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I’m finally, finally done with the whole process of applying to MPH programs. I began seriously thinking about it in February 2016. It’s been more than a year of work to get me where I am: an incoming student to Brown University School of Public Health!
I used to have a side job helping high school students apply to colleges, so it was interesting being on the other side of the coin while applying for grad school. This forum was instrumental to managing my stress and keeping me informed. You can find my full stats and results on page 2 of the 2017 AAWR thread, but to summarize: I'm a domestic applicant, and I had good-not-great GPA and GREs, lots of experience in a semi-related field, and a compelling personal story that got me into all 8 of the programs to which I applied (and some with significant $$$).
I have been out of undergrad for some time and therefore didn’t have any kind of advisor during this process. I wrote this long (looooong) post for people who may be in a similar situation, or really anyone who wants a perspective on MPH applications from someone who has very recently been through it all.
Most of the content in this post is a synthesis of the advice given on the 2016 and 2017 AAWR threads, so shout out to everyone who was helpful on those. I tried to make it as general as possible while still including some specific examples of schools and programs. That said, I’m sure I left some important things out and got some points wrong. If others want to add on with their own general advice, perspectives, or questions, great! There are other threads for specific schools/programs and for individuals to get feedback on their applications and chances.
Step 1: Choosing Programs
What people consider important in choosing a program is going to be highly subjective. Here are some factors I think everyone should consider.
Location
Money
Departments
Number of Programs: The number you apply to will depend on how competitive your application is and how much money you are willing to pay on application fees. I recommend 1-2 reach programs, 1-2 target programs, and 1-2 safety programs. That said, I applied to 8 programs because at the time I sent my applications, I couldn’t be sure where in the country I would need to move (for personal reasons unrelated to school). You can ask on the stickied thread or in the current AAWR thread for feedback on how competitive of an applicant you are in general or for specific schools.
Step 2: Your Application
Admissions committees judge public health applicants holistically. This means that your story, potential, and goals are more important than the numbers (GRE, GPA) in your application.
Typical Requirements: You will use the online system SOPHAS to upload/communicate the following to the schools you select.
Schools have very different deadlines. I suggest making a calendar once you know where to apply. Some are rolling admissions and some have hard deadlines. Many have priority deadlines, which you should try to apply by in order to receive the best chance at funding. SOPHAS opens fall applications in late August/early September the year before, and I have not seen any kind of application deadline before December 1 (Harvard). I have seen rolling admissions deadlines as late as July (Buffalo).
SOPHAS, the centralized online application systems, can take a while to process an application after it is submitted and verify transcripts after they receive them. Most schools consider the date that they actually receive your application to be the date you applied, not the date you hit “submit” on SOPHAS. Therefore, it’s a good idea to hit that “submit” button at least 2 weeks before a deadline to be safe. ETS can also take a while (2 weeks) to report and send GRE scores to SOPHAS.
Here’s my recommended pace for getting everything done by a December 1 deadline:
Step 3: Deciding Where To Go
It’s April. You have all your decisions in, and hopefully you have some acceptances to decide between. Maybe it’s an easy choice for you, but for most, it is not.
It’s been at least a few months, maybe even a few years since this process began. I suggest you go back to what I wrote about choosing the programs in the first place. Something that seemed really important to you then may not be as important now. Think about what factors matter most to you now, and see if you can eliminate some schools based on how they meet those factors alone.
Now, you may still be left with a few schools. It’s time to gather more information. This may come from…
I used to have a side job helping high school students apply to colleges, so it was interesting being on the other side of the coin while applying for grad school. This forum was instrumental to managing my stress and keeping me informed. You can find my full stats and results on page 2 of the 2017 AAWR thread, but to summarize: I'm a domestic applicant, and I had good-not-great GPA and GREs, lots of experience in a semi-related field, and a compelling personal story that got me into all 8 of the programs to which I applied (and some with significant $$$).
I have been out of undergrad for some time and therefore didn’t have any kind of advisor during this process. I wrote this long (looooong) post for people who may be in a similar situation, or really anyone who wants a perspective on MPH applications from someone who has very recently been through it all.
Most of the content in this post is a synthesis of the advice given on the 2016 and 2017 AAWR threads, so shout out to everyone who was helpful on those. I tried to make it as general as possible while still including some specific examples of schools and programs. That said, I’m sure I left some important things out and got some points wrong. If others want to add on with their own general advice, perspectives, or questions, great! There are other threads for specific schools/programs and for individuals to get feedback on their applications and chances.
