apex45

I know Brown has a doctoral day to interview candidates from all programs, and I am 90% sure Harvard interviews as well. Not sure about the others.

I have heard nothing from any of the programs I applied to. I am hoping that the next couple weeks are productive for adcoms and we all get some news soon!

I will keep hope alive!! Michigan is one of my top choices. Good luck in advance for your interview day!

Awesome! Does the email indicate if it's for Epi students only or all doctoral applicants? (Trying to determine if I've been silently rejected)

It's time to revive this thread, comrades Sorry you got yeeted bro

Worries: I didn't do enough to reach out to POI before applying. I applied too soon and could have had more accomplishments on my CV if I waited until the deadline. It's been 3 weeks since I applied and no one has contacted me. I keep looking at past posts here and on other forums and comparing my stats to others who have been admitted or rejected from the programs I applied to. I don't stack up well on stats-- my quant GRE is low and my undergrad experience was mediocre. I haven't worked in the field I'm applying to for very long. I'm in a Master's program now, but I just finished my last final for the semester and my thesis. I don't have anything to do over winter break except refresh. those. portals. Ughhhh. I feel like this is my only chance at PhD programs because I'm not going to have the time/resources/support I had this year to go through the whole application process again next year. Excitement: I'm starting a new research project with a research organization outside of my university. So if grad school falls through, I can probably get a job with them?

The schools you picked aren't terribly competitive. Emory is the most competitive of those 3, and even then I don't think your GRE score will be the deciding factor for admission. Health behavior isn't a heavily quantitative field. I wouldn't bother taking them again this late in the application cycle.

Hey all, just checkin in. As of yesterday, I've sent all my applications. I'm applying to just 6 schools... think that's enough? I can't find any other places (1) with faculty that align with my interests and (2) in an area where I think I could live comfortably as a graduate student. It hasn't even been 24 hours, and I'm obsessively refreshing my email and checking old message boards here and elsewhere to try to determine when/if I'll hear back. Waiting season has always been the worst part of applications for me

Posted this elsewhere but thought y'all might have some thoughts too-- Hey, I just took my GREs again and got the same total score as 2 years ago: 323. i went up two points in quant this time (157; 66%) and down two in verbal (166; 97%). i put in considerable quant studying this summer; Magoosh was predicting me at 160-164. do you guys think it's worth a retake? if you used magoosh in the past, was your prediction accurate?

Hey, I just took my GREs again and got the same total score as 2 years ago: 323. i went up two points in quant this time (157; 66%) and down two in verbal (166; 97%). i put in considerable quant studying this summer; Magoosh was predicting me at 160-164. do you guys think it's worth a retake? if you used magoosh in the past, was your prediction accurate? FWIW, I'm applying to public health PhD programs in epidemiology and social/behavioral health. Average quant sore seems to be ~70% for most programs.

My impression is that high quant scores are more important for epi and biostats than most of the other tracks. My target quant score for my upcoming second attempt at the GRE is the 70th percentile, and I'm applying for social/behavioral. But maybe I should be aiming much higher like you. Magoosh is predicting me between 155-160 (59%-76%), so hopefully I can get on the high end of that with a month's more work. Do you feel like you can put in the study time do better on a retake? If so, no harm in trying again.

It sounds to me like you're talking about social or performance anxiety, not just a personality quirk. I thiiiiink you could write an interesting SOP about it if you talk mostly about your professional experiences-- absolutely do not let any reader come away with "this person was a mediocre student in undergrad" as a conclusion. If you take this route-- which is risky and I'm not sure I'd recommend it over a narrative the is wholly positive-- the conclusion should be "this person is an expert communicator with the best interests of the client/product/whatever at heart, and it took a commitment to personal and professional development to become this way"

Do you mean a fee waiver from ETS or a waiver from a program saying you don't have to take it? I haven't found a PhD program that waives the GRE requirement that's not from a for-profit institution, but I haven't looked that hard. As for a fee waiver, the income requirements are quite strict and a bit difficult to prove unless you're still in undergrad. If you are in undergrad, I'd recommend asking someone in the financial aid office to help you with it.

Has anyone seen a good example of a statement from any field in this general category? I am applying to public health programs, but at this point in my exhaustive Googling, I would appreciate reading a successful PhD SOP from someone in sociology, psychology, anthropology, education, etc. My draft is, pretty much garbage at this point. I am struggling with some major components: length, voice, and scope. The example SOPs I have found are either from humanities, hard sciences, or med school, and while they're semi-instructive, I think reading a discipline-specific one would be more useful. I'd be happy to exchange with anyone in a related field in a couple weeks. Hopefully my statement will be in a better place then.

I'd appreciate advice on contacting POIs-- when? how many per school? what do I say? do I send a CV or anything else in the email?

I'll be applying. Definitely applying to: Harvard Pop Health Social Behavioral Sciences, Brown Behavioral and Social Sciences, Yale Social Behavioral Sciences (maybe Chronic Disease Epidemiology though), Michigan Health Behavior & Health Education Maybe applying to: Columbia Sociomedical Sciences, Hopkins Social and Behavioral Sciences, Pittsburgh Behavioral Sciences, UT Austin Human Development and Family Sciences (not public health) Currently working on getting my GRE scores up. Here's to the start of a looooong process.

Yeah that's probably normal. Departments are probably more concerned with getting this year's graduating cohort out, grading, and making the May grant deadlines than communicating with incoming students. I would start worrying if it's August and you still haven't heard anything. They'll tell you what you need to know when you need to know it.

Americorps programs can be tricky in their admissions. I'd recommend applying to all that interest you and weighing your options once you get accepted. All of the ones you mentioned would add to an MPH application.

Tufts would offer better networking opportunities since it in is Boston, a major hub for public health. Tulane is a great school for global health and infectious disease epidemiology, but I don't know anything about their nutrition reputation. Tufts has a great reputation for nutrition promotion and community health.

Thanks a lot for the advice everyone. I have some time (not a lot) to study and only need to raise my score 3-4 points to break 70%, so I think I will try to retake in the summer and see what happens. I remember being disappointed with my quant score and expecting better of myself, so maybe raising it isn't outside the realm of possibility. Hopefully my verbal score won't go down... I've always been much stronger in verbal than quant but I wasn't expecting to score that high!

I'm going to apply to PhD programs during the next application cycle. The GRE scores I used for my MPH applications will still be valid-- 98%V 59%Q 98%AWA I am planning to apply to mostly community health and social/behavioral programs. I will have excellent grades from my MPH and a few publications. I will have 2 semesters of biostat, 1 of epi methods using SAS, and plan to be a TA for a biostat class next semester. My undergrad was a long time ago but my GPA was fine. Do you think I need to retake my GRE in hopes of a higher quant score, or would that be a waste of time and money? I'm aiming for programs like Yale, Michigan, and Columbia but haven't made my final list yet. TIA for any advice!