themmases

I used the same rule of thumb. And for a masters, I ruled out schools assuming a worst case scenario where they never gave me any money at any point during the degree. Very few masters are worth 100K in debt-- maybe none. Maybe if the person has a guaranteed 6-figure job when they graduate.

I declined one offer yesterday despite not hearing back yet from my first choice. I've already been accepted by another school that would be my first choice if I lived closer, so I knew I wouldn't be going to yesterday's school no matter what. I waited for a long time because they made it sound like some funding decisions could be made in the spring (I was accepted in December), but the time that I would hear about that long shot has clearly passed so I declined. Weirdly, they used an online form that asked where I was going instead and why. There were only two options, more affordable and better reputation. There was no way to submit the form without sharing. My reason was a combination of fit/affordability/reputation/proximity, but by then they'd annoyed me so I picked reputation.

Schools will generally tell you how to accept/decline admission when they accept you. If they accepted you a while ago, schools may even contact you again reminding you to accept or decline. The most common ways I've seen are either response to their acceptance email, or using an online form. Definitely don't just not respond by the deadline-- that's rude to the people who reviewed your application. And since it's not April 15th yet, if you respond and decline the school may be offer your spot to someone on the waitlist who wants it.

Thanks to the people who suggested chickpea salad! I made one Sunday with red onion, apples, goat cheese, lemon olive oil, and balsamic vinegar and have been eating it for lunch all week.

I agree about chicken, although I don't have a reason for it-- it just seems like a bad idea when I look at it. My partner and I try to only buy meat occasionally and prioritize maximizing animal welfare over avoiding additives. Usually there's a lot of overlap though. I actually really like frozen vegetables. I keep them around and add to food I've already made to get more servings and fewer calories per serving. But you can't use them just like fresh-- there are texture issues-- and I've found that some things, like spinach, are worth buying the name brand. Most of the ones I use heat up great in soup or taste good if you scramble eggs into them. Over-processed grains (packaged white bread, regular pasta, etc.) and sweetened quasi-coffee products (they just offend me) aren't in my diet. Actually sugar in general-- if my partner and I learn there is unnecessary sugar added to a food, we stop buying that food. That's disgustingly common, unfortunately.

I want to do original research in epidemiology as my career, or provide study design and biostatistical consulting on medical research as a backup (i.e. being a co-investigator but not necessarily a primary investigator myself, for plan . For that reason, I only looked at programs that offer an MS in epidemiology or a related concentration, or MPH programs where the capstone experience could be a thesis or similar. Some places didn't call this a thesis, but the capstone requirement was about doing your own research and producing a publishable report, which I counted. Most of the schools I looked at that offered this option gave a few examples of recent project titles, so I could confirm people were really taking the written report option there. I've never seen any programs that had no capstone requirement at all though-- most MPH programs I looked at seemed to require an internship. I already work in medical research and I'm not interested in doing the same work again as an intern with the same or less responsibility, so I avoided programs where an internship was the only option. I do a lot of the data collection and editing for projects at my job now, so for me writing a thesis is the next step up in responsibility. For people who know they want to go into public health practice after the MPH though, it's probably a great opportunity to get to know people in the field (I know many newly enrolling MPHs also have work experience already).

I'm sorry this is happening to you. I know there are a lot of others here waiting and worrying and feeling the same. I know (from friends and from reading, because I'm waiting for an MS decision right now) that PhD application cycles are special-- you can improve your odds with a great fit, but there usually is no such thing as an objectively great candidate who can expect to get in across the board, like with undergrad admissions. The process is just too idiosyncratic. The good news is that unless two schools are very similar and you portrayed yourself very similarly to both of them, e.g. in your SOP, rejection from one school doesn't imply rejection from another. I think there is a thread elsewhere on here for people who were accepted to a highly ranked school, yet rejected by a lower one, so it does happen. You definitely should not pay for a PhD. Start applying for jobs if you haven't already, and look into ways to stay involved in your field in case your job turns out to be not so relevant. Even the skills you gain from a less relevant job will help you a lot in putting together a good application (I say this from experience), and the predictable hours won't hurt either. I hope you won't need it, but an extra few months to research programs and think deeply about where you'll fit best will probably also make a big difference. Best of luck!

