You are stressed about not being stressed! Must be a good feeling to have. I think you are feeling like what i use to feel in situation which are supposed to be terribly sad or stressful: Start reflecting about my feelings instead of actually feeling them. I think you have done all you could do. Just sit back and keep yourself relaxed.

I have read about lot of universities and applied in a few in USA. They dont want "In principal" approval or supervisor blessing during application process. Btw, Tree of life is one of my fav movies. Good taste.

This is my source to assume that scores are competitive, and USA somehow places lot of emphasis on GRE unlike UK and European universities which demands proposal prior to admission and any major research training-they assume you know what you want to research, know methodology and research design and statistical analysis-Australian universities are most unreasonable in this case.
And i definitely want funding.

Hi, common sense tells me i should be targeting US 50+ ranked universities like UT Dallas, South Carolina, Colorado boulder and universities generally considered 50+ in US domestic ranking. About UK PhD, what do you think about research proposal requirement about admission, how to go about that?

Hello
I am interested in PhD public policy. I have 161 V & 156 Q AWA 4.0 (expected), 5 years experience in central Bank in south east asia in Banking supervision and policy/regulation. Before that i did MBA from local university with 3.26/5.0, First division in B.A with economics and psychology.
Please Advice me which universities in USA i should be targeting. And yes, i didnt undertook research during education, however, written some policy briefs job which would be my writing sample.

Please advise, thanking you guys in anticipation!