Hey all,
Pheww. It’s been a while since I have been on this forum. I am an international student and it’s been 3 years since I got here. I didn’t have stellar applications (below average for top schools) but I managed to get a 90% tuition scholarship at Earlham college and it’s been life-changing.
Anyways, I have one more year at my undergraduate institution and have been looking at some graduate school programs. Time to stress about GRE and college applications 
(Should have done it a year earlier but oh well…)
Undergraduate Profile:
-Year: Rising Senior
-Cumulative GPA: 3.53 (Will try to get it to 3.6 by the time I graduate)
-Major GPA: 3.67 (Honors but have to do a few other things)
-GRE: not yet (Starting to prepare and give it by September/ October)
-Experiences in college:
Led a mid-semester backpacking team of 6 students for a 4-day trip.
*Outdoor Education Center Intern for a year (Similar to an overseer/ Have multiple projects here).
*Runyan desk attendant (Front desk) for a year (Now promoted to manager for my last year).
*Have my name in an abstract (paper soon to be published *hopefully) from GSU. (Research assistant for a summer).
*Shadowed Public Health Officers for a semester at Wayne County Environmental Health Department.
*Intern at administration department of Richmond State Hospital for a semester.
*Leadership positions at clubs for a semester here and there (Might not include as I wasn’t really involved and it was very short)
*Psychology Office Student worker for a year (Clerical work and assistance for professors in the department)
-Recommendation: I will have two excellent recommendations (Working on my third one).
About me:
-South Asian from an underdeveloped country. (Childhood was sad as hell and insane crazy but hey made it so far XD)
-The first one in my family to finish high school. (Soon college 
)
-Had to work my ass off to be here and was starting to get depressed and super stressed out during my Sophomore year so my GPA suffered because of a D- in one of my elective class. But, I managed to score nothing below an A- after that bad grade.
-My mind is blown every day looking at where I am right now. XD ( I am so fortunate and am thankful for it every day.)
-Still figuring out my future direction but I am sure I want to work in the health sector (Looking to get into Health Administration am an introvert so working on my social skills 
) and give back tremendously to my community and the world.
-I aspire to be a role model every day for people like me who had no one to look up to and had no guidance growing up.
So this is my brief profile. I am looking at NYU Wagner for their Master of Public Administration-Health Policy & Management program as a top choice. I will also look at other top-notch similar programs. I might even opt for giving GMAT and apply for an MBA in health administration but I love the policy and law aspect of the Wagner program.
I am not a stellar applicant for most top-notch (ivy level) graduate programs. Honestly, I don’t care. All I want is to go to a decent college with decent networking opportunities but for as less as possible. (My parents are getting broke from my undergrad so I will barely have anything to spare for graduate 
) I am looking for full tuition waivers. I have been wondering if my stats are good enough for a decent graduate program at full tuition scholarships at least. I looked up at some of the scholarships and fellowships at NYU Wagner but I wonder if I am even competitive for them. Any suggestion about my chances, other schools to look into, things to work on etc is appreciated.
Until you have a GRE or GMAT score, any prediction would only be a guess.
@Publisher Hmm so I would need like a 320+? I was wondering how my overall applications look in the candidate pool right now.
@bluebayou
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I am going to look at more health policy public health programs. NYU because I know they are well renowned for that specific program. I am sure they have a good networking base. Most importantly, my aunt lives in NYC so I could commute and save money on residence and food. Moreover, most of my friends and my GF is also there. I also love the city. Finally, I also noticed that the average age of students in their program was ~26 and people who have been in the job market for a while, so I am expecting wise class discussions from experienced people and who knows I could make a few important connections that way too. So if I can get a tuition waiver scholarship then I could manage everything else.
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Yes, I understand. But, I hear a lot of US graduate programs offer Graduate Research assistant with tuition waivers or similar other scholarships. I just wanted to get a feel for the kind of competition I would be against and if I should expect tuition waivers. Because right now, I am almost guaranteed a full tuition waiver at GSU’s MIS program due to my connections there (6 months entrepreneurship, 6 months IP law, and 6 months biomedicine) but, I realized I wanted to work more in a health care setting rather than Pharmaceuticals which the MIS program is geared towards.
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Since I am on an international student visa I wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the US unless I get work right after graduation and I am kind of skeptical about the kinds of jobs I would get with a BA in Neuroscience (I know I don’t want to do research) so I am basically doing a career switch more towards administration, business and policy, because that’s what I realized will help me get to my ultimate goals. If I do get a job somewhere in a healthcare administration setting or something similar then I would love to try it out. But, yeah I am limited as to my career exploration here, so I have to settle on something stable before I have the liberty of exploring freely (for financial reasons, and visa restrictions)
hope:
Anything with public health starts with H&H (Hopkins and Harvard). IMO, NYU is not even in the same area code as those two and several others in public health.
For what it’s worth, OP, you sound like a great student and person and I think any grad school would be lucky to get a candidate with your outlook!
Lots of those grad assistants are PhD students. I agree with the advice to work for a little while. (Those older, wise 26 year olds did exactly that, and it is part of how they got accepted)
At any school where the average age is higher, the school probably values work experience prior to starting, and you may have some challenges doing that in the U.S. depending on your visa status.
Can the career office at Earlham give you any help or guidance on this?
