undecidedchemperson

Hi everyone. I graduated in 2013 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry; shortly thereafter I got into cosmetics and currently run a product development lab for a small cosmetic raw material company. This would be my second job in cosmetic r&d, and I had a ton of chemistry-related internships during school, worked in a couple of professors' labs, etc. I've never published anything though. That being said, I was a mediocre student, and my GPA at graduation was around 2.95. Part of this was my own fault, and part of it was a bad situation in my personal life during freshman year from which it was difficult to bounce back academically. (My GRE is 162 verbal/158 quant/5 essay; I took it a couple months ago.) Nearly two years after graduation, I am thinking of going back to school for a master's in the 2016 spring semester. The thing is, I don't know where to begin. I know it's still early. I'm in NYC metro area and looking to stay on the east coast (MIT, BU, VA or GA Tech, etc), or go to Canada/other Francophone country. Actually, anywhere overseas would be fine as long as the language of instruction is English and/or French. My undergrad university was a large public research school in a large Midwestern city which was known for being academically rigorous. On the other hand, do I even have a chance of getting in to any good schools with my awful undergrad transcripts? Are my professional experiences enough to override the bad grades? Two of my former professors have agreed to write letters of recommendation, I can probably ask the VP or president of this company to write one if necessary. I'm interested in material science and related topics, if it matters. When I graduated, I was mentally "done" with school and academia, but now that some time has passed, I actually want to go back to school and study chemistry again (intellectual curiosities and all that), however I'm afraid that my options are slim. I'm not sure if I want a Ph.D right off the bat, but definitely a master's. I'm sure I could spin "my life story" into something positive for the personal statement, but there's no going around my grades and transcripts. Thank you for reading.