I know that epi is a quant heavy field but in Health services research I applied for quantitative streams/tracks/concentrations/cognates, or whatever you want to call them, with a Quant score in the 59% percentile and got into a couple of schools still. I took a lot of quant classes that I did very well in and the rest of my app was solid. So I’m not sure if you only applied to top programs, or if epi is just very different, but when I talked to program directors about GRE they said that they weigh other parts of the app more heavily and look at the kind of classes you took to balance out the Quant part of the GRE because they realize it’s not a great metric.
Are you sure that the GRE is the only sticking point? I knew someone who applied last year and she didn’t get in to any PhD programs and one of the program directors basically told her that one of her letters of rec sabotaged her. It was not explicitly bad, but it really wasn’t great and there was a lot to read between the lines if you will.
Just something to think about
HopefulHPM2018 got a reaction from 20th_Century_Boy in PhD applicants: Fall 2018