I agree that public announcement of grades is inappropriate (and if the reaction to a recent mistake my professor made with the projector is any indication, all my classmates do too). So is public shaming. I work with research trainees now and the most we do to them is set up frequent meetings where they present their work so far, and they hopefully realize that if they don't prepare then they'll be embarrassing themselves. (You'd be surprised how many don't realize this.) There is a huge difference between "adversity" and choices made by one person that unnecessarily harm another. That really strikes me as an excuse for frustrated TAs to take out those frustrations on students. Also, in "the real world" authority figures don't publicly shame their subordinates or share assessments of their performance with their peers. Only extremely dysfunctional work environments protect that sort of behavior from managers, and even in those environments any competent workers who can leave, do. The only "real world" skill taught by this treatment of students is how to placate an unreasonable authority figure until you can escape.

I don't think you need to pay for Kaplan unless something about it really suits your learning style. Lots of people here seemed to really benefit from Magoosh (I never used it), but if you tried that and it didn't work for you there are lots of other options. Personally I used the Manhattan Prep giant book of problems and raised my quant score a lot-- way more than you want to raise yours. So they will always hold a special place in my heart. I also recommend reading a general guide to the quant section of the GRE, that will explain the structure of the problems and likely answers. I used the (completely free) SparkNotes intro to the quant section, which spends a long time explaining how to recognize a trick question, a complicated looking question with a simple answer, rule out trick answer options, and generally the logic on some of the weirder question types. I think the "endless problem sets" phase of my studying was a lot better for having read it, and I got a lot of questions right this time around that I panicked and guessed on the first time. ETA- There is also a thread for free/cheap GRE resources on this forum!

I would just contact the department and ask about the status of your application. If they accepted someone with an incomplete application, I think the most likely explanation is that they're a little disorganized (or get a huge volume of applications) and didn't notice that a less-essential piece was missing. A department disorganized enough to do that is probably also disorganized enough to have made a decision about your application and just not communicated it to you yet.

The conventions for authorship vary by field, but since you've talked to your advisor about this before, maybe you should talk to him again. (I find authorship is like money, and the first time you broach the subject is the worst.) Personally, if I had designed and been central to carrying out a study like your advisor, I would also expect to be first author, and if someone else wrote up the results I would be planning on being very involved in editing. One reason is that's what first authors do; anothe reason is that, if someone conceived and carried out the whole study, their editing is necessary to producing an accurate manuscript. Your advisor might be right that having a PhD first author would give the paper weight (although I'd think he means after publication, when people are choosing what to cite). He might also be trying to be tactful about whether you should really be first author. If I were you, I'd put the authors in the order my advisor wanted them unless he was suggesting something wrong, like inserting an honorary author who did nothing. I'd also meet with him, make clear that I am interested in continuing to publish and taking on first author-level work (rather than just receiving first author credit), and ask what he thinks I need to do to get there. I'd ask him if there are any specific project ideas that have first author-level work left to be done on them, that I could take on.

In MRI, blood pooling is actually a good thing while NSF means something quite different and horrible.

There is an old thread about accreditation here: And I recently answered someone's similar question about this here: In general, going to a program that isn't accredited by CEPH isn't the same thing as going to an unaccredited undergrad-- it doesn't mean that your degree isn't worthwhile. Many unaccredited public health schools just aren't accredited yet because it's a growing field and the school is new. However, there are important job and credentialing opportunities that require your degree to be from an accredited institution so you are closing off options if you don't go to one. Accreditation is not retroactive, so if your school gets accredited after you graduate that doesn't help you. Your degree will still be unaccredited forever. Public health is a growing field, so I think for a while not all employers will be picky about this and certainly a "good" school that just didn't have accreditation yet will be fine with many. However, as more people graduate with the MPH and more schools gain accreditation, I think employers will have less reason to be flexible about it. Personally, I didn't apply to any schools without CEPH accreditation. Most well-respected programs are accredited, and it just seems like closing off options unnecessarily-- not the point of investing time and money in a professional degree.