You should be focused now on finding a job related to your current degree program and/or your possible grad program that will hire you for the maximum OPT available for your current major. Worry about that, not about grad school. During the time that you have that OPT job, consider career options for after your return home, and whether or not a graduate program is even necessary. You may find that your career goals change, and the good grad programs aren’t even in the US.
I don’t think you can get a job in hospital/ health administration without a masters degree. You may need an education loan. Also I don’t think the original poster wants to return to his home country! He wants a job in the USA, if I read his post correctly.
The OP may not have the right to work in the USA, so grad school is a very good idea for him.
You may want to clarify, do you have the right to stay in the USA, or will you have to go home, where
you may not find any job in what you are trying to do, without a masters degree too?
Most undergrad degrees today do not lead to good jobs. They lead to grad schools though!
Hospital administration is a fantastic well paying field. Maybe there is a way to intern, but I would
get the masters degree as soon as possible. Talk to your advisors at your college about your goals.
@Coloradomama - The OP is permitted to stay in the US for a certain number of months of work experience with OPT after graduation. STEM degrees have longer periods of work permission, and can renew for more time in certain situations. Students are entitled to a second OPT period after completing a graduate degree. Given that the OP has a STEM major, working (provided a job can be found of course) before grad school makes good sense because there will be time to research grad school options and the possibility of saving some money toward grad achool expenses. Given the difficulty of getting an H1B visa for permanent work in the US, the OP needs to have solid plans for returning home or for moving to a different country after completing studies and any OPT here.
Thank you all for replying promptly with all the advice. I am also considering working before my graduate so I will definitely get more in touch with my career center and see if I can land anything in the healthcare field with my major. I only worried that I might not get a decent entry level without a master’s at least and that if I get into the workforce then I might not come back to college again. I assumed that I would be able to land a job with a graduate degree easier than with bachelors.
@happymomof1 That’s very wise advice. Yes, you hit the nail. I am more concerned about lengthening my stay with either a job related to my major or a grad program. The thing is with a neuroscience degree I am wondering if health care fields (Healthcare administration area) would see me as a viable candidate. Basically, I am more interested in Business and policy aspects rather than scientific research or academia so I thought a graduate program would help me make that switch before I can be a decent applicant at the job industry I am looking at. I have the MIS program at GSU lined up already as a safety net so I will have a graduate program geared towards biomedical enterprise (pharma/ biotech) in case nothing else works. So now I have the option to look at other programs and see if I can find a better fit such as MPH in health management and policy (Sounds perfect for me). In terms of going back home, the opportunities are next to none, especially for specialized individuals. Basically, I am thinking of settling here someday and would like to make a switch from the direction I was headed in my undergraduate so I thought a graduate program is going to do exactly that for me. But, yes I will keep an open eye out for opportunities elsewhere. As of right now, I have attachments in the US so I am reluctant to look at other countries.
@Coloradomama Yes that’s what I was thinking about. If I could really even start an entry level in that area without a MPH or MHA. Yes, you read correctly I am thinking about working here eventually. Yes it’s going to be way tougher for me to find a fulfilling job back home then it would be here regardless of the level of education I attain. Thanks, yes that was my exact line of thought regarding the master’s program. Also, I am doing a natural science right now so I don’t really have any expertise in business or policy so I started looking into grad schools to make a switch. I am hopefully trying to find some kind of tuition waiver through fellowships or assistantships so I am looking at decent programs where I might have a decent chance with my stats.
Can you take some business courses now as electives?
@bluebayou You’re right in that Harvard and Hopkins have two of the best public health programs in the country, but NYU’s MPA program in health policy and management is excellent and very well-regarded. (They also have a great school of public health. The last rankings US News did were in 2015, before they had a full-fledged college, but NYU has managed to attract some very prominent researchers in public health from a variety of institutions - including Columbia - and they have a strong faculty and reputation in research in the area, especially in the Northeast.)
I would strongly disagree with the statement that “most undergrad degrees today do not lead to good jobs.” Most bachelor’s degree graduates are gainfully employed in positions that require BAs/BSs, and most are making middle-class salaries. This is true even of recent graduates. For a US citizen with a BS in neuroscience, I would say that person could certainly find a job in healthcare business or administration - but it won’t be a management role, of course; it would be an entry-level one. I got my PhD in public health and the vast majority of our students in MPH programs (especially in health policy and management) had several years of experience with just their BA or BS before beginning their master’s programs. The international angle does complicate things, though.
You could also look in biomedical and biotechnology fields and start there - so think medical device companies, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare consulting companies, social services organizations that provide health-related services, etc.
The reality is that most MPA or MBA programs that would give out scholarships are going to favor candidates with work experience; they’re going to be the most competitive for those scholarships (and for admission in general).
@hope1097 I would add places like Wisconsin. It looks like they give out RA/TA/PA positions to MPH candidates https://www.med.wisc.edu/education/master-of-public-health-mph/financing-your-education/ Do like you did for undergrad and follow the money.
If you are a senior this year majoring in neuroscience and you want to get an MBA or MPA or MPP, you should consider taking a microecon course which is required or recommended by many of these programs. The UW link above is just describing what assistantships exist at the U - that website isn’t saying that they themselves offer them. In fact, they are telling UW applicants to go back to their own major department and try to get an assistantship there. LOL.