Graduate Admissions
Boston College Chemistry graduate students are drawn from a competitive field of applicants who maintain the tradition of intellectual excellence. They bring exceptionally strong quantitative and analytical skills, as they join their 100+ graduate student colleagues at the Merkert Chemistry Center. They are a geographically diverse group with almost half having completed their undergraduate degrees at international universities. In all, they represent a broad range of interests in the many areas of contemporary chemical science and at the cutting edges where chemistry interfaces with the physical and life sciences.
The Chemistry Department at ¾«¶«Ó°Òµ is committed to foster a diverse and inclusive environment for learning and research. We support education/research opportunities for high school women and underrepresented minorities, and we have a dedicated committee of faculty, staff, graduate students, and postdocs that continue to drive new diversity initiatives. We welcome anyone who shares our commitment to diversity and inclusion. Please feel free to add a paragraph or two to your personal statement of your application that highlights your experience/commitment to diversity.
Applicants for whom the application fee would constitute a serious financial hardship may also request a fee waiver. Requests are granted, in most cases, if accompanied by official documentation demonstrating financial need (e.g. a currently enrolled student should seek a letter from his/her financial aid officer). If it is not possible to provide official documentation, the applicant should submit a detailed description of his/her current financial situation. Such requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis. For more information on the fee waiver process, please visit this page on the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences website.
Admissions decisions are made on a rolling basis; only completed applications are reviewed.
Financial Assistance
Graduate students receive financial support in the form of Teaching (TA) and Research (RA) assistantships as well as tuition remission, which covers the full cost of tuition. Teaching assistantships are provided by departmental funds and carry a 9-month stipend, which may be supplemented by a three-month summer research assistantship stipend. Research assistantships are provided by individual faculty from their active research grants. First year graduate students usually serve as TAs and are involved in all aspects of teaching, grading, and administering undergraduate laboratories and/or recitation sections. In subsequent years, graduate students are generally full-time RAs or split their time between RA and TA duties. The 12-month graduate stipend for academic year 2024–2025 is $40,000.
Several advanced graduate students also receive prestigious fellowship support from ¾«¶«Ó°ÒµC’s industrial sponsors.
Students are encouraged to apply for external fellowships, such as the and the .
Student Profile
¾«¶«Ó°ÒµC’s graduate students are geographically diverse. Domestic students come from every region in the United States, and our international students comprise 30% of all graduate students. Our student body is 57% male and 43% female. Many students enroll in the Boston College Chemistry Ph.D. program immediately following their undergraduate studies, and others begin their Ph.D. studies after working in a chemistry-related industry. This represents a partial list of the many universities and companies from which our current students come:
Selected Academic Institutions
Assumption College | Worcester, MA |
Binghamton University | Binghamton, NY |
Boston University | Boston, MA |
Brandeis University | Waltham, MA |
University of Cambridge | Cambridge, England |
Clark University | Worcester, MA |
Clarkson University | Potsdam, NY |
Colorado State University | Fort Collins, CO |
Connecticut College | New London, CT |
Dartmouth College | Hanover, NH |
Emory University | Atlanta, GA |
Fairfield College | Fairfield, TX |
Florida State University | Tallahassee, FL |
Fudan University | Shanghai, China |
Hamilton College | Des Moines, IA |
Hobart and William Smith Colleges | Geneva, NY |
Holy Cross | Worcester, MA |
Illinois Wesleyan University | Bloomington, IL |
Iowa State University | Ames, IA |
MIT | Cambridge, MA |
Montclair State University | Montclair, NJ |
Northeastern University | Boston, MA |
Notre Dame | Notre Dame, IN |
Peking University | Beijing, China |
Occidental College | Los Angeles, CA |
Ohio State University | Columbus, OH |
Pennsylvania State University | University Park, PA |
Pomona College | Claremont, CA |
Purdue University | West Lafayette, IN |
Rutgers University | New Jersey |
St. Joseph’s University | Philadelphia, PA |
Seattle University | Seattle, WA |
Smith College | Northhampton, MA |
SUNY Buffalo | Buffalo, NY |
SUNY Oswego | Oswego, NY |
Trinity College | Hartford, CT |
Trinity University | San Antonio, TX |
University of Massachusetts | Amherst and Boston, MA |
Union College | Union, NY |
University of Arizona | Tucson, AZ |
University of Buffalo | Buffalo, NY |
University of Calcutta | Calcutta, India |
University of California | Irvine, Berkeley, San Diego and Santa Cruz |
University of Connecticut | Storrs, CT |
University of Illinois | Urbana-Champaign, IL |
University of Minnesota | Minneapolis, MN |
University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA |
University of Richmond | Richmond, VA |
University of Rhode Island | Providence, RI |
University of Rome | Rome, Italy |
University of Science and Technology | Hefei, China |
University of Tennesee | Chattanooga, TN |
University of Texas | Austin, TX |
University of Virginia | Charlottesville, VA |
University of Utah | Salt Lake City, UT |
University of Wisconsin | Stevens Point, WI |
Virginia Tech | Blacksburg, VA |
Wake Forest | Winston-Salem, NC |
Wellesley College | Wellesley, MA |
Wesleyan University | Middletown, CT |
Wheaton College | Norton, MA |
Williams College | Williamstown, MA |
Worcester Polytechnic Institute | Worcester, MA |
Xavier University | Cincinnati, OH |
Chemical and Biotech Companies
Pfizer |
Repligen |
Perkin-Elmer |
P&G Pharmaceuticals |
Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Textron Systems |