U.S. citizens and graduate school

I’ve recently graduated from Penn State with a degree in petroleum and natural gas engineering. After losing my internship last summer due to the drop in natural gas prices and this being the worst downturn the industry has ever seen, I have not been able to find a job. I decided to pursue officer candidate school for the Marine Corps but unfortunately I was hit by a car while walking on a sidewalk (terrible luck I know) so now that plan may not be possible. I graduated with a 3.5, but I did do sophomore year at USC where my gpa was only a 3.0, I was just in a bad state of mind which I know is no excuse. Of my actual petroleum engineering courses though only 2 of my grades were lower than an A- and they were a B and B+. Looking into grad schools I don’t feel like I have the stats to get into any since I also don’t have research, but I keep hearing from people, including a professor, that it is easier to get into graduate schools if you are a U.S. citizen since the schools need more of those. Has anyone else heard of anything like this or can comment? Thank you.

Your stats are okay to get in somewhere. It may not be MIT but there are plenty of places where you should be good to go.

Also, I have heard that before that US citizens can sometimes have a leg up for exactly that reason.

Yeah I’m being realistic. Not many schools offer petroleum engineering, my target is UT Austin which I feel might be ambitious.

You should take a look at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. http://www.nmt.edu/index.php. They have a petroleum engineering graduate program. Also, the school appears to do an excellent job pairing its students up with internships & research opportunities, especially at US government research labs…which would require you to be a US citizen.

The petroleum engineering grad program’s site is located at http://infohost.nmt.edu/~petro/graduate/index.html.

How about getting a graduate degree in Mechanical or Chemical Engineering. I would not get a graduate degree in the Sam etching your undergrad is in and you can’t find a job …doesn’t make sense.

I also plan to apply for chem eng.