Applying to a different Ph.D program than bachelors?

<p>Next year, I will graduate with a bachelor's degree in Chemistry with a Biochemistry concentration. Grades and GRE aside, I was wondering what are my chances if I wanted to apply for a Ph.D program in Chemical Engineering or even a completely different field like Computer Science?</p>

<p>At MIT, 1.5%</p>

<p>Nobody can tell you your chances, especially with this little information. You might have a 2.3 GPA. You might have a 3.9 and a first-authored paper in Science. We don’t know.</p>

<p>But even if you told us, we can’t tell you your chances in any meaningful numerical way. That’s because admissions are holistic and you’re in competition with the rest of the pool, not to mention other factors that may affect you. For example, the professor who you’d want to work with may not take any students next year, so if you apply to work with him your chances are null.</p>

<p>Broadly speaking, you can apply to related fields without specific prep but not unrelated ones. A chemistry major with sufficient preparation in engineering classes might be able to successfully apply to a PhD program in chemical engineering. But you most likely won’t be successful applying to a PhD program in computer science unless you had the equivalent of a major in computer science and some research experience in computer science.</p>