I'm sure entitled undergrads are just so frustrating to shoo out of office hours (actually I know they are), but I really find these discussions frustrating. Articles like the one in the OP strike me as being of a piece with other media smearing "millenials" as shallow and entitled, hurting our job prospects and blaming us for serious social and economic ills like the student debt crisis-- just for acting like regular (i.e. feckless, naive) young people. I don't think grad students, who are authorities in these undergrads' lives and probably also belong to generations that were/are being treated this way, should contribute I also don't think people who are "obsessed" with learning more about their field or can't understand why anyone ever wouldn't want to do a reading for class are in a good position to judge what most undergrads have ever been like, or whether standards have changed. A group of people known for experiencing imposter syndrome probably shouldn't also be claiming to be able to differentiate internal and external performance pressures in an academic experience they had years ago, on a totally different campus from where they most likely teach. While I guess we can argue about whether "participation trophies are dumb" is a searing insight into youth culture, we can probably all agree that undergrads are no exception to organisms everywhere being affected by their environment. It's not clear to me why, in this particular case, that makes the undergrads themselves the assholes. Undergrads have power when they whine about this stuff because administrations (you know, the people earning all that tuition money your grandkids will be paying back) support them in behaving like customers, and some of them have shameless, privileged parents. But undergrads also lack power because they are just gaining life skills, dependent on grades to sustain attendance and sometimes scholarships at a huge financial investment, and saddled with misinformation and poor content area mastery by a dysfunctional K-12 system To the extent that undergrads who whine about their "effort" are surrounded by other callow young people who don't put forward effort or manage their time well, those students really are doing something special that they were told they needed to do. Whether a 19-year-old student really needed to put in all-nighter level effort to master undergrad material or just thought she did, that sucks way more for her than for the grad TA who got theirs and just has to answer her emails. If it sucks to be the grad TA with different ideas about grading, that's probably because it generally does suck to have different ideas.

I am about to do this, and I feel like it's a great position to be in-- I almost feel bad when I see other people here who are dealing with the two-body problem in comparison. My partner is awesome and his company wants to keep him even if we move. His boss is also married to someone who just finished med school, so he's very supportive and understanding of being the partner who's willing to move for someone else's health career. However, my partner definitely wants to move to a different area of the company (he's in software support and would like his next move up to be to project management or testing), which it's obviously easier to do if he stays rather than working remotely. We're trying to stay in Chicago for at least the masters due to a combination of partner's career, friends and family nearby, and finances. I only considered schools outside the Midwest if they were dream schools that obviously merit a cross-country move-- and ultimately I excluded a lot of those myself because I didn't think they were worth it. The hardest part for me has been making my partner comfortable with it all, and not getting offended and taking his worrywart nature as meaning he didn't support me. I probably won't have an income for at least a semester, and I know that worries him even though we can afford it. After 4 years of being an adult with a job, it bothers me to need money from someone else, too, regardless of the relationship. Sometimes I feel guilty that I am basically getting my way on every aspect of this.

I would be very cautious about choosing an unaccredited program. There are lots of accredited programs out there, not all of them are overly expensive, and some do offer online options (I wasn't considering online, but the ones I've seen were also cheaper than on-campus options). This FAQ from CEPH explains the practical implications of not getting an accredited degree: http://ceph.org/constituents/students/faqs/#3 Some employers (including the US Public Health Service) specifically require that your degree be from a CEPH-accredited institution, as do some fellowships. You'd also be disqualifying yourself from taking the National Board of Public Health Examiners exam, which credentials public health professionals. CEPH accreditation is not retroactive, so even if your school gains accreditation later, your degree will never be accredited. So you're disqualifying yourself from those opportunities forever, unless you want to go back later and get some additional related degree from an accredited program. Searching the CEPH site brings up lots of MPH degrees you can earn online. It's worth researching the cost of attendance at each school separately. I was very surprised by how affordable some of my top choices were, while other schools were definitely over-charging for the size and recognition of their program-- some so much so that I decided not to apply. Also, at some schools MS credits are less expensive than MPH credits. If you're interested in a subspecialty where an MS is offered, and can meet the requirements, that can also be a slightly less expensive option.

