Sekai

Got an offer from Western today. They sent multiple emails including one with the letter of offer. I've already accepted my offer from SFU last week, so I declined. Speaking of, if anyone else has also accepted SFU's offer, let me know so I can add you to our ongoing group message. Also received an email from Waterloo explaining most of their staff are working remotely and they're trying to get through the applications as soon as possible.

Sure sure, like a couple other others have already mentioned, I am also not huge on pigeon-holing myself in one specific area of Public Health with UofA's program with their specific streams. If you're set on studying a specific topic, then UofA is great for that. I know they're excellent for Health Policy, for example. I didn't want to move out of province for school, so that was an easy decision. UBC's program (from my discussion with other UBC MPH alumni and just looking at their core curriculum) is quite heavy on biostats/epi/quantitative analysis, which I don't know if I'll enjoy and see myself pursuing as a career path in, but who knows! It's definitely a fundamental aspect in public health, and if you're extremely interested in studying patterns of disease and are a very analytical person, it's a great fit for you! SFU, despite being super surface level with their curriculum, has a well-rounded approach which I appreciate. The capstone is very appealing for me as well, since I want that extra challenge. I'm not super into social justice tbh, but I know SFU is known for health promotion which is more of what I want to do. I also wanted a change of environment since UBC was where I did my undergrad. Some more superficial things: I also received funding and it's a more pleasant commute for me. ? Either way, I wouldn't say one school is better than the other. I've heard from students at different MPH programs that their program was less than perfect. What you put in is what you get out of it! My advice is to talk to alumni/current students (via LinkedIn, email, over messages if you personally know any) to get their thoughts, have a look at the courses offered and the faculty/teaching staff from each program, make a pros/cons chart for each school and that might make things clearer for you! Everyone has their own rationale. Hope this helps

I accepted my offer to SFU this morning, ahh! It wasn't an easy decision. I then turned down UBC, UoA's Health Promo (on-campus) and Guelph's offers. Hopefully that gives others a chance for those schools in the next round. If anyone has decided on SFU as well, please feel free to message me! Would love to chat with future cohort buddies

Thank you!! On the SFU portal, it now shows me 'Application approved' and an 'Accept/Decline' button underneath the table when you click on the Application status button in Step 6.

Hi everyone, just got my acceptance to SFU! Finally, they were really the only school left I was waiting on. Received an email with my letter of admission and have 2 weeks to respond. I'm going to try to decide between UBC or SFU over the next few days (as I need to reply to UBC by April 1st), and I will be declining UoA's Health Promotion and Guelph's offers, so if you've applied for those schools don't lose hope yet!

Thanks so much! I actually posted my profile a couple weeks back.

Update: I just got an offer from Guelph! They sent an email saying to check their portal to view the status. We have until April 13th to accept/decline the offer. Good luck to anyone else who applied! Still waiting on SFU to get back to me before I decide. ⏳

Morning everyone, I just got my acceptance from UoA for the Health Promotion stream (on campus)! They emailed me this morning to check my GSMS and it says I have an offer and must respond by April 18th. So happy as this was the first app I submitted and dreaded writing the super long LOI. Still waiting to hear back from SFU before I make my final decision. Not really intending to wait for the Ontario schools lol.

We have until April 1st to accept, which is not a lot of time considering the other schools probably won't start sending out offers until April at this rate. If SFU does take that long... UBC it is, lol. Heard nothing from UoA or Guelph.

I'm holding off from accepting the offer until I hear back from SFU. All these other schools are taking forever!

Nice, congrats to you as well! Any preference between the two? Thank you! UBC doesn't have MPH concentrations - I believe only UoA and UoT have specific concentrations for their MPH programs. I haven't heard back from UoA yet, I submitted my app in early December for the Health Promotion stream and status still says 'under review' on GSMS. Profile below: - Canadian, BSc in Microbiology & Nutrition; also took a few public health-related courses during undergrad - Final GPA for last 2 years: 4.0/4.33; Stats grade: A- - Volunteered for different clubs throughout undergrad, including some leadership and major-specific clubs, and for a hospital's eating disorders research program for 1.5 years where many patients were a part of a vulnerable population - Worked a government job while I was in undergrad for 3 years, primarily admin type stuff but had some health elements. - Over 2 years of work as a research assistant for a community-based health promotion initiative associated with UBC and a Vancouver hospital - References were my PI (doctor who also holds a MSc in PH), a prof whom I knew well from 2 of my courses, and manager from my gov't job. - My LOI was the bane of my existence, but I worked on it for 2+ months and had 3 different MPH alumni (2 were my coworkers) proofread it, as well as bunch of other non-PH people. I also worked with 2 other UBC MPH students who did their practicum with my organization, so got lots of advice about the program from them. I should mention that it's my 2nd time applying for MPH programs; the first was in 2017 (applied to 5 schools and didn't get into any of them). I definitely recommend having relevant PH experience before you apply as that probably boosted my app, as well as having a well-written LOI. Waiting to hear from: SFU, Guelph, Western and Waterloo. I'll most likely go with a BC-based school because I'm a city girl and won't be able to handle Ontario weather lol.

Hi everyone, I also got accepted into UBC MPH this morning! They emailed me my acceptance. Definitely did not expect to get accepted as I know it’s a pretty popular school, was banking on getting into UofA and SFU (which I’m still waiting to hear from). But UBC was one of my top 2. So elated!! Anybody else have UBC as their top choice?

I also applied to UBC, SFU, and Guelph! As well as Alberta (Health Promotion), Western, and Waterloo. I don't expect to hear back from any of them until mid- to late March.