<p>i know this might be an old topic, but since everyone's case is different, i decided to ask again here. I am a senior at Suny at Buffalo, i will be proceeding to graduate school hopefully. I am just really curious about my chance of getting accepted into good graduate schools like Rice University, Cornell, University of Florida. </p>
<p>The reason i have a low gpa was because i had serious family issues in the first 2.5 years of my college. My mother and I had to apply a protection order against my step father in my junior year, also i had two car accidents in that year too; this affected me quite a bit mentally and caused me to be very depressed . Even though i have been trying to make it up, but my gpa is not going too much better, because i had to work a lot to solve the financial difficulties.
I know this sounds more like an excuse to other people, because all that matters the most is the gpa for graduate schools, just wondering if i should put this in the letter to help me get into a good grad school(if i have to settle for a mediocre school, i prefer just not go to grad school at all, because it would not make too much of a difference) </p>
<p>However, i have been trying hard, and got pretty good gpas last semester(3.95) and this semester(3.6) along with a whole year of research experience in chemistry. The professor that i do research for likes me, so i will get 3 solid recommendation letters as well. </p>
<p>So what are my chances of getting into one of the grad schools i listed for chemical engineering? Would putting the difficulties i had help me?</p>
<p>Admissions to graduate school is very different from admission to undergraduate colleges. From what I understand, GPA is very important (especially if you come from a less than super-prestigious institution - which you do). While you’ll probably be granted a little bit of lee-way for everything that’s happened in your life if you explain it well in your application, I don’t think it’s going to give your poor GPA a huge bump.</p>
<p>What matters most in graduate school admissions is your capacity to conduct research. Do you have any idea of the level of research that you’ve done? That may very well make or break whether you get into a ‘good’ graduate school. (By the way, how are you defining what a ‘good’ graduate school is? T50? T75? T100?)</p>
<p>Circumstances such as you describe don’t matter.It’s very different from college admissions. 3.1 isn’t so bad in engineering but it’s still too low, the schools you name would expect 3.3-3.5+ for ChemE majors, more if you’re Chemistry (not engineering). Although it won’t change your GPA, you can look for a job in a town that has a strong program in chemistry or chemical engineering and take more advanced undergraduate classes where you should only get A’s. That additional transcript will help you show you have the appropriate level required. If you can stay in your current town with a job, you could continue taking a class a semester and working for the professor, beef up your resume before you apply to the grad program.
Is your degree in chemistry or in ChemE?</p>
<p>my degree is in chemistry i have already taken advanced organic chemistry(equivalent to first year master organic) and i got an A- in it,and i have one year of research experience in biology and one year in organic chemistry.I have also presented a poster in a chemistry undergard symposium that was held by the acs. my gpa is pretty close to a 3.2now, i have the feeling.that once i start.working i will.not come back for a phd. so should i just forget about applying for those schools? do u think it would be a waste of money</p>
<p>If you have what it takes to succeed in graduate school, your application will only become stronger as you enter the workforce.
