Graduate Chemical Engineering Admissions Process

We accept between 25% and 50% of applicants.

Required Materials

If your undergraduate degree was from an ABET‐accredited engineering program in the US/Canada:

• Completed application form and application fees
• Official transcripts
• Three letters of recommendation
• Personal statement

If your undergraduate degree or higher was from a non-ABET‐accredited program in the US/Canada*:

• Completed application form and application fees
• Official GRE scores
• Official transcripts
• Three letters of recommendation
• Personal statement

If your undergraduate degree or higher was not from an ABET-accredited engineering program in the US/Canada:

• Completed application form and application fees
• Official GRE and TOEFL scores (please note this requirement cannot be waived)
• Official transcripts
• Three letters of recommendation
• Personal statement

*This includes applicants who have earned a Master's degree from a school that offers the comparable ABET‐accredited undergraduate degree but their undergraduate degree was not from an ABET‐accredited engineering program in the US/Canada.

Selection Process

Admission is based solely on our evaluation of your capabilities to handle the advanced work incumbent in chemical engineering graduate studies. We admit students all year round who may then enroll beginning in the next available academic session, including summer sessions.

1. Once your completed application package is received by the graduate school, it is then forwarded to the department for a decision. Please note that we do not make decisions on incomplete applications.
2. We then evaluate the entire pool of completed applications and offer admissions based on a set of holistic standards that includes your transcript, GRE scores (if applicable), essay, and other factors. This system has been shown to be a good predictor of when an applicant is likely to be successful in graduate school.
3. Admission decisions are made shortly after September 15 for enrollment in the Spring and after February 28 for enrollment in the Fall.

Contacting individual faculty will not affect your chances positively. The Chemical Engineering faculty will simply forward your email to the graduate director for action.

Non-Majors Accepted

We regularly admit students into our graduate program with undergraduate degrees outside of chemical engineering. In fact, this is a specialty of ours; helping students who have decided to change degrees to chemical engineering to become fully qualified chemical engineers.

We use a set of holistic standards that includes your transcript, GRE scores (if applicable), essay, and other factors to determine if you will be granted qualified admission to the program. This system has been shown to be a good predictor of when an applicant is likely to be successful in graduate school.

You are initially admitted in what we call "qualified status". More information on "qualified status" is available in the UND graduate catalog.

Your admission letter will outline the additional undergraduate courses at UND that you will need to take to become a full status graduate student. You may be able to satisfy some of these requirements as a teaching assistant for that course. The final decision on this is made by the graduate director.

Under qualified status, you typically take 1‐1.5 years' worth of undergraduate coursework to gain the necessary background in chemical engineering before being admitted fully into the M.S. ChE program. Thus, your complete program typically will take about 3 years total time to receive a Master's degree.

Financial Aid Notice 

The first year while in qualified status you are not eligible to receive financial aid. Once you satisfy most or all of your remedial coursework, you'll be eligible for financial aid equivalent to a newly admitted student. Since you are already enrolled, you receive priority over any newly admitted students to receive this aid.