While your GPA is low, it's not necessarily true that public health grad schools won't accept that. I think there is a sub-3.0 thread on this board somewhere and people are still getting in. If you're still working on applications, I would really focus on the health and research-related experience that you have, even more than your leadership experience necessarily (they'll still be on your application, just maybe don't spend a lot of time writing about them in your SOP). Schools I applied to emphasized that they wanted applicants with an interest and experience in public health specifically, not even just a medical setting. Your health educator experience would be great for that, and possibly the interviewer position, I can't really tell. That said, work experience is important in public health and your advisor is right that Peace Corps or Americorps would help your application if you're not happy with where you get in. So would finding a research assistant position for a year or two, or finding the most relevant bill-paying job you can and doing relevant volunteer experience during that time. That type of thing can be a huge boost to not-great stats or an irrelevant major. Personally, I don't think private school tuition is worth it in this field because most people are there for professional degrees in a field that is healthy, but not exactly where people go to get rich. My rule of thumb has been not to borrow more than I could reasonably expect to make soon after earning my degree-- say, the average of my first five years working again. Most MPH holders won't be making $90K right after they get out of school. Professional degree holders also benefit a lot from smaller, less known schools having a good reputation in the area they're located-- there's no need to get a Harvard professional degree unless you're in a profession like law where the job market is terrible. That's not true of public health. A public health degree also involves training in valuable skills like statistical analysis where people care a lot more about the skill than where you obtained it (focus on those skills once you get in!). Take a look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports on the types of jobs you want/expect to be qualified for, and maybe do some further research on what a new person in those fields can expect to be making. I also recommend clicking around to the related jobs to see if you will be qualified for and willing to do any of them, as a backup. What is worth it is trying to go to school in the general geographic area you think you'll want to work, especially if you will be going to a smaller school or an unaccredited school (which I'd think twice about unaccredited, but it depends on your career goals). If you don't have a good selection of places you would be willing to go to school and then work, it really might be better to take a year or two off, work or volunteer, and have a totally polished application ready to send wherever you want for a later application cycle. University of Iowa is one great, affordable public program that I believe is still accepting applications through June. Best of luck!

I got stuff together and filled out a lot of basic information right when SOPHAS opened in September, and asked my references as soon as I could after that-- I didn't want to ask them unless I could immediately email the link when they said yes. After that I really procrastinated about writing SOPs. Most of mine were turned in within a week of the deadline for my school, maybe a week and a half by the last school when I had my process down better.

I also think it makes a big difference how your mentor feels about it. Is your mentor happy with your progress and can you expect a strong LOR from them? Are they maybe not over the moon but feel that your progress is normal? Obviously they've kept you in their lab for a year and continue to work with you, which should count for something. (I don't know how it works for science students working in a lab in their field, but as an undergrad I did research outside my field that I picked up on the job board, and I totally could have been fired without anyone worrying they were hurting me academically. So IME when people kept working with students, it was because said students were doing an OK job.)

Many schools I looked at had examples of masters student project titles online, and I'm sure you could ask for them if your school doesn't. For example, people in my field tend to do capstone projects or internships if they're earning a professional degree or use that time to write a thesis or report if they're planning on doing research, so titles of student projects cleared up a lot about how people got to spend their time. Schools that offer all those options need to be prepared to answer questions about what a masters student typically does, how many finish in time, etc. (And that should tell you something if they can't answer-- but I bet they can.) Even without an advisor picked out, there should be someone in a student coordinator position or even the admissions contact who can answer a question like this since it's a big part of your decision. Since it sounds like you don't have a potential advisor yet, you should also ask about how students in your program find them. That can really affect how quickly you're able to get started, or at least focus your class reading.

