Hello Askastudent!
I graduated from UTM with a HBSc degree in Chemistry and Mathematics and have attempted to apply to graduate school. I was rejected unfortunately, which made me question my choice to even attend graduate school even if I do eventually get in. I have a 3.0 CGPA and a 3.4 GPA for my last two years, so with more volunteer experience and possibly a college post graduate diploma, I would be able to get in. I have since been looking for other options in order to either increase my chances or find another career path. Two of the choices were an Advanced Lasers program (graduate certificate) and a Chemical Engineering Technology program (fast track diploma). I would like to ask you if you think it would be possible to complete the Chemical Engineering Technology program and be accepted into a master’s degree in chemical engineering.
Thank you.
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hey there,
alright, i’m gonna preface this by saying that you should definitely, definitely follow up on this with the department of chemical engineering and/or the school of graduate studies. grad schools operate kind of on their own, so it’s hard to know what the best move would be in terms of trying to get accepted. even aska, in her infinite knowledge and wisdom*, doesn’t know the inner working of every graduate program admissions committee at this school.
i think the major problem here is that you have a Bachelor of Science instead of a Bachelor of Engineering, or a Bachelor of Applied Science. because of that, there may not be much you can do to affect your chances – however, you should run it by the department to see how much of an issue it is.
let’s just assume for now that the degree isn’t an issue.
since GPA and references are the only things that’re used to determine admission, there’s a limited amount of things you can do to boost your chances. i’d recommend thinking about taking another year and taking some courses to boost your GPA.
if your third year wasn’t as strong, you can increase your chances by taking another year. that way, your admission this time around will be based on your fourth and fifth years, instead of your third and fourth.
i don’t know whether having a diploma would help you much. however, like i said, it’s worth asking chem eng. about it. ask about doing an extra year, ask about how helpful the certificate and diploma programs would be, and if there’s someone you can talk to about what specifically was weak about your first application, that would probably be the most helpful thing.
good luck!
cheers,
aska
*and charm and beauty