I did the things that are generally recommended in picking graduate programs and looked for professors who are doing research I am interested in (polymers), and looked for schools where I could identify three or more researchers I would want to work for. I showed my list to a friend and he told me that pretty much all of the eight schools I liked might be too selective for me to get in. I am not so sure, but also not sure that he's wrong.
Long story short, please let me know what you think based on experiences you've had. I am interested in the following schools:
University of Washington
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
University of Maryland, College Park
Pennsylvania State University
Carnegie Mellon University
State University of New York, Stony Brook
and possibly University of Tennessee
I had a 3.68 total GPA, 3.79 Chemistry GPA (from a small to medium size non-research/PhD program)
550 verbal GRE, 650 quantitative GPA
5 semesters of research in one lab, 2 in another (both simultaneously for two semesters)
2 summers interning at a smallish local chemistry company
expereince on a fair number of instruments