I use a combination of handwritten notes and Zotero. I actually prefer to hand-write all my notes, but if I'm reading a PDF on my computer anyway I accept that that's slow and silly and use Zotero's notes field. For my handwritten notes, I use the full citation as the header and write the page I was on when writing the note in the margin. I use a different color for quotations and, if I'm reading something more theoretical, I'll use another color to differentiate paraphrasing/summarizing the paper from my own reaction. Either way, I type a few keywords into Zotero as tags as I go. I find that physically writing notes helps me remember things-- that's why I do it-- so it doesn't confuse me to split things up this way. Also, it's kind of obvious if I go into a citation and see that I don't have Zotero notes for something, yet somehow knew how to tag it.

Musicals. And Clarke's in Chicago. Clarke's is disgusting.

This is definitely a YMMV thing, because everyone I know keeps their computer a long time and shops with the goal of at least having that as an option. However, I also think people going into masters programs should definitely plan on getting something they could use for a long time, because most of us don't know if we will have an income or what it will be. Sure, we might know the answer to that in 2 years for a nice quick upgrade, but I doubt most people would want their computer limping to the finish line when they're writing their thesis. Even in a 4-year time period, I'd rather spend $700 once than $500 twice.

I think you should have someone look this over for grammatical errors. There are several here, and they're not serious but there are definitely too many. I'd recommend having someone look it over now for the big stuff, and then one more time before you submit it-- minimum. Other people will catch things that you don't. Hopefully someone in stats can chime in, but I'm not sure you need variable names in your statement. Other than that, I like your description of the class project you did and what part you were responsible for (so important!), but I think you need to make it clearer why you're telling this story. Do you want to use those specific methods again, or is this a particularly good demonstration of the skills you already have in statistics, or...? It's OK to be explicit about why you're about to share this anecdote. For example, a project in my SOP was introduced with "One of my earliest opportunities to help with study design was in a retrospective project whose principles I believe I could apply at [school]." You have several sentences like this one: Stock market is one of area to empoly large numbers of analysts for marketing trends, economic data, stock price data and etc. That should be either cut or changed. Your readers are experts in statistics; they already know what the applications of the field are, so you shouldn't tell them. It's more effective to say that you're interested in these applications, or plan to use them in your career, or have experience using them, or whatever. Also, don't end lists vaguely with "etc.", list exactly and only the topics you're actually interested in. You should spend much more time talking about your internships and research interests, even if if means you have to cut talking about your class projects. These are so important I'd even suggest you might want to talk about your realization "that statistic played an significant role to helpe me summarize and analysze data in these jobs." in your introduction. The story about your family background is so interesting, but your paragraph about your work experience connects much better to your stated career goals throughout your statement. Finally, you should work in some interest in the school throughout your statement rather than just at the end. If there are specific research or work groups where you'd fit in well, internship programs you'd be qualified for (in fact, your interest in an actuary internship isn't that relevant to mention unless the school does offer that), or other shared facilities in addition to the Statistical Computing Facility, those would be good things to mention throughout the statement. For example, when you talk about your project on parent perceptions, you could mention whether that makes you interested in a research group's work that is similar or whether a resource at the school would help you do something similar, but better. I hope this helps! You sound like you have a lot to offer a stats program, now you just need to showcase it.

I agree, there are actually some good deals out there on computers with those specs. I just advised my aunt on one similar to that, but she wanted something much bigger-- like 17"-- because it's a desktop replacement. But I was surprised at the deal she was able to find on that, she ended up not really needing my help. What I saw during my own computer buying was that many "sale" laptops were actually just hiding the discount in an old processor with a name that disguised the fact-- for example, an i7 in an ad that doesn't mention what generation it is. I'd recommend anyone who's not 100% sure what they want to choose their computer online where they can just check out those components and know if they're looking at a good deal or not (I used Notebook Check for that). I found mine by filtering for the size and processor I wanted, then sorting by price. You could also get your computer fund together, follow sales, google the processor, then pounce.