<p>I am entering my senior year in chemical engineering. My credentials are strong, I believe: 4.0 GPA, 1510 GRE (800Q, 710V, 5.5W), three summers of research in this department, two co-publications with my faculty sponsor (with a third and possibly a fourth to come), a Goldwater Scholarship, a few extracurriculars with a leadership component in each, and expect to have strong recommendations.</p>
<p>However, my undergraduate department does not exactly have a track record of sending students to high-level graduate programs. Most students go straight out to get jobs after their BS, and most of those who do try grad school stay at this institution, where the graduate program does not enjoy a high ranking (or any ranking at all, as far as I can find). Our top graduate this spring will attend a respected Big Ten school in the fall, but that's it for the last several years.</p>
<p>Furthermore, all of my experience is at my undergraduate institution -- I have not done any REUs, lengthy study abroads, or internship/co-ops.</p>
<p>I'm primarily looking at top institutions -- Minnesota, Wisconsin, Stanford, Illinois, perhaps MIT. I'm wondering if anyone would offer their opinion on where I stack up at this point. Is it recommended to build a hierarchy of "reach" and "safety" schools, etc., or should I stick with the blue chips, or reevaluate my short list entirely...?</p>
<p>apply to more schools? it really depends on who your advisor knows and your letters of rec. A year ago, I’d say you would be a shoe-in. But with the present economy, and subsequent decrease in graduate and project funding, chem e has gotten a lot more competitive.</p>
<p>Definitely apply to the top institutions. You have nothing to lose but the application fees, and you might end up pleasantly surprised. If you want to attend grad school no matter what, then you’ll want to include a few less competitive programs as well. Your profile looks fantastic, especially because your GRE scores back up your excellent academic record and research. Since not many from your school attend top grad schools, you need those scores to prove that you’ve excelled not because of grade inflation or non-challenging classes but because you’re darn smart.</p>
<p>I attend a mid-sized public university, Research I, and we have a 4.0 graduate every three to four years or so. What made me seek out some sort of informal evaluation here is that practically all our high-GPA grads in recent years went straight to industry for whatever reason, and very few of them ended up in a graduate program other than this one, so it’s made me a little apprehensive about the reputation of my undergraduate program in graduate admissions offices.</p>
<p>I’d rather not give the name of my school here, but it boils down to a question about whether graduate admissions committees take the prestige of the undergraduate institution seriously into account.</p>
<p>Af213, those alumni may have gone straight into industry because that’s how they saw their careers unfolding. Or maybe they wanted to get some work experience and money – or qualify for tuition remission from their company. Not everyone applies to grad school. Not everyone wants to go to grad school right out of undergrad.</p>