MPH Epidemiology Possible for me?

[ohopenyoureyes]

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Hey everyone. I wrote in this forum a few weeks ago regarding my recent career situation but I'm going to re-write it again with some updates.

I'm a 22 year old who graduated from Rutgers University New Brunswick with a BA in Biology this past May. My GPA is a 3.858. For the majority of my college career, I was kind of confused on what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I had a passion for healthcare but I didn't know exactly what I wanted. 2 years into my college career, I decided I wanted to be a physician and apply to med school in the future. I've basically been on that track for now. I did pretty well in all my science classes and I really enjoy interacting with people. I took the MCAT twice and I didn't do so well at all. (50th percentile). I have health issues and I believe that they may have impacted my performance on the test because I was greatly sick both days of the exam.

I am drawn to public health because it still allows me to have a career in healthcare, especially primary care which I am very passionate about.

I am currently thinking about applying to public health school for epidemiology programs. I am not very aware of how the application process works. If I wanted to apply for entrance in the Fall 2018 school year, would I have to start applying this fall? Would I have to have scores in by December? (I am currently thinking of retaking the MCAT or just going to take the GRE. I'm not very familiar with the GRE so I may not want to take it till later this fall.) I am also aware that I need to take care of my health because I do not want to perform poorly on any more standardized tests.

I noticed that some MPH programs want experience for their schools. I have prior experience in research as a Research Assistant in a stem cells lab, shadowing/volunteering in hospitals, and fundraising experience for my club in which we fundraised for a nonprofit.

I'm planning to continue doing research starting September and be a Cancer Resource Volunteer at the ACS while I search for a full time job and apply for grad school.

I welcome and appreciate any and all suggestions/advice for me.

Thank you and sorry for the long read!

 

[wwmmkk]

Some initial thoughts--

• Your experience and academics sound pretty solid. If you do decently on your GRE, you'll be a competitive applicant for most programs.
• I am not sure what you mean about being passionate about primary care in connection to public health. With an epidemiology degree, you will not be seeing or caring for individual patients but rather using mathematical models to answer questions about health conditions in large populations. If you are interested in improving primary care for large populations of people, that would probably lean more towards a policy/admin MPH track.
• Timelines vary drastically by schools. You should register for the GRE and be researching which programs you want to apply to now. I'd say take the GRE sooner rather than later as it will give you a chance to retake if you're unhappy with your scores and have early deadlines. I wrote a long post here about the MPH application process that includes a section about timeline.