centurysun
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Posts posted by centurysun
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Hi Everyone,
this is my first post, so here goes...
I am not sure whether to apply for a masters or PhD in public health. I am very interested in public health research, which is why I'd like to earn a PhD. However, before this semester, I was only looking at masters programs in public health. As a senior, I am worried that it is too late to begin looking at PhD programs. Also, I am not satisfied with my GRE score, 700Q 580V still waiting for AW, and would like to retake it. I rescheduled the exam for Nov; if I decide to apply for PhD programs, I would most likely need to reschedule for an earlier date.
In addition, I am not confident that I would make a strong applicant for a PhD program, I may want to apply to for a masters to gain some credentials. Would admission boards frown upon an applicant who has requested information for both the PhD and masters programs at that school?
I am also interested in public health. But I am an international student, and I find that it is more difficult for international students to apply to the schools,and apply for some sort of finicial aid. My GRE is 800Q, 620V, 4.0AW. I don`t if it is competitive.
My university here in my country is not a famous one, and my research experience is not good enough, so I am also thinking of the same question: Master or PhD?
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I'm ready to update, now that I've done a little research. The following is my list of schools that are CEPH that have either a certificate, specialization, or stated mission in health disparities.
Columbia (New York City)
OHSU (online/Portland, OR)
University of Pittsburgh
Morehouse (Atlanta)
New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, NM)
Eastern Carolina University (Greeneville, NC)
Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica (Cuernavaca, Mexico)
This is not my list of places to apply per se, but if anyone has opinions or experiences with any of these institutions please let me know.
Most of the schools you choose are also well-known in my country.
BTW, does Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica teach in English?
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I am also in this situation. I am so angry about having to pay almost $200 dollars to 'convert' my grades when I am already paying the universities an application fee! Ridiculous
In addition, it is also very inconvenient. I have also to send my transcripts to some agencies before sending to WES, as what WES requires.
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Hi
I am an international student, and some graduate schools I am interested in requires me to send transcripts to WES(World Education Services) to be evaluated. And how many schools do you know that such evaluations are required?
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Berkeley's Diversity Outreach Office has some great tips on their websites for writing SOPs and other parts of grad school applications. It's a really great resource for anyone who's applying to grad school, especially for those in the social sciences and humanities.
If you plan on applying for the 2010-2011 season, check it out!
http://ls.berkeley.e...tatement-1.html
You are an American in Beijing? I am a Chinese student, but not in Beijing.
As a Chinese student, it is more difficult to apply to American schools, because the application to Chinese ones is totally different and we are lack of experience of the American way of applying to schools. What`s more, it is not easy to write a perfect SOP in English which is not our native tongue. So I think that webiste of Berkeley's Diversity Outreach Office is helpful.
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I found this forum because I've recently had several students ask me if I would write them a letter of rec. for grad programs that they want to apply to in the Fall. When I got into conversations with these students about the application process, a few them mentioned that they've been reading gradcafe for advice/ideas which is great. Wish I knew about it/it existed when I was applying
I'm actually a fifth year grad student and last year I started teaching my own class--I think because of my slightly relaxed demeanor and younger age students felt comfortable approaching me during office hours and now I have the perhaps problem of too many letters to write. Incidentally, I told all of the students that I would be their back-up letter if they couldn't get 3 faculty members to write for them (just because my letter may not carry all of the esteem of a tenured faculty since I'm still just a doctoral candidate). Nonetheless, I'm not sure how much this may really matter for some types of programs.
But, the point of this post, is that I just wanted to give my 2 cents about this whole "fit" issue. This is what I told my students, and perhaps it may be helpful for others.
