MPH Identifying realistic/match public health schools for 2023 cycle?

[contravenacava]

Hi,

I'm finalizing my list of schools to apply to for the 2022-2023 cycle and I was wondering how to ensure I have a decent amount of "realistic" schools in the mix. I'm applying straight out of undergrad with a 3.2 cumulative GPA, 3.7 public health major GPA and research experience. From what I saw on the spreadsheet of SDN members who've applied to public health schools, most people with my cumulative GPA have been coming in with work experience of some kind. Finances are also a concern so places that offer institutional support would be a plus as well.
So far I've been looking at BU and a local state school, but my list still seems dominated by "reach" schools like Columbia and JHU. I'm interested in data analysis and health policy. Thanks!
edit: also my GRE is a 316, 5.5 AW

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[She-Hulk]

Hi,

I'm finalizing my list of schools to apply to for the 2022-2023 cycle and I was wondering how to ensure I have a decent amount of "realistic" schools in the mix. I'm applying straight out of undergrad with a 3.2 cumulative GPA, 3.7 public health major GPA and research experience. From what I saw on the spreadsheet of SDN members who've applied to public health schools, most people with my cumulative GPA have been coming in with work experience of some kind. Finances are also a concern so places that offer institutional support would be a plus as well.
So far I've been looking at BU and a local state school, but my list still seems dominated by "reach" schools like Columbia and JHU. I'm interested in data analysis and health policy. Thanks!
edit: also my GRE is a 316, 5.5 AW

I think the biggest factors for most applicants are tuition (you really want it to be low), and having a strong focus and/or special research interests/community service projects that matter to you.

BU is easy to get into a for a reason, it is uber expensive and Boston is even more expensive. Boston might be a nice place to visit in summer, but it is brutal winters and a lot of food deserts really and crappy/expensive grocery options. A lot schools that are ranked highly it is heavily based on research grants/work and some of that is supported by $$$$ tuition dollars, so really a high rank doesn't say much about return on investment for the student.

BU gaslights students frequently regarding their high tuition and mistreatment of students, this happened on the undergrad campus and was a rare case of it bring brought to light recently, ‘Traumatic,’ ‘volatile’ and ‘torturous:’ BU students voice lasting impacts of working Orientation under Shiney James – The Daily Free Press, but pretty much you see stuff like that happening in a variety of BU schools. The thing is that BU is private so you wouldn't get the protections as a student that you would get a public institution, abuse of students is pretty much what they say it is and there really is a sense that they can turn a blind eye to issues like these. BUSPH admissions has a long track record of treating their applicants . . . pretty poorly in some cases, it's amazing they get any students at all.

There is a lot of worthwhile public health/global health work going on now, and in the future in the world and especially if you are interested in Epi/Global Health/health education, then I wouldn't go to BU as there are so many better options, including getting a specialization in a more sought out sub-field of public health like a MS degree in Epidemiology. MPH isn't necessarily a terminal degree, and no job requires an MPH, so it doesn't make sense that BU charges Ivy League prices for what some describe as a watered down curriculum for an MPH that isn't very marketable, they even charge double for the MPH what they charge for MSW probably because they use the MPH tuition dollars for funding public health research.

Anyway, yeah, state schools are often quite good and have more opportunities with state health departments, I wouldn't discount more established public health school like JHU, Emory and others because they might offer discounts/scholarships and the cost of living will be much lower. Even if you apply to a school and get accepted, you don't have to go there, good to have a range of options if how you evaluate the schools changes during an application cycle.

 

[contravenacava]

That's good to know about BU. I've definitely heard the cost thing more than once, but I was holding onto optimism that I might be able to get one of the few fellowships they have. I also liked that you can combine different certificates, although if it's really not as robust as you say that's concerning. The lack of support you describe is concerning too, especially since I just read a very recent thread on another site that talked about similar things. (Will have to disagree on public school students being any more protected than private school students, though. There's only less secrecy in theory.)
Is 8 schools a good range? I want to limit my application costs to $1k, although even that price makes me wince.

