Applying to PhD programs during my first year of a MPH/MHS/MS degree?

[fsch500]

Hi Guys!

I've been admitted to a couple of MPH or similar masters programs and will most likely attend Johns Hopkins' 9 month MHS in Health Economics & Outcomes Research program in the Fall of 2020. My end goal is to pursue a PhD in health policy & management and I'm specifically interested in the financing schemes of cardiovascular products such as medical devices and/or pharmaceuticals. I've read that the PhD admissions process for public health has a "soft requirement" of a masters degree and/or work experience so decided to apply for MPH programs instead of gunning it straight towards a doctorate and to also gain some direct research experience in public health since my previous experiences were mainly in wet-lab or "indirectly" through internships.

I was wondering if it's worth applying to PhD programs in the 2020-2021 application cycle (this Fall), the main reason being that the Hopkins program is only 9 months long? If I were to attend a traditional 2-year MPH, I'd apply during my second year. The only additional thing in my PhD application from my MPH applications would be that I am en-route of getting my masters from Hopkins, but I wasn't sure if that would boost my chances to attend one of my preferred programs (listed below). I'll include a brief overview of my stats here as well so please feel free to give me any feedback! Thanks a lot!

Undergraduate School: Private liberal arts college. Class of 2020.
Undergrad GPA/Major GPA: 3.65/4.0 (WES verified 9/13/19)/ 3.85/4.0 (Major GPA).
Graduate School: (Intended) JHU MHS in Health Economics & Outcomes Research. Class of 2021.
Major/minor: Bachelor of Science in Life Sciences (Honors)
GRE(including date taken): V-166 (97th %) Q-168 (93rd %) AW-6.0 (99th%) (taken only once on 07/25/19)

Experience/research:
- 3 month internship at a large pharmaceutical MNC in their health economics and market access team. Worked on a lot of strategy generation and literature reviews for atrial fibrillation, high-energy devices, etc.
- 2 month internship at a separate large pharmaceutical MNC in their patient access team. Similar to the first experience but primarily worked on plaque psoriasis with the added benefit of writing up some sections on an upcoming prospective study.
- 2 research postings in computational biology and molecular biology labs
- 2 month internship in the R&D sector of a pharmaceutical startup. Worked on interventions for Zika and Yellow Fever with one of the interventions currently in phase I clinical trials.
- Some clinical and hospital volunteering experience. Didn't clock in many hours since it's rather hard to get shadowing opportunities here.

Publications:
- 1 co-authored published article in computational biology
- 1 co-authored published article in biochemistry (looked at aging and Alzheimer's disease)
- Planning to submit my thesis for publication later this summer.

Letters of Recommendation:
- 2 very strong LORs from professors I took classes with and did research under (both publications came from these professors)
- 1 LOR from my supervisor at my pharma internship

Dream PhDs:
- JHU PhD in Health Policy & Management
- Yale PhD in Health Policy & Management
- Harvard PhD in Health Policy & Management
- Harvard PhD in Biological Sciences in Public Health
- I understand that these are very top-heavy schools but I mainly chose them for location and potential supervisors whose research interests could fall in line with mine

Sorry for the long post!!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[MPH1985]

Go for it. Start making contacts with professors now.

 

[fsch500]

Thanks for the replies! On that note, I was generally curious about the importance of contacting professors for a PhD? I'll definitely do so but I've heard different things from people saying that it virtually did nothing at all to basically helping them almost "bypass" the normal admissions process in the PhD cycle (i know of couple personal examples in my life who told me the latter but they applied to molecular or microbiology so not sure if the same applies for public health!).

 

[MPH1985]

You are interested in very competitive doctoral programs. You still have to go through the normal admissions process as a first pass, but when interviews happen, having some connection with one or more faculty may give you a leg up. That's not to say you won't get in if you don't talk to a professor beforehand, but it certainly helps. Also each program is different; for my field (a decade ago), funding at JHU/Yale required an identified faculty member to sponsor you. Just my 2 cents, others may have a different opinion.

 

[fsch500]

You are interested in very competitive doctoral programs. You still have to go through the normal admissions process as a first pass, but when interviews happen, having some connection with one or more faculty may give you a leg up. That's not to say you won't get in if you don't talk to a professor beforehand, but it certainly helps. Also each program is different; for my field (a decade ago), funding at JHU/Yale required an identified faculty member to sponsor you. Just my 2 cents, others may have a different opinion.

Thank you for your response! I'll make sure to reach out to each professor individually then