bulldog_diver

Ok I'm wondering if I still have a shot at the top 10 ChemE schools.

Background:
Age on entry: 42
BS Cheme: 3.76 - Tier 3 school
MEng Cheme: 3.1 - Cornell
MBA: 3.7 - Columbia

15 years of professional experience. 9 years in advanced technology development. 4 years managing a research group in Japan. Primary author of 9 publications, 2nd author of 12, 6 patents. Took the GRE for fun 2 weeks ago and got 800/620/5.0 Q/V/A. If I wanted to spend a few weeks studying I could probably bump the verbal up to the 700 range.

My concerns in dealing with the admissions people:
1. Age - I'll be almost 50 when I get out
2. GPA - my GPA at Cornell wasn't great and my GPA at my undergrad also isn't stellar although I was top of my class
3. it's been 12 years since I last sat butt in a classroom as a student - I talked with my undergrad professors and surprisingly (or not since I have kept in touch with the department and had 3 interns I hired over the years) they remember me but my grad school advisor is deceased and I wasn't close to anyone else in the department so all my LoR are going to be coming from my undergrad unless I dip into my B-School prof's.

If I didn't have the MBA already I'd go for the CEP program at MIT. I need to chat with the admissions folks and see if I could apply without the Sloan component.

So what are my chances at an MIT/Stanford/Berkeley/UT Austin/Princeton/etc. (I'd prefer to avoid Cornell/Minn - family wouldn't handle the winters that well)?