Search the Community

For those that have been admitted/attend the University of Arizona, what are the typical # of funding offers? The coordinators have said they won't know how many assistantships they can offer until the know how much funding the department receives from the Graduate college at UofA (no timeline given on when they will hear). Dr. Alt mentioned that out of state students typically receive more funding help than in state students, due to the higher tuition rates, but not knowing anything about financial award is a little scary when trying to decide between programs. For those that attend, are funding offers common/uncommon? Also if any UofA students see this and would like to give your opinion on the program that would be greatly appreciated as well.

Hey everyone. I applied to the following MPH programs: University of Alberta, University of Saskatchewan, Lakehead and SFU. I've heard back from Saskatchewan so far (yay!) I have a BSc in Global Health. My goal is to work in Health Promotion. I'd like to have temporary placements in different parts of the world (esp. Latin America), but my permanent goal is to work in Northern Canada (I'm from ON, but I currently live in NWT). Could you share some thoughts on these different programs? UofA: specialization on Health Promotion. Saskatchewan: seems great, doesn't focus specifically on Health Promotion but I like the variety of courses (everything from Environmental PH to PH policy...). Lakehead: specialization on Indigenous and Northern Health. SFU: to be honest I don't know much about it. I applied because friends from BC highly recommended it ("It's the Harvard of the West Coast!") ---- Also, could someone clarify this from Saskatchewan: "The School of Public Health has reviewed your application and has recommended you for admission to the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (CGPS), which is the formal granting body for admissions. Once you accept your seat to the program, we send your information to CGPS for final review. From there, if they believe the student is a suitable candidate, they will send an official letter of acceptance via email and the student will be required to officially accept their seat via an online portal (PAWS). Admission may be revoked if students do not meet the criteria that CGPS has laid out in the official letter of acceptance. The deadline to accept your seat is March 1, 2019. " How does that work? If I choose Saskatchewan, I'm scared to accept their offer, reject others, and then have their offer revoked and be left with no programs.

I would like to provide some information regarding the reality of getting admitted to top 5 ranked Canadian graduate schools in the Computer Science Program. I work in the field and it appears to me that many applicants are not aware of some of the basic requirements to be admitted that are not overtly stated but definitely required. Unfortunately, I am unable to reveal my university or position as I wish to remain anonymous. Most of the time, you MUST have previous degree from a top school of your country, especially for students with a degree outside of Canada/USA/UK. This is extremely crucial for international students and unless you meet this requirement, it is extremely difficult to be admitted. For most countries, you will need to be in the top 5-10 universities in your country (excluding Canada/US/UK/India). For India, UK, and Canada you will generally need to be in the top 20 universities and for the US, top 50 may be considered, however, top 20 has a greater chance of being admitted. One of the first considerations of the reviewer is the school in which you graduated and how that school ranks in your country. To elaborate, having a degree from a top university is important because this is the only sure way to prove that you are performing well academically because the teaching standard and research caliber of top schools are widely recognized and can easily be compared top Canadian universities. It is impossible for each top Canadian university to understand the teaching, grading and research standard of hundreds of thousands of universities in the world, including many in a foreign language with public and private systems and most reviewers will not dig around for information regarding unknown institutions. For example, there are some universities that give a grade of 75% or above to only one in a few thousand students, whereas another university can have a graduating average of 3.7 GPA. With variations like these, unless you graduated from a top university in your country where the general grading trend and teaching quality is recognized by the Canadian school, your chances of admission are slim to none. Furthermore, the other reason a top university is important is that reviewers want to see reference letters from colleagues or faculty they know and value the opinions of. Since most top researchers in Computer Science meet in major conferences, presentations and events around the world, they are aware of each other’s work, reputation and standards when writing and reading reference letters. Most of these outstanding members of the academic community are also positioned in top schools coinciding with the reviewer’s search applications from top schools. The top Canadian graduate programs in Computer Science receive over 1000 and sometimes even over 2000 applications per year, with three reference letters per application this is an astronomical number of letters to read. Taking this number into account, while the content of reference letters matter, the respectability of the reference writer is arguably even more important. For example, a reviewer reading 100 applications a day would have to read 300 reference letters, 100 of them may indicate that the student is in the top 10% of their program. In the end, being top 10% may not mean anything because there are too many top 10%s and it does not indicate the quality of the student or education. Moreover, there have been examples where the same reference writer indicated that three different students from the same year and class were the number one student in their class. In cases like these, reviewers go back to looking at the top universities, since the caliber of education is known, and they may know the reference writers, therefore, ensuring the letter is reliable. If you believe that there are many exceptions to the rule, consider that the admission data from the previous year from one of the top Canadians schools: only TWO offers out of more than 100 offers made were outside of the guidelines above. Of course, an excellent statement, GPA, reference letters, GRE, and English proficiency are also required even from a top university. Moreover, other factors such as publications, conference experience, research projects and work experience, other achievements are also considered, however, if you do not meet the top university requirement, you will likely need astounding achievements in the other factors to even be considered for admission. The information provided refers to research Master’s and PhD programs in top Canadian universities and does not necessarily reflect industry targeted master’s programs in Computer Science. I am happy to answer any questions or clarify any points, feel free to contact me or respond to this post.

I saw that people are getting notices from University of Arizona- do they release in waves or should I be concerned if I haven't heard anything yet. Anyone in the same boat?

Hi everyone, I'm considering applying into the University of Alberta for Environmental and Occupational Health. For those who were admitted into the program what was your GPA? I'm just trying to understand what the competitive average is. Also, did you come straight from undergrad or did you work for a few years?

Hello there! I've just accepted University of Arizona's offer for the PhD SLAT program beginning in Fall 2017. I'll be moving there in July or August and it'd be great to know some familiar names before I get there. Who else is accepting?

Hi All, I posted the following questions in another location but I figured this would be a more fitting place (i'm new here). In addition maybe we could all post our stats so we know what our future cohort is looking like! __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Hello! Im currently just in my last year, finishing my undergrad. Once I graduate I hope to attend a school in western Canada to get my MPH or MSc with a public health/health focus. I've heard that MPH programs in Canada are insanely competitive and i'm getting concerned at my chances of getting in. My choice school is UBC followed by SFU and lastly U of A. I've talked to UBC and SFU about average ages and GPAs/average grades of the most recent cohorts (an A- and 3.66 respectively) so i'm curious how these programs can be SO competitive with rather meh (if I can say that) average grades, how much do they consider grades... can my GPA make up for my lack of experience? My stats are as follows: -Bachelor of Nursing, GPA 3.90 (i've done a lot of my practicum in community settings with focuses on immigrant/ community health) -Various Research Assistantships with areas of research focusing on health experiences/nursing/health care utilization focuses -I volunteer in the hospital -Worked consistently throughout my undergrad (in an unrelated field albeit, however its brought some concerns regarding social inequity to light for me) -Member of the undergrad nursing