Jokenberry

I am always for people taking a year off. Get some additional work experience, build up a little savings, make sure you're confident in your future goals and plans. It sounds like a good idea in your situation. 

You should apply to international programs; every department that requires the GRE will have to appeal the graduate school to admit you, and they need a good reason to do so.
 
Those GRE scores are beyond any excuses, in my opinion. 

Two ten hour positions is less then my TA load and I still have time for coursework and relationships.  But, of course, know thyself and thy limits of sanity/stress.

Take it! While it's two jobs, it's two 10-hour(ish) jobs, which is about what most GA/TAs do anyway. If nothing else, it's a foot in the TA/GA door! I have two jobs now (20 hours TAing and 20-25 hours elsewhere) and it sucks because I love sleeping and I don't get to do much of it.

The key is to organize yourself and your time. It helps to know your specific hours in advance and I'm sure RAs around here and elsewhere have a lot of advice to give on managing their RA work.

I agree that you should be fine. I RA around 20-30 hours a week and stay busy but its definitely manageable.

Most grad students with TAs or RAs are contracted to 16-20 hours per week. The two 10-hour week positions would be 20 hours so you should be fine, provided you log your hours and keep careful track of whether one job or the other is causing you to do extra hours.

Got an e-mail from the graduate director congratulating me on my acceptance!!! I'm so happy. Is there any other UMD-bound students here?

A 2 bedroom apartment for $1600 sounds dreadfully expensive.

University of Texas Houston Health Science Center, MPH
 
SOPHAS app submitted 2/4, mailed week of 2/18, heard back 3/4 that I was admitted. Just an FYI.
 
Good luck to everyone.

ME TOO (UMich, although not the MHSA). This may even affect where I attend - may have to switch in favor of Minnesota, where I get in-state tuition. I e-mailed the epi department directly last week with a ton of departmental questions and finance questions and still haven't heard back.

I am not sue why you "demand full transparency." The school doesnt owe you anything. You could politely request that you let you know the weakness in their application so that you can improve for next year. Your resume sounds impressive but that alone doesnt get you into a program. You need a focused SOP, great LORs etc. It is possible that the letter writers did not write all positive feedaback, that would be one way to destroy an application. Also, sometimes the hardest people to work with are those that are smart and have a good background but have an "I am better than this class, these people attitude." Your post here comes off a bit like that (which could be entirely unintential on your end). The fact that you dont put efforts into classes if you dont feel like it and the attitude you have about being an undergrad advising grad students could definitely be red flags to the adcom if you gave off the same vibes in your applicaiton.
 
Did you apply to more programs as well? Being accepted to a signle program is unlikely so you would have a better shot if you applied to multiple programs. Either way good luck! It sounds like you make a great researcher so my best advice is to retry next year and apply to 5-10 programs at least. It is very likely that you will get into one if you go that route.

Recommended for admission to the University of South Carolina Epidemiology MSPH program today

Admitted to USC with 1/2 tuition scholarship as a Dean Merit Scholar! (25% of the incoming class receives this) 

Wait. My biggest regret is how many schools I applied to. It was a waste of application and GRE fees. My fear of not getting in anywhere made every program seem appealing, but in retrospect, I could have applied to about 5, had a good mix of top programs and safety schools, and still had the option of a diversity of programs.

I applied and was accepted to both UIC and Iowa. I visited Iowa - they have a GORGEOUS new school of public health and incredibly friendly faculty and students.

For scholarships, you should be checking the financial aid pages of each of the schools you applied to. At some schools, your application for admissions doubles as your scholarship profile; some of these, like BU, include any scholarship information in your welcome pacakage; others, like University of Michigan, will send out scholarship information later (early February) once they have a better idea of who has been accepted. At still other universities, such as University of Minnesota, you should have already applied for scholarships through a seperate application.
 
Overall, however, scholarship funding at anything beyond the token level (i.e. on previous threads there has been discussion of BU's 12K-15K scholarships on a total tuition price tag of 80K+) is very, very minimal at the MPH level and should be considered the exception rather than the rule. You should be actively seeking scholarhips from outside sources. Check if your current employer offers any; if you were in a greek organization in college, many offer scholarships to alumni. And, for whatever reason, fewer loans at the master's level are offered with deferred interest payments. Why, I don't know - you'd think the government would want to ENCOURAGE people to seek master's degrees - but it's true. An MPH will likely cost you a lot, will cost you even more if you choose a private instiution, and then pay little over the years to come.
 
(Basing financial aid information about scholarship scarcity off of attending multiple SOPHAS virtual fairs and reading the complete website of every school of public health that uses a SOPHAS application. Most departments offer, at best, a complete scholarship to one incoming student. Mind you, not all, I hope I'm wrong about this. I'm not relishing debt for years to come.)