf such forums. Their academic advisers recommend a list of universities to apply to.
I remember seeing an admit to MIT's PhD program at Edulix, the guy was eaten alive because no one has ever seen an admit to MIT there.

[shemz]

I remember seeing an admit to MIT's PhD program at Edulix, the guy was eaten alive because no one has ever seen an admit to MIT there.

Very true. I remember a guy from my university getting into Cornell, kept his profile on Edulix, and it was only once.

Its not that very few Indian students get selected in top notch US Unis. It depends on your profile as well as your institution and faculty's reputation. Besides, I know one of the alumni at my college, who went to a university in the top 50 list for PhD, but went to Caltech for postdoc; so that goes to say thats room for improvement is always there and what matters is your dedication and capability.

[jhoncena]

It's just that the thought of doing research excites me,
having already done a bit in the past on small scale
projects in college.
Doing the same at a top US univ would be just great!

[Ancalagon The Black]

Actually in top Indian schools, there is a pool of schools where people apply every year in a pecking order. For instance, here in ISI, we have the flagship BStat and MStat programs from which people go every year to some top 10 university in the US.

The students generally don't have any need for forums because their professors suggest them universities where to apply to (they will gear their LORs towards that since they probably know some professor in the department personally or have researched with him/her)

Moreover, since there are so few students, they divide amongst themselves the schools where to apply to since it wouldn't make sense for 2 students from the same school to apply to the same top 10 US program. These people are generally International maths Olympiad gold medal winners, 100% scores and 800 GRE Quant with 5 journal publications. Therefore, they have no use for social profile evaluations.