At this point, no, there’s no point in applying to these two schools. It’s great you got an A-, that you have one year of research experience and presented a poster. But students from top colleges or honors colleges from public universities will have done that, too, and gotten more A’s and presented their research… You’re starting to get back on your feet. Keep taking chemistry classes and getting A’s, beef up your resume with work or research, and apply in a couple years (like many applicants do anyway).</p>
<p>really appreciate the information, do you think acing the gre would help?</p>
<p>if you do all of the above (beef up your resume with more A’s in advanced classes, more research, more presentations/publications…) AND ace the GRE, yes it’d help. In itself, as of now, it wouldn’t be enough, but if you add excellent GRE scores to a strong resume of course it’d help.</p>
<p>The key here is why you want to go to graduate school but only to those three schools? There are plenty of good programs that would likely accept you but it is not gong to be the highly selective ones. If you are really determined to go to graduate school, then you need to find a university which matches your academic record (you can always apply to one or two highly selective programs but not exclusively). The other question that you have not answered is whether you want a Ph.D. or a M.S. If the former, then you should expect to be supported throughout your studies so it should not put you further in debt. If an M.S. then you have to expect to pay at the more selective schools. Another route to a Ph.D. might be to find a program that supports you for an M.S. and then you can apply to a more selective program for a Ph.D. after that. The programs which support students at the M.S. level are generally those without a Ph.D. program and they are not as selective as the ones you mentioned.</p>
<p>Well, it’s true that graduate admissions is very different from undergrad. That doesn’t mean that bad grades can’t be partially explained by life circumstances, but it usually has to be a time-limited period and something that is resolved and unlikely to recur. 2.5 years is a long time for bad grades in a 4-year course of study, and I think difficult to properly explain. Usually what grad schools like to see is not only an explanation, but also an upward trend showing that once the problem was resolved you did better. You also need to have an outstanding application otherwise.</p>
<p>If you’ve gotten 3.95 and 3.6 in the last year since the problem blew over, then you may have a decent chance of gaining admission IF you can eloquently explain your issues (or, better yet, have a recommender explain them for you). It might not happen straight from college; you may need to take a year or two “off” to work first, and maybe taken some graduate classes as a non-degree student to prove that you can succeed. Your recommendations can’t just be solid; they need to be outstanding. You also need more research under your belt, so in the year or two that you take “off” you need to be doing research.</p>
<p>This will be easier, too, if you are aiming for an MS program as opposed to a PhD program.</p>
<p>I always say this: If you start working and decide not to go back for a PhD, that’s totally okay because that means you didn’t need one anyway. Generally speaking, if you start working and decide to continue, it’s because you have found work that you like and realize that you don’t need a PhD to get where you need to go. That’s totally okay! In fact, that is preferable. I’m finishing up a PhD now and to be honest, I’m not sure I would do it over again. If I had gone to work after college and found a job I really liked I probably wouldn’t have come - but since the point of graduate school is to get you to the kind of career you really want, if you can find one without the time and energy, then why return?</p>
<p>@xraymancs i will apply for a phd, just because i do not wish to pay the tuition, if i can get accepted by an ms program with funding i would go too. The reason i named those schools was because they are my current choices, i know there are many other good schools, its just they are my current choices</p>
<p>@juillet how do i get outstanding recommendation letter? i know one of my professors that i do research for likes me very much because i have impressed her by the research i did. can i have one of my mother’s friend write a recommendation letter for me? because she witnessed everything that happened on me, which i did not tell anyone at my school(i guess none of the professors would listen to my crap anyways lol). if i can get into an ms program that has funding it would be great, its just it is very rare for masters to have fundings as i have heard.</p>
<p>I just do not want to be stuck in my late 40s and find out i need to have a higher degree in order to get promoted or change my job just in case i do not like it.</p>
<p>OK, applying for a Ph.D. just because it is more likely to be funded is really not a good reason. You have not yet articulated why you are interested in graduate school at all except for the notion that you might need it for advancement later on. This is really not a sufficient reason either. I think you would be better served to find a job now and in a couple of years rethink whether an advanced degree is important for your career. You may get a different answer than you have now and not only that, you might be in a financial position to pay for the Masters degree (MBA too) that you really need for your career.</p>
<p>As of now, you have no research experience and so really have no basis to determine whether a Ph.D. or research oriented Masters degree is really the right thing for you.</p>
<p>@xraymancs thank you for the advice. i have two years of research experience so far like i said. My reason of going to the grad school is because i would end up doing the same thing like what i would do in grad school (work under a phd chemist most likely) if i just find a science related job with a bachelors, but i prefer to do it with an outcome of obtaining a phd. I can make up some fancy reasons, but since i am asking for advice here, i guess its better for me to tell you what i really feel(though i would not say this in front of the deans). </p>