Now there are sorts of reasons to apply to highly-esteemed programs given the name branding of certain schools (look mom, I have a PhD from Wisconsin/Harvard) but talking to a couple of students they seemed somewhat confused about this whole "fit" issue when it comes to choosing a school. Some things to consider, from my point of view:
1.) When you're applying to a PhD program, you're applying less to study sociology or even study a particular issue, but rather to learn and do RESEARCH
2.) Given that, what kind of RESEARCH broadly do you think you might be interested in doing yourself--and devoting big chunks of your life doing (what kind of research activities do you see yourself enjoying)
3.) What are the empirical projects and questions do you see yourself interrogating
4.) How will the faculty in said department help you in becoming this supposed future researcher that you envision for yourself
This is naturally difficult I think for students mainly because many undergrad programs give them very little experience in the way of reading and doing research (like actually going through soc journals or talking about the leading areas of research). At least in our school, undergrads may have a methods course or an honor thesis seminar but most have little experience going through journals and thinking about current studies. The problem is worse in sociology because we write in a very dry and off-putting language in our top journals, I feel. Graduate school is almost about learning the language and style that goes into reading/submitting something to a specific journal. Sociologists also define their interest areas with some rather broad strokes. "I'm interested in stratification" the life course, marriage, Gender and so forth. Consequently searching for your niche program can be a little alienating because it's hard to get a sense of faculty interests/expertise.
My advice:
1.) I bet most programs know this, and don't expect applicants to know their exact dissertation interests--so don't beat yourself up if you feel you don't have an area/topic of research that you have feel 100% about
2.) However, most programs will gauge your research abilities for being able to identify the DEPARTMENT'S RESEARCH areas (can they go to our webpage and figure out our key areas)
3.) Consequently you will need to frame what you think may be your research interests in terms of these key strengths of the department (specify your interests a little bit more forceful, though)
4.) And lastly...
If you have time on hand (maybe you have a year or a couple of months before applying) skimming current journals may be a good way to go to get a feel of the land, but more importantly get a sense of what you may like doing. But like I said, sociologists write in these journals in a very dry style. So I've been also recommending my students to check out magazine like Contexts or Psychology Today as well as blogs/podcasts/forums that report on recent research in an accesiable way. Contexts has this research discovery section for instance that is very good and they post some of these online http://contexts.org/discoveries/ (search the tags for topics you like).
Another good place to check out is http://thesocietypages.org/ (the blogs are decent, and check out their podcasts--good especially for long runs)
Social Psych. Quarterly, if you have access, also has articles in condensed format that is pretty nice,
The ASA site itself has good stuff to check out. Do people know of others?
My point here is just to get yourself a bit more familiar with the world of "Current Research" before applying to programs. That way you're search for a niche will feel a little bit more genuine. Alright back to grading
Your post is really helpful, although i do not learn sociology.
I am an international student, learning medicine now and hoping to further my education in America. As an international student, I know less about how the addmission commitee and professors of certain programs think or how they will evalutate my personal statement and CV.
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to put any awards in my statement can't hurt
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I am in the very, very early stages of looking for an MPH program that suites my needs. I am currently working as a rural community health nurse covering family planning, STD's, epi response, immunizations, TB, and harm reduction/needle exchange.
The two most important things are
1) that the school have a strong social mission
2) that practicums or internships are a supported part of the program.
I'm looking to public health to expand my skills, understanding, and perspective a bit, but I don't have my heart set on a particular track. For now, I'm not looking specifically for dual degree programs with nursing. Ivy league is not a priority (as my mother always says "its not where you go, its what you do when you get there!").
Suggestions?
Hello, I am an international student who is interested in some public health programs.
It seems that a lot of students like you and me are confused sometimes when trying to find a certain program or track which suits the needs most. And it is hard to tell if one really loves something very much unless he/she really begins to do it.
to have a strong social mission and practicum/internships is important, because the public health, medicine, and other fields that are closely related to human health require, to some extent, practice.
About Ivy league, if you really want to be there, why not give it a try.If you do not, try some other schools.
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I don't know about medical schools specifically, but I have read that in general, in the USA, when the admission committee has not heard of a particular university, or if that university is somewhat low-ranked, then the admission committee puts more emphasis on the applicant's full picture, particularly the research and the GRE scores.
