dude_abides

Hey all, Now that my application cycle is pretty much officially over, I am posting to give hope to all those who feel like their stats are not up to par with the rest of the competition. I just want to say that I know exactly how it feels to be MEGA intimidated about the rest of the applicant pool, it took a few months of deliberating to even muster up the courage to open up the GRE books and begin studying. But if you really know this is what you want--do not sell yourself short! Show them that you have a passion for public health (or whatever field you choose) and you'll get in! I applied to quite a large number of schools (10 to be exact) with a mix of what I thought were "never-will-get-in-but-at-least-I-can-say-that-I-tried-and-failed"schools and some schools that I thought were a 'pretty-good-shot'. I can now safely say that I have acceptance letters from three of the top 5 public health schools (Columbia, Hopkins, Michigan). Feel free to PM me if you would like some detailed advice/information about my stats and I can definitely try to answer them to the best of my ability.

I feel your pain, the decision-making is going to be tough. Agree that Columbia is an incredible school plus living in NYC sounds amazing. As a Canadian, I know that I would like to go back home to work after my degree unless I completely fall in love with the city I'm in---which very might well happen with Columbia. So it's good to know that 60% statistic exists. Kind of makes the dilemma of choosing even more difficult. I see that you were also accepted to Michigan, would you go there for graduate school? I hear only good things about Ann Arbor. Think I'll have to sit in the corner and twiddle my thumbs until all acceptances/rejections roll in I guess, the schools in Canada only recently had application deadlines so it might take some time.

I am considering Columbia too, the only thing throwing me off right now is the tuition/living costs in NYC

Same problem here too, they say that as long as everything is 'postmarked' on/before today, we should be fine

I applied to this program as well--not sure how I feel about it, kind of nervous. Seems to be a pretty competitive program, and even though they were pretty detailed about what they were looking for, I'm not sure if I meet their requirements.

I heard back from GWU on Tuesday, and received a confirmation email on December 4th---maybe follow-up with them?

Hey all! Been lurking for quite some time now (a really long time)-- decided to finally join to stress out together but on a more official basis. Just wanted to say that this forum has been a really valuable resource and all of you have been seriously incredible leading up to submission of applications. I submitted my apps at the end of November, it was really down to the wire. Working on submitting applications to Canadian schools now. Happy to say that it seems like acceptances/rejections/any sort of notifications are slowly trickling in as of this week! Applied: JHU (MPH), UMich (MPH - Epi), UMinn (MPH - Epi), GWU (MPH- Epi), Columbia (MPH) Rejected: GWU Accepted: UMich (MPH - Epi, General Epidemiology)!