If you pursue a bachelor's degree in chemistry, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #36 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 11 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Chemistry Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 531 bachelor's degrees in chemistry to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Chemistry School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The chemistry bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to chemistry students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of chemistry students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How much debt chemistry students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized chemistry related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for chemistry students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Chemistry Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia list, to help you choose the best school for you.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in chemistry has to look into University of Virginia - Main Campus. University of Virginia is a very large public university located in the medium-sized suburb of Charlottesville.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the chemistry program earn an average of $30,599 in their early career salary.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in chemistry has to check out Virginia Commonwealth University. VCU is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Richmond.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the chemistry program earn about $38,571 in the first couple years of their career.
William & Mary is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in chemistry. William & Mary is a medium-sized public school located in the small suburb of Williamsburg.
Soon after graduating, chemistry bachelor's recipients typically make an average of $35,130 at the beginning of their careers.
Virginia Tech is a wonderful option for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in chemistry. Virginia Tech is a very large public school located in the small city of Blacksburg.
Bachelor's recipients from the chemistry major at Virginia Tech get $6,943 more than the typical graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the suburb of Fairfax, GMU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the chemistry program at George Mason University make $11,734 above the standard college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the city of Harrisonburg, JMU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the chemistry degree program at James Madison University earn $7,229 above the average college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
The chemistry bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
