Considering an MPH program in NY

[emily487]

I'm a French major on a pre-med track who will be a senior in college this year. Due to a late start on the pre-med track, I've been thinking about doing an MPH in epidemiology (I'm looking to work in clinical epidemiology or something along those lines) during the year off I'll be taking before med school.

I'm taking the GRE at the end of this summer, and taking the MCAT in the spring hopefully.

My cumulative GPA so far is 3.6 and my science GPA (if that matters for an MPH) is around 3.65. I'm currently interning in my county's Department of Emergency Response and working closely with the Dept. of Health, and have done work that's been adopted by the state DOH and various organizations around the country, if that's helpful/influential at all.

I'm looking mostly in NY state, looking closely now at SUNY Albany and NY Medical College, but also at SUNY Stony Brook and SUNY Downstate.

Does anyone have any info on these programs, or any others in NY state? Or ideas on statistics/my chances at these programs, or what I could do to improve my chances?

 

[Winter Lily]

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[Stories]

From what I've heard, the main benefit of epidemiology as a pre-med applicant is that it's much, much faster to get published than it is in microbio or other lab sciences. Once you learn STATA and your profs point you to the raw data, you're good to go mining.

SAS is the tool of choice for epidemiology and biostatistics papers. STATA is used more for social behavioral sciences and other research of that ilk.

OP: The MPH is useful to supplement a MD if you're interested in preventative medicine or wish to do clinical research. If neither of these two are in your future, MPH may not be necessary. The MPH also will not improve your medical school application (no matter what other people tell you).

 

[Winter Lily]

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[Stories]

Good to know.

That said, I do know STATA is what they use at Hopkins for their primary MPH Epi classes. I have no clue why.

Probably for the basic epi classes where the students have no intention of continuing on with their epi training from there. Any higher level statistics must be done in SAS.

 

[FutureKDEpi]

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[Winter Lily]

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[emily487]

I looked at the SUNY Albany MS in Epi. It looks like a great program and has a great relationship with the New York State Dept of Health. From what I know, it is a good program. I know this comment isn't entirely helpful...

Yeah, that's definitely one of the reasons I'm looking at it, as well as in-state tuition, which is important since I plan on going to medical school afterward and don't have unlimited money (although I wish I did!)

Thanks everyone for your advice.

I'm taking the GRE in August (the 27th, so I still have a while to study)... does anyone know what kind of GRE scores are in a "good range" (i.e. likely to be accepted in combination with good GPA, work experience, etc.) or what MPH programs are looking for score-wise, for state schools/less-prestigious private schools?

 

[Stories]

Yeah, that's definitely one of the reasons I'm looking at it, as well as in-state tuition, which is important since I plan on going to medical school afterward and don't have unlimited money (although I wish I did!)

Thanks everyone for your advice.

I'm taking the GRE in August (the 27th, so I still have a while to study)... does anyone know what kind of GRE scores are in a "good range" (i.e. likely to be accepted in combination with good GPA, work experience, etc.) or what MPH programs are looking for score-wise, for state schools/less-prestigious private schools?

For most schools, a 50th percentile in all areas is something of a minimum cutoff on all GRE sections. Better would obviously be 70th percentile and higher on all sections.