<p>I have to say that I don't feel confident in myself for applying to grad school. I'm interested in public health, but I feel B or B- grades won't get me anywhere. Will I have a chance at getting in to any grad schools? I take 4 courses every quarter.</p>
<p>Originally, I was planning to go to grad school after graduating, but now I feel that going into the workforce for one year and applying is my best bet. What is your opinion?</p>
<p>what is your major? typical applicants have 3.5 and above while the minimum for most programs is a 3.0. that, good GRE, good SOP and letters of rec may give you a shot at graduate programs at least in the sciences.</p>
<p>Agreed on both points; most grad programs require at least a 3.0 (although some people on this board and TheGradCafe have gotten in with less), but GPA is just one factor. When I visited a school a couple months ago, the presentation we were given said quite clearly (as in, they were bullet-pointed and the director of the program went over it) that research experience and letters of recommendation were the biggest things considered, followed by the numerical stuff.</p>
<p>Also, how much time do you have left in your undergraduate career? If you make a big effort to turn it around your last few semesters, a few people have noted that seems to help out a lot.</p>
<p>I’m a junior at a new college. I major in anthropology, but with public health programs you can major in any major to get into the program. </p>
<p>what’s a SOP? statement of purpose? how are those usually done?</p>
<p>So if gpa is not the only factor, is it still a large factor?</p>
<p>and how would I be able to participate in research when there isn’t that many heavily related to public health?</p>
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<p>Yes, SOP does stand for ‘Statement Of Purpose’. How it’s done varies, and seems to be one of the biggest stress-inducers for people on these boards. You can do a search online for some sample SOPs, and most applications/schools will have a brief prompt on what they’re looking for in them.</p>
<p>Keep in mind I’m coming from the sciences with my advice, and public health may be different, but yes, GPA is not the only factor. I’m not actually sure how big of a factor it is, but relevant experience seems to always outweigh GPA/GRE scores. </p>
<p>As for the relevant experience/research experience, I was again speaking from somebody in the sciences. Look at the departmental pages of schools you think you might be interested in and look under ‘Admissions Requirements’. Often, they’ll have the bare minimum requirements, then something to the tune of, “In addition, highly successful applicants will have…”.</p>
<p>Hope that helps!</p>
<p>well in terms of getting involved with research I have number of friends who are actually biology majors but are thinking of going to public health. i suppose for that field it is not mainly research experience but also volunteer/clinical experience. I believe that when you volunteer or do some sort of clinical rotation especially those centered towards the minority you really gauge if public health the field for you. any activity that you do that is related to health or issues concerning the community around you may counts towards it. i would think that if you have conducted research in any kind of lab that might help too since you want to show the adcoms that you are independent, motivated and such.</p>
<p>Try to keep your GPA over 3.0 since many programs have that as a minimum GPA. </p>
<p>As counterintuitive as it may be, the more competitive the grad program, the less they care about GPA. That’s because those programs look much more closer at research, work experience, and letters of recommendation. (The LORs are, of course, usually a reflection in part of academic success, but they go much deeper.) As I’ve said many times on this forum, a molbio prof at Princeton said that she doesn’t care about GPA – as long as it’s over 3.0 – and she doesn’t care about GRE scores – as long as they are over the 70th percentile. She spends just a couple of minutes reading the SOP. However, she spends a lot of time determining the quality of applicants based on their research experiences and LORs.</p>
<p>Lower ranked programs tend to be more numbers oriented, although the accepted students stats are also much lower. </p>
<p>Although I don’t know much about public health, I suspect that your application may be helped by taking a year off and working in the field for a year. Right now, though, you should be working on applying for internships/job in the public sector to show that you understand what you would be getting into. Perhaps you can do an independent study next semester (I know it’s awfully late) that melds anthropology with health issues. Or, if you plan on taking a year off after graduation, see if you can do that next year.</p>
<p>If you are looking at MSPH or MPH degrees, you would need work experience to be competitive anyway. They like to see people who have experience in nursing, medicine, social work or biomedical research. If you are hoping to do a Phd in public health, you might want to consider doing a MS first. An MSPH or MPH is the practicing degree whereas Phd is for academic public health.</p>
<p>No matter what you do, you will be well served by getting involved in research right away. This will make you competitive for lab tech jobs for a year or two after college so that you can be competitive for an MPH. Don’t kid yourself about the major thing, you can major in anything but if you don’t have the right courses in your background, you won’t be accepted to any programs. Think statistics for no matter what type of public health. Chemistry for toxicology. Microbiology for epidemiology etc.</p>
<p>You can certainly get into a Grad program with a B/B- average. I didn’t do well in my undergraduate years (~2.73 cum), and I got into a smaller state university program in Molecular/Cellular Bio. despite the “3.0 minimum.” Keep your chin up, do whatever you can to bolster your application, and you’ll get in somewhere.</p>
<p>There is a LOT of research related to public health. Clinical work is actually probably less valuable than research when it comes to getting into schools of public health.</p>
<p>I don’t know what your GPA is, but I had a 3.4 when I applied and I got into MPH programs at Emory, Columbia, and Yale, as well as the PhD program here at Columbia. I also got a half-tuition scholarship at Emory. I suspect that it was my strong references and my research experience (2.5 years) that got me in, as I was coming straight from undergrad.</p>
<p>You don’t need microbiology to go into epidemiology - it depends on the type of epidemiology that you’re interested in. Epi is actually a far more quantitative field than it is a content-based one. Biology courses will probably be helpful (and may be required at some places) but most of the people I know in epi had math backgrounds and not biology backgrounds. Obviously you do need the chemical prerequisites to do toxicology or environmental health sciences, and a bit of calculus and statistics to do epi and biostatistics, but if you’re interested in the other fields of public health (health education, health promotion, behavioral health, health policy/services/management) you can major in virtually anything (although a basic statistics course will be helpful but you’ll have to take intro to biostatistics anyway, so it may not be required depending on the program). Anthropology is an excellent major for a public health prospective student.</p>
<p>If your GPA is above a 3.0 I encourage you to apply anyway and see what happens, and if it is above a 3.3 I strongly encourage you to apply. Look for programs that offer concentrations in what you are interested in (if you are interested in sexuality, for example, Columbia is the place to be!) and apply to those places.</p>
<p>By no means should you weigh anything above your GPA, while strong letters of rec and relevant experience come in at a very close second, a high GPA will make you stand out the most and may be the deciding factor for an admissions commitee. but really, its all these factors combined that make for an impressive applicatiom. Just dont underestimate the importance of your GPA.</p>