 

[She-Hulk]

Schools are pretty variable in what/whom they offer scholarships to, a student might get a great deal at one school and nothing at a more expensive school. Sometimes student if they got a better financial aid deal at School B, but nothing at School A, but really rather go to School A, then they call School A and give them the details of the offer at School B and ask them if they can met it and note that the price is the only thing holding them back from School A.

Definitely number of schools applied to is a personal decision and involves evaluation of personal finances. If you've already got a public health BS, I wonder if you could get just a certificate for a year and then get work experience and then apply to schools from a stronger position? I think it is relatively easy to get into a MPH program, even a pretty solid one, though maybe with the pandemic more people are interested, a lot of people getting the MPH are working professionals and they do the MPH part-time to add an additional qualification to their degree. A lot of people pick their future school based on where they want to work after school. Public health schools teach a similar curriculum, I think the advantages come down to externships/internships and making connections, Boston is super-saturated with public health schools and NYC as well.

The rankings for public health schools aren't super important (unlike for business schools), Columbia (the undergrad at least) wasn't ranked by US News World Report, https://www.usnews.com/education/bl...bia-university-in-2022-best-colleges-rankings, because of gaming the system . . . I think it is likely that they were trying to game the system with their MPH program as well. Columbia is just super expensive, I don't feel it has a top 10 reputation in public health. BU's curriculum was completely changed not long ago and is based on Columbia's and they are obsessed with their rankings and very oddly BU's rankings jumped a couple years ago, despite being a a pretty new public health school without a long track record of public health and being a sort of for-profit institution so I wouldn't pay attention to rankings at all.

I think you will get into a public health school on this cycle, however, given that the labor market is good now, I would actively look for public health related jobs as well, I think if you work in a public health role then you have a better idea of where you want to go and you realize, "oh, I should go to schools A, B and C and look for this sort of financial aid/scholarship". I think with public health it is much less where you got the degree, but what hard skills and job experience you have.

 

[Medstart108]

Schools are pretty variable in what/whom they offer scholarships to, a student might get a great deal at one school and nothing at a more expensive school. Sometimes student if they got a better financial aid deal at School B, but nothing at School A, but really rather go to School A, then they call School A and give them the details of the offer at School B and ask them if they can met it and note that the price is the only thing holding them back from School A.

Definitely number of schools applied to is a personal decision and involves evaluation of personal finances. If you've already got a public health BS, I wonder if you could get just a certificate for a year and then get work experience and then apply to schools from a stronger position? I think it is relatively easy to get into a MPH program, even a pretty solid one, though maybe with the pandemic more people are interested, a lot of people getting the MPH are working professionals and they do the MPH part-time to add an additional qualification to their degree. A lot of people pick their future school based on where they want to work after school. Public health schools teach a similar curriculum, I think the advantages come down to externships/internships and making connections, Boston is super-saturated with public health schools and NYC as well.

The rankings for public health schools aren't super important (unlike for business schools), Columbia (the undergrad at least) wasn't ranked by US News World Report, https://www.usnews.com/education/bl...bia-university-in-2022-best-colleges-rankings, because of gaming the system . . . I think it is likely that they were trying to game the system with their MPH program as well. Columbia is just super expensive, I don't feel it has a top 10 reputation in public health. BU's curriculum was completely changed not long ago and is based on Columbia's and they are obsessed with their rankings and very oddly BU's rankings jumped a couple years ago, despite being a a pretty new public health school without a long track record of public health and being a sort of for-profit institution so I wouldn't pay attention to rankings at all.

I think you will get into a public health school on this cycle, however, given that the labor market is good now, I would actively look for public health related jobs as well, I think if you work in a public health role then you have a better idea of where you want to go and you realize, "oh, I should go to schools A, B and C and look for this sort of financial aid/scholarship". I think with public health it is much less where you got the degree, but what hard skills and job experience you have.

In Epi, BU is pretty well known for the Framingham Heart Study and the Black Women's Health Study. They also have a nice online public website teaching epi and biostats. So wouldn't say its that bad of a school.