I have no idea why not many students in your university may not want to study abroad. Possibly they think they cannot get into universities outside China? Or maybe they just want to remain near home and family, and that is certainly understandable.
What is important though CenturySun, is not what your fellow students do; what is important is what you want to do. If you choose to take "the road less traveled" (from an American poet, I forget his name), then you should travel that road with all your will and ambition and fortitude.
Good luck to you.
Regarding UMAB, a friend of mine is a nurse-practitioner who earned her certification from UMAB; she says it's a wonderful and friendly place.
Cheers,
John
I know "the road less traveled", and I think it is true that I should make my own decision now, regardless of what other people around me think.. The reasons why not many students in my university want to study abroad are:1.many of them are not good at English at all; 2. a large portion of students are from nearby cities,counties, villages in this province, where people are lack of the awareness of the globalization and the importance of gaining experience in other countries/cultures.
the admission committee puts more emphasis on the applicant's full picture, particularly the research and the GRE scores？ So here is the problem for me: I don`t think my research experience is competitive, because we student who are trying to gain a bachelor of medicine mostly focus on the clinical side of medicine instead of the research in labs. Even though I am better than many of my classmates in terms of research experience, it is still less competitive when I have to compete with applicants all around the world.
I think some sort of interdisciplinary biomedical programs may be better for me, because it emphasize less in a particular field of research at the first year and that`s just what I need----to gain more experience through lab rotations and find more about what I love most.
About the ranking here in China: As far as I know, there are at least 140 medical medical schools(I think there must be more), and mine ranks about 30(it varies from 23 to 37 in different years). And only some departments/disciplines(not many) ranks top 10 in China.
I will definitely choose UMAB. And I have sent E-mails to UMAB and got repies. I am encouraged to apply to their programs which I am interested in.
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It's always a good idea to have a couple of backup schools, certainly. But from what you've described, if you apply to 10 top-20 schools, you'll be admitted to at least 2 or 3 of them, I would think.
In my own immediate geographic area (Washington, DC), I think you'd have a good chance at getting into George Washington University or the University of Maryland at Baltimore ("UMAB" where the medical school is located) ... also, there is a large Chinese community in Washington, DC, as you may or may not know. The top two medical schools in this geographic area, Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University, are both notoriously hard to get into, especially for people who live around here ... so, since you are not somebody who lives near here, you might give them a shot too.
UMAB is on my list. And I will check George Washington University later.
As I said, I worry that it will not be a plus that the university I am studying in now here in China is not a very good or famous one. What do you think of that? My university`s ranking is only about 25 to 30 among Chinese medical schools. And there are not many students in my university who are willing to study abroad, compared with students in some other top universities/medical schools in China.
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centurysun: I agree. I myself thought as I was reading your post, "Now here is a fellow who really wants to succeed."
I agree with this too. You never know. The reason I felt I had to say that the very topmost universities would be difficult is: there are people who come in here with absolutely no idea how difficult it is to get into those top 4 or 5 universities; those people simply aren't aware that for every one person accepted into the very topmost universities, 10 or 20 more very bright and qualified people are rejected every year.
But definitely try for one or two top-20 universities, especially those whose departments seem to match your own interests most closely.
I am also considering of applying to a few between 100 and 200.
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That sounds like a good plan. I think the fact that you are doing experiments on your own will help you as it shows your initiative - admissions committees love that. Definitely apply to a couple top 20 programs in addition to those in the 50-100 range you apply to. You never know if you'll get in unless you try, so give it your best shot!
The experiment which I did for about half a year in the lab was under the guidance of a professor who runs the lab. I was the the leader of a student group (only 4 students in my group). However, we didn`t have any articles related to the experiment published.
And in the other two labs I went to, I didn`t do much things: Just helped take some brain samples from anmial models.