Step 1: Choosing Programs
What people consider important in choosing a program is going to be highly subjective. Here are some factors I think everyone should consider.
Location
- Where do you want to live for the next 1-2 years? Do you want to move? Do you want to settle where you get your degree?
- What is the cost of living? Will you need a car, how much is rent, etc.?
- What opportunities for public health practice and research exist there? The CDC is in Atlanta (Emory) and the NIH is in Baltimore (JHU). On the East Coast, NYC (Columbia, NYU) and Boston (Harvard, Tufts, BU) are the other biggest hubs for public health. I personally know very little about public health in other regions of the US, so maybe others can chime in with advice.
Money
- Tuition to MPH programs is widely variable. In general, public schools have a lower sticker price than private schools, but private schools offer more in scholarships and grants. For example, an MPH from Colorado School of Public Health is about 50k for total tuition while one from Brown is nearly 80k in total tuition. Some schools have a reputation for providing lots of funding to lots of students (BU, NYU, Drexel, etc.) while others take a different approach (Harvard, Pitt, Berkeley, etc.). Unless you are a truly outstanding applicant, it is unreasonable to expect an MPH to be fully funded from any institution. This is not a PhD program.
- All schools have costs aside from tuition—books, health insurance, programs fees, etc.
- Again, cost of living will have a huge impact on total program cost. For example, renting a room in an apartment in Boston costs easily $1,000/month in most neighborhoods and the same room in Philadelphia might cost $500/month.
- A large percentage of MPH students work part time either in public health or in side jobs so as not to have to take out loans to cover all of tuition & cost of living.
Departments
- Before applying, it is important to know which concentration you plan to study and why. This should be based on what you plan to do with your degree. At most schools, public health students take a core curriculum in their first year and concentration-specific courses and electives in the second. Some schools allow switching concentrations after matriculation.
- Most schools of public health offer an MPH in the following five concentrations (names vary): Community and Behavioral Health, Health Policy and Management, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, & Environmental and Occupational Health.
- Some programs offer more specific concentrations, like Community Health Education (University of Minnesota) or Population and Family Health (Columbia).
- Some schools also offer minors or certificates in even more specific fields like Environmental Hazard Assessment (BU).
- Some schools do not offer all concentrations or combine them in some way. However, all CEPH accredited schools must offer coursework in the five concentrations.
- Many schools have a “general,” concentration-less degree usually intended for people who are already in the medical field or are working public health professionals.
- Some schools have strong departments across the board while others have definite strengths and weaknesses. You can determine where these are by looking at the number of professors and students per department, the overall messaging of the school, and the types of jobs graduates get.
- Once you settle on a concentration, look at the research interests of professors at the schools you are considering. Do they align with yours? For example, if you are interested in chronic disease epidemiology, joining a department full of infectious epidemiologists may not be a great idea.
- One of the biggest concerns you should have is what kinds of jobs graduates from a program land. Some schools publish this data on their websites (Columbia, Emory) while others just give a percentage employed 6 months after graduating. You might want to contact program directors or admissions reps at the school for more detailed info.
- In general, the bigger the school, the larger its alumni network. However, it’s also important to consider the reach of the school—do they have connections to government positions (CDC, NIH, local or state health departments), big nonprofits or research centers, etc.? Are they integrated into their community? Are there opportunities for international study?
- The biggest names in public health are Hopkins and Harvard. Then there’s many “tier-2” big names (Emory, Columbia, UNC, etc.) and up-and-coming names (Drexel, Brown, etc.) and then, finally, the true “C-list” of public health programs (not gonna list any as I don’t want to be attacked). How much name matters is really a personal decision. Some will say public health is more about building good connections and marketable skills over having a fancy name to put on a resume. Others will say that the fancy name opens more doors than skill and social ability alone can. Also, public health is a such a diverse field that a big name in one concentration might be worthless in another. For example, University of Iowa is huge for agricultural public health, but I haven’t seen anyone on this forum talk about Iowa at all because that’s a niche interest most do not have.
- Do not waste your time on a school or program that is not CEPH accredited.
- Online programs are not for everyone. Many are not CEPH accredited. They have high attrition rates as keeping up with self-paced coursework while working full time, raising kids, or doing whatever is going on that prevents you from attending an in-person program becomes increasingly difficult. And it can be difficult to network without the personal connection with professors and classmates traditional programs offer.
- Schools of public health generally offer broader opportunities than programs of public health. Programs are typically attached to medical schools and are geared toward specific research interests.
