Need help Chemical Engineering Graduate School

<p>I am a senior Chemical Engineer:
1. Have not taken GRES plan to late October/early November to hand in applications by December
2. Chemical Engineering Bio-Option (3 elective courses in Biochemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Biomanufacturing) at the University of New Hampshire.
3. GPA: 3.65
4. Scholarship Winner: Shuttleworth Scholarship, and William Heywood Scholarship all indirectly given from the University based on academic merit
5. Two and half years experience in researching metallurgy. My research includes topics such as aluminum anodizing and copper electroplating. Winner of the annual Aluminum Anodizing Conference's Poster Presentation and published in Light Metal Age MAGAZINE (not a journal).
6. President of the UNH ISPE Chapter and class of 2012 student representative for the ChE Student Advisory Board. I actively volunteer in student ABET requirement meetings for the department.
7. Summer Internship at a Lyophilization Company during their start up period. I worked as a validation engineer for 3-4 months on projects such as autoclaves, WFI generation and distribution, Steam generator and distribution, and the lyophlizers.</p>

<p>I am interested in going to graduate school for chemical engineering or biochemical engineering. I do not know what my chances are. I want to go to a school that offers high amounts of research and therefore have the funds to support the instruments.
Schools of Interest:
Tufts
Carnegie Mellon
Northeastern
Boston University
Any other suggests? Of those four choices which are reach and which are safe? I want to stay close to home in New England!</p>

<p>There is no such thing as a “safety” for graduate admissions. In fact, basically throw out everything people on CC tell you about undergrad admissions - it’s all wrong for grad school. There are no such thing as “chances” and nobody here will guess.</p>

<p>Are you interested in a master’s or Ph.D program? You should be looking to apply to around 10 schools, particularly if you need funding. Your first step should be to talk to your professors about programs that might be a good fit for you. Seek out schools that have professors who are researching in your area of interest.</p>

<p>Sorry you are correct in asking what type of program I want to get into. I am interested in a Phd. My fear is that I will apply to a number of institutions that I could possibly not be qualified for. I am taking a graduate course right now as an undergraduate and I am continually scoring higher on exams/HWs than the average. However qualifications aside I am truly interested in research and long term research projects. I want to get into a school that can support me for 4-5 years to work on a project of interest to me.</p>

<p>If I do not get into a school that can support me doing research for 4-5 years than I don’t think I’ll be challenged or interested enough to stay. I am more interested in practical research as opposed to theoretical research. Thankfully engineering is usually practical research from what I have seen but maybe I’m wrong. Just looking for general feedback on research and quality of different research institutions.</p>

<p>Any reason you’re not looking into materials science programs given your background in metallurgy? I think they tend to be a little easier to get into, and there’s a pretty big overlap in research interests between the departments.</p>

<p>Thank you RacinReaver I didn’t actually know this about material science and your feedback is exactly the kind I’m looking for. I’ll look into material science programs since you said that. Of course I would hope there were some interesting research developments there in order to keep myself busy. Any suggestions?</p>

<p>I was actually an undergrad student in the materials science program at CMU, so I’d definitely recommend there as somewhere to start looking. ;)</p>

<p>Are you still interested in metallurgy or more in biochem stuff?</p>