In the research with the publich health professor, I am also the group leader, and 4 other students are with me. I made the whole questionnaire, from the beginning to the end, and the professor helped modified it. A student in my group helped a lot in distributing the questionnaire and then got them back.
And I also did a meta-analysis during vacation with a good friend,and have one article published in a Chinese journal, but it can not be searched in PubMed or other international databases. Do you think this article(only title, abstract, keywords of it are in both English and Chinese) will be helpfu if I sent it to the admissions committees or professors who I want to contact ?
By the way, I am now an intern in hospital, so I don`t think I will have a lot of time to do things in lab or some sort of research, but I will try to go to some labs after work if possible.
I hope those research experience will be helpful.
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A Verbal 620 and Quant 800 are both very good scores and most native Americans would be perfectly happy with those scores. The AW 4.0 is a little low but most universities don't use that score anyway; they rely on writing samples and statements of purpose.
You didn't say which U.S. schools you want to attend. I would say that the very top-tier universities (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford) are probably out of reach for you; but many less famous universities are possible (most state universities, I would think).
When you apply, ask someone to proofread your statement of purpose and any writing samples. Or use a computer with spell-check if you have one! I noticed a number of spelling errors and some grammatical errors in your post.
Good luck!
John
Thank you, John.
Of course I will use the spell-check for writing samples and statement of purppose.I also want to have them proofread by some native speakers, but I don` t know any Americans or other native speakers.
I am thinking of top 50 to 100 universities in American universities, which I will have more chances to get an offer. And to try a few better universities(just a few) won`t do anything harmful. What do you think?
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Your GRE score is plenty competitive. Remember though that your GRE score is only a small part of your application. What is your field?
I am a Chinese medical student in the final stages of obtaining my degree as a Bachelor of Medicine.
I am interested in Phd programs in biomedical sciences and public health in USA.
In my school, we haven`t initatite any kind of evaluations like GPA. Now our academic scores are still based on a 100-scale. And my avearge score is about 85.
I only have three articles(2 are reviews, one is a meta-analysis) pubished in Chinese Journals. I am lack of research experience, because the degree I will obatin does not require a lot of skills in lab or any kind of research field. So far, I only did one experiment in a lab in my school for about half a year, and mostly doing experiments after class(not full-time in lab), and went to another two lab for a few days (did not do much work in those two). I am now doing a research with a publich health professor, and just got back the questionaires, but didn`t put the data into computer for further analysis.
I got sort of awards or schoolarship every year. And I will probably get a sort of award( a province-level) next term for writing a report on a field research in some rural areas(it is a summer program for undergraduates). I was a volunteer in the hospital which is affilaited to my university when they admitted some wounded in 2008 after the eathquake, a nature disaster happened in China, which you probabaly know.
By the way, my university (ranking about 25 to 30 in all chinese medical schools) is not a famous or very good one in China. I doubt whether it will have a negative impacts on my application.
Although I've read the websites of many universities and the program descriptions, as well as the rankings on USNEWS and so on, what I know about US grad schools and their reputation can be limited. So I thought it would be more helpful if I could hear some of your opinions. could you please help me and tell me which university in the USA will be a better choice for me?
Thank you
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My GRE score: V620, Q800, AW 4.0
I am not sure if my GRE is competitive or not. I thought it would be more helpful if I could hear some of your opinions.
Thank you.
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Hello, everyone.
I am a Chinese medical student in the final stages of obtaining my degree as a Bachelor of Medicine.
I am interested in Phd programs in public health in USA. However, I don`t know much which school I should apply to.
My GRE score: V620, Q800, AW 4.0
In my school, we haven`t initatite any kind of evaluations like GPA. Now our academic scores are still based on a 100-scale. And my avearge score is about 85.