- Size: Like in choosing undergrad or really any other educational program, bigger size in both faculty and student body generally means a bigger network, more connections, more opportunities for research and practical experience. Smaller usually size means more personal relationships with classmates and faculty, a greater chance at landing opportunities offered, and more personalization.
- Length: Some programs are less than one year (Hopkins) while others are two (Minnesota, Yale, etc.). This impacts cost, the number of classes one can possibly take, the number and depth of practical experiences, and the intensity of the program.
- Practice vs. Research: There is a distinction between “doing” public health and researching public health. Different schools may prepare students for one end goal more than the other, and some school take a balanced approach (BU, Columbia). Research-focused schools (Harvard, Tufts) may emphasize quantitative skills more than practice-focused schools (Minnesota, Colorado) across concentrations. Think about where your professional goals lie and what skills you most need before picking a school that heavily emphasizes one end of the practice/research spectrum more than the other.
- Diversity: Many different types of people decide to pursue MPH degrees. Do you want to be in an environment with people there with the same educational and professional experiences and motivation as you, or do you want to be in an environment with variety? Some schools/programs are oriented more towards doctors and med students than people coming from outside public health or with only an undergrad degree. In addition to diversity of experience, it’s also important to consider human diversity—race, culture, nationality, sexual orientation, etc. in the student body and faculty at schools.
Number of Programs: The number you apply to will depend on how competitive your application is and how much money you are willing to pay on application fees. I recommend 1-2 reach programs, 1-2 target programs, and 1-2 safety programs. That said, I applied to 8 programs because at the time I sent my applications, I couldn’t be sure where in the country I would need to move (for personal reasons unrelated to school). You can ask on the stickied thread or in the current AAWR thread for feedback on how competitive of an applicant you are in general or for specific schools.
Step 2: Your Application
Admissions committees judge public health applicants holistically. This means that your story, potential, and goals are more important than the numbers (GRE, GPA) in your application.
Typical Requirements: You will use the online system SOPHAS to upload/communicate the following to the schools you select.
- Undergraduate degree & transcripts
- Competitive applicants to most schools have >3.0 GPA
- Top-tier applicants have >3.5 GPA
- It is totally, totally possible to get into good programs with a GPA <3.0
- GRE Scores
- Competitive applicants to most schools are in at least the 50th percentile on quant and verbal sections. I don’t think the writing section matters much at all.
- I’m not sure if there’s really a “top tier” for GRE scores, but a quant score in the 60th percentile or above certainly helps.
- It is totally, totally possible to get into good programs with a poor GRE score
- Some schools will accept other tests (MCAT, LSAT, DAT, etc.) or waive the GRE requirement for people with other Masters, PhD, or MD degrees
- Most schools have SOPHAS-specific GRE codes in addition to their regular graduate admissions GRE codes. You only need to send them to the SOPHAS code.
- >2-3 letters of recommendation (requirements vary)
- As for any school or job application, get letters from people who know you well and are in positions of authority. Bosses, supervisors, and professors are better choices than even the most impressive colleagues and acquaintances you may have.
- Personal statement
- If the school does not specify, keep it around 2-3 double spaced, font size 12, professionally formatted pages.
- Focus on your strengths rather than explaining or compensating for your weaknesses. Have a good GPA but no public health experience? Great, talk about a class or two you did well in that prepares you for this degree. Have lots of public health experience but questionable GRE and/or GPA? Cool, talk about what you loved about your public health experience and what you accomplished during it.
- Tell a story that show who you are in relation to your public health interests. Yes, you need to have specific public health interests beyond the concentration you chose. For example, someone in Environmental Health might have a specific interest in the connection between noise pollution and violence in urban areas. Someone in Community Health might have a specific interest in dental health in Appalachia. If you are interested in research methods across contexts or populations, get ready to get specific about what techniques, models, programs, etc. capture your interest. Regardless, after reading your personal statement, someone should know how your interest developed, what personal/academic/professional experiences you’ve had so far in it, and how you see yourself contributing to the field after graduation.
- If you want to explain a bad semester in college or a lengthy unemployment spiel, do so in a separate document uploaded with your application. This allows you to define yourself separately from challenges you’ve experienced or mistakes you have made.
- It is okay to write a general personal statement and then tweak it slightly to be school specific for each place you want to apply. You should mention that school’s name and use their way of phrasing the concentration you want (ie., Behavioral and Social Sciences vs. Community and Behavioral Health). If you want, mention specific research being done or professors who interest you. Just be careful not to send the Emory version to Tulane!
