MPH MPH academic merit

[c****seirmodel]

First post on here! A quick question for all of you experts: anyone know how decisions are made re: Columbia MPH merit scholarships?

I have a 3.9 from an ivy with biotech work experience. Took the GRE yesterday and received a 170V and 164Q. I know these are decent scores for admission but wasn’t sure whether the Q score in particular would make me less competitive for merit scholarships. I work in nonprofit now and will need all the aid I can get, so if I need to retake the GRE simply for a higher quant score, I’d be willing to do so.

Columbia’s site claims that applicants competitive for merit awards typically have 3.65+ GPA and 80th%+ on all sections of submitted standardized exams. Though I surpassed these thresholds, I wasn’t sure if I’d then be stack ranked by GRE Q or something and therefore below everyone else who also surpassed those lower bounds (if they are indeed lower bounds).

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[She-Hulk]

Probably every school has different mechanisms for determining a merit scholarship, and even that might change every year depending on applicants and other factors, and you can try to negotiate a better deal. You could contact Columbia directly, I didn't know that they we're known for merit awards, but I don't have any firsthand experience, and of course everything is affected by COVID. If "typically" means a good number, like 80%, that is possible as well, if Quant 164 is 84 percentile that I would think you'd be fine in terms of GRE. The only way to find out definitively would be to apply and see what they say.