MPH worth 80K?

[calbears84]

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I am waitlisted for med school admission and had the plan B of obtaining a MPH degree before reapplying if i don't get into med school this year.....the problem is...the mph program i wanted to attend told me that they will not be offering me financial assistance....that means...i will have to take out 80K of UNsubsidized loan if i wanna attend the MPH program.

getting MPh degree is somethign i want to do if i don't get into med school thsi year...but the need to take out 80K in UNsubsidized loan make me hesitant about that option. if i don't get into med school this year...should i work as an EMT instead? please help. thanks

 

[DW]

for 80K?!?!? two words: hell no

umm, what program are you looking at that costs THAT much, even with living expenses figured into it? how many credits does it take to finish it? can you work during the program like most people in my program did? yikes, man, just look into the EMT thing and save yourself the dough, and whenever you do get into med school, do md/mph .......

 

[PublicHealth]

Why don't you apply to MPH programs at your state schools? 80K is bit pricey.

 

[Adcadet]

see if you can get hooked up with a research assistantship that will cover all or most of your tuition. That's what I did, and it worked out great for me.

 

[abw]

Hey!
I have to agree with the others. Apply to state schools - they don't even have to be your own state. From experience they were the most generous with TA's, RA's and fellowships. If you're dead set on the 80k school, email individual profs who do research you're interested in to see if they can wiggle out an RA or at least some funds for you. Another really good person to talk to is the secretary of the department you'll be in in the school of public health. At my school at least, she knows everything and can tell you exactly where to go and who to email for whatever you need.

 

[pathdr2b]

ONLY if it's an MPH from Harvard!

 

[bridgie]

errr not even. my roomate passed on an acceptance to hsph last year. you go inot debt for over 60k and you come out with a salary of only 30k a year. that is a poor investment.

just do clinical research for a year or two and GET PAID. albeit 28k a year but it is worth it.

 

[calbears84]

thanks for all your replies.
the "80K" school is columbia. columbia offered me 30K in unsubsidized loan to cover its 40+K a year expense.

another school i'm looking at is umich. it is pretty much the same story for umich...offered 30K in unsubsideized loan to cover its 40+K a year expense.

i did not apply to any schools from my state (CA) because i did not look into MPH until feb and their application deadlines were in december.

so what do you think guys? would the two years off before reapplying better spent doing a MPH program (+80K in debt) or working as an EMT? please help

 

[abw]

Hi

I don't know anything about being an EMT, so I can't help you there, however, if you're really interested in MPH and don't want to spend the money, there's still things you can work with. Some schools take applications for a fall start date and a winter start date, so you could just take a semester off. Since some programs are 1.5 years, this really wouldn't hurt you too much. Also, since a lot of people in MPH programs are professionals and are working, many go part time. At my school, a lot of people in this category don't realize that MPH is the direction to them until after the deadline, so they go in for an interview and can be admitted as a "special student", where they go part time and will receive automatic acceptances if they keep up a certain GPA. If you do something like that, you can just take a heavier course load later on or during the summer and graduate without a problem. Lots of luck! For what it's worth, I think the MPH is an invaluable experience before med school and would really recommend trying to work something out with it. It really shifted how I viewed some parts of health care and will give me a better perspective for when I start med school.

 

[Finally M3]

I was in a similar position as you following my first attempt to get into med school. I went the MPH route, and I think it helped tremendously (interviews went from 2 to 10+ before I started cancelling).

However, 80Gs ain't worth it. My UMich MPH cost $6K a year, but that was with a 50% schollie. Why don't you try UCBerkeley? They are supposed to have a pretty prestigious SPH as well....

 

[lola]

an mph will not guarantee you admission to medical school. believe me, i have one (an ms in epidemiology actually and didn't even do it to strengthen my application), and i'm not in. i'm sure it'll help, but i think there are other things you can do that aren't so costly that will help just as much. if you want to do an mph that's one thing, but i would never recommend it solely for the purpose of getting into medical school.
i don't think it's worth it to pay the high cost of private school tuition for an mph. public health jobs (without an md) just don't pay well. if i were to do it over again i would have gone to my state school for grad school. fortunately i am not 80k in debt, and there is no way i would have gone to a private school if i were going to be in that much debt. how are you going to pay for med school afterward?!
if you end up working in public health afterward rather than going to med school, the columbia name isn't going to help you all that much in finding a job. i mean, i'm sure it'll help you stand out and all, but the public health field is not all that competitive in terms of getting a job. no one is going to care all that much if you have a degree from columbia vs. a degree from university of south carolina.

 

[dancer7]

i second lola -

i even had an interviewer tell me that some applicants think getting an mph will help their application but it just dosen't. doing well in that type of program isn't representative of how well you'll do in med school. he said they would much rather see research or grad/upper level science classes. if you are interested in the material then get it (but i would never pay that much) but don't do it to strengthen your app. there are better and cheeper ways to do that.