- Resume/CV of experiences: You can really make this into whatever you want since it is a document you upload. However you decide to do it, you will also fill out an online form of “experiences” on SOPHAS. This can essentially be a duplicate of what you upload for a resume/CV or include more information.
- General Approach 1: Focus on your most relevant experiences, highlighting internships, volunteer work, research, jobs, awards, and coursework you have done that connects somehow to public health and/or your specific interest in public health. Choose this option if this information would fill a page.
- General Approach 2: List everything you have done to earn money, learn, or be part of a community since beginning undergrad, including things like that time you bartended for a semester or WWOOFed in Argentina or worked at your dad’s law firm or captained the tennis team or whatever. Choose this option if you would like admissions to have a more complete understanding of your story. (Note: I chose this option because I am changing careers and wanted them to see how hard I worked towards my original career goal— teaching high school science. It might also be a sensible choice for someone whose academic achievements in undergrad are overshadowed by their extracurricular, or someone who worked through school.)
- If you can, take advantage of career services at your undergrad institution to have a look over your resume. They will steer you in the right direction. It’s also important to note that you will have to list experiences on SOPHAS separate from the resume/CV anyway, so there will be space to list anything you take off the resume/CV if taking Approach 1 elsewhere.
- Transcripts from other graduate coursework/degrees
- College-level Biology— common for epidemiology and biostatistics applicants
- College-level Statistics — common for epidemiology and biostatistics applicants
- Supplemental essays: these could be for scholarships (Minnesota) or just to answer school-specific questions (Berkeley).
Schools have very different deadlines. I suggest making a calendar once you know where to apply. Some are rolling admissions and some have hard deadlines. Many have priority deadlines, which you should try to apply by in order to receive the best chance at funding. SOPHAS opens fall applications in late August/early September the year before, and I have not seen any kind of application deadline before December 1 (Harvard). I have seen rolling admissions deadlines as late as July (Buffalo).
SOPHAS, the centralized online application systems, can take a while to process an application after it is submitted and verify transcripts after they receive them. Most schools consider the date that they actually receive your application to be the date you applied, not the date you hit “submit” on SOPHAS. Therefore, it’s a good idea to hit that “submit” button at least 2 weeks before a deadline to be safe. ETS can also take a while (2 weeks) to report and send GRE scores to SOPHAS.
Here’s my recommended pace for getting everything done by a December 1 deadline:
- Research and choose schools to apply to ASAP. Start by June and have a solid working list by August. Make a calendar or otherwise organize yourself to be aware of all the deadlines. Begin to outline or draft a personal statement. If you have a resume, give it a refresh. If you don’t, find a template you like and start putting it together.
- Take the GRE in August or September. It will be possible to retake once if you are not happy with your scores. Send your scores to the SOPHAS GRE codes associated with the schools you are applying to.
- Make a SOPHAS account and fill out your information as soon as it opens in August/September. Enter your transcript information or pay for their transcript entering services. Send your official transcripts (from everything—undergrad, study abroad, post-bacc, whatever) to SOPHAS.
- Ask recommenders to write for you in September. Tell them you want to submit your applications with their recommendations in the beginning of October. (Note: you can submit without recommendations anytime and add them later, but they don’t need to know that.)
- Finish your personal statement (and making it school-specific) and resume by the middle of October. Depending on your writing confidence, this may mean getting feedback from others, rewriting, etc.
- If necessary, retake the GRE before the end of October.
- Take the last 2 weeks of October to tweak your application, reconsider your school list, deal with any existential dread, etc. Then hit submit by November 1.
- Even with a SOPHAS screw up, everything will almost certainly be to your programs before December 1!
Step 3: Deciding Where To Go
It’s April. You have all your decisions in, and hopefully you have some acceptances to decide between. Maybe it’s an easy choice for you, but for most, it is not.
It’s been at least a few months, maybe even a few years since this process began. I suggest you go back to what I wrote about choosing the programs in the first place. Something that seemed really important to you then may not be as important now. Think about what factors matter most to you now, and see if you can eliminate some schools based on how they meet those factors alone.
Now, you may still be left with a few schools. It’s time to gather more information. This may come from…
- Emailing or calling an admissions rep, financial aid, or a program director with specific questions
- Asking to get in touch with a current student to ask about life in the program
- Attending a virtual or in person admitted students’ event (HIGHLY recommended)
- Perusing course selection guides, list of past theses/projects, etc. on the schools’ websites
- Asking questions on SDN
