Educational background

[Sundus27]

I intend to apply for PhD in US ..I have bachelor’s degree in zoology and master’s degree in industrial biotechnology with thesis based on nanosciences and application in drug delivery. Most of the unis are offering same type of research in chem engg dept, chemistry or biomedical engg dept and offer admission to the students having the very same bachelor’s degree. Now as i have different background how can i tackle the problem of prerequisite courses ? Is there any university offering phd with research focus on nanosciences but takes students from diverse background.

[DRMF]

I'm not necessarily in the field, but my understanding is plenty of biomedical/biochemical engineering programs would consider "biotechnology" within the same field, while "zoology" being a little off. However, a background mismatch is still something you will have to compensate for with other parts of your application - make sure the rest of your profile stands out enough for the reviewer to say, "okay this person hasn't got all the prerequisite classes I want to see, but given their records I'd trust them to pick up those missing bits of knowledge once they are here." If you get rejected and they tell you "because you don't have a matching degree in chem engineering", what they really mean could be "you don't have a matching degree AND we were not convinced you're smart/passionate enough to make up for it".

Sometimes the program website isn't always up to date on what is a real prerequisite and what is just recommended/preferred. If you have time before the deadline, you should email the relevant program directors, stating clearly that although your Bachelor's was in a different area, you have shifted your interests and can demonstrate your capabilities in doing nanosciences research with relevant coursework during the Master's, your thesis, and other materials (LORs, conferences/publications, or even the GRE to demonstrate general smartness). It's helpful if your LORs are from people in the target field.

If you have specific faculty members in mind that you want to work with, you can also email them to ask (1) if they're taking students this/next year, and (2) if they know your background may disqualify you from getting in. (If a faculty member likes you enough, they may even go out of their way to tell the adcom / admin assistants "I want this student, don't toss their application during the initial round". I'm assuming that you're an international student - the chances are particularly low for those with no formal education experience in the US/North America. So you're really trying to make sure your app makes through the first few rounds of selection and gets properly reviewed.)

[Sundus27]

Yeah it’s UIC where i got rejected from for chemical engineering and on the website they have mentioned that they would prefer ones with chem eng background or related field and said that those with a Different background will have to go for collateral courses . To be honest i kind ignored that statement before applying as i thought my master’s research project would make up for these requirements.  After rejection when i talked to them they told me that the same thing that was mentioned on website and they told me that my course work does not match the criteria. They said that they get 50-100 application and select 10 people so they prefer ones with background in chem engg or at least engg background. 
And yes that is what i am doing now i am contacting program coordinators directly and discussing with them the whole scenario. Some of them explicitly said that they would prefer ones with engg background and some said that it really does not matter as they review app holistically just by looking at scores etc... so now i will go for the 2nd ones. 

[Sundus27]

Zoology is more like broad field .. i took biotechnology .. industrial microbiology like courses during bachelor’s studies