I only have three articles(2 are reviews, one is a meta-analysis) pubished in Chinese Journals. I am lack of research experience, because the degree I will obatin does not require a lot of skills in lab or any kind of research field. So far, I only did one experiment in a lab in my school for about half a year, and mostly doing experiments after class(not full-time in lab), and went to another two lab for a few days (did not do much work in those two). I am now doing a research with a publich health professor, and just got back the questionaires, but didn`t put the data into computer for further analysis.
I got sort of awards or schoolarship every year. And I will probably get a sort of award( a province-level) next term for writing a report on a field research in some rural areas(it is a summer program for undergraduates). I was a volunteer in the hospital which is affilaited to my university when they admitted some wounded in 2008 after the eathquake, a nature disaster happened in China, which you probabaly know.
By the way, my university (ranking about 25 to 30 among all Chinese medical schools) is not a famous or very good one in China. I doubt whether it will have a negative impacts on my application.
Although I've read the websites of many universities and the program descriptions, as well as the rankings on USNEWS and so on, what I know about US grad schools and their reputation can be limited. So I thought it would be more helpful if I could hear some of your opinions. could you please help me and tell me which university in the USA will be a better choice for me?
Thank you
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I know in Canada, 7% of undergraduate students are internationals, while 15-20% of graduate students are internationals, but be reassured, we don't have quotas. How hard it is....I am not sure because I am not an international student, but I have lots of friends who are and mainly they said it is a lot of paperwork. You should get to it as soon as possible. Usually, university web sites have all the informations on how to proceed for an international student.
We have few scholarship available for international students
Finally apparently, it is cheaper to study in Canada, when compare to USA, even when you pay fees for internationals
maybe visit this website for general information http://www.internati...ntry/canada.htm
If by america you meant only united states... I can't help out
good luck
I am a Chinese student who is thinking of futhering my education abroad and obtaining a Phd. But the finicial support such as scholarship is necessary for me. Do you think I still have some chances to get any kind of finicial supports if I apply to schools in Canada？
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LOL:lol:
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Hello, everyone.
I am a Chinese medical student in the final stages of obtaining my degree as a Bachelor of Medicine.
I am interested in Phd programs in biomedical sciences and public health in USA. However, I don`t know much which school I should apply to, in order to get an offer.
My GRE score: V620, Q800, AW 4.0
In my school, we haven`t initatite any kind of evaluations like GPA. Now our academic scores are still based on a 100-scale. And my avearge score is about 85.
I only have three articles(2 are reviews, one is a meta-analysis) pubished in Chinese Journals. I am lack of research experience, because the degree I will obatin does not require a lot of skills in lab or any kind of research field. So far, I only did one experiment in a lab in my school for about half a year, and mostly doing experiments after class(not full-time in lab), and went to another two lab for a few days (did not do much work in those two). I am now doing a research with a publich health professor, and just got back the questionaires, but didn`t put the data into computer for further analysis.
I got sort of awards or schoolarship every year. And I will probably get a sort of award( a province-level) next term for writing a report on a field research in some rural areas(it is a summer program for undergraduates). I was a volunteer in the hospital which is affilaited to my university when they admitted some wounded in 2008 after the eathquake, a nature disaster happened in China, which you probabaly know.
By the way, my university (ranking about 25 to 30 in all chinese medical schools) is not a famous or very good one in China. I doubt whether it will have a negative impacts on my application.
Although I've read the websites of many universities and the program descriptions, as well as the rankings on USNEWS and so on, what I know about US grad schools and their reputation can be limited. So I thought it would be more helpful if I could hear some of your opinions. could you please help me and tell me which university in the USA will be a better choice for me?
Thank you
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Kyjin:
I am a Chinese student who took GRE this year.
In some countries in Asia, the GRE is a split exam, whose Quantitive and Verbal parts are paper-based and we can only take it twice a year----in June or October. However, the new type of GRE will be used next year after June,2011.
To know more , I think you can check it out on ETS website.
Mentioning low AW GRE score in the SOP
in Statement of Purpose, Personal History, Diversity
Posted
my AW is only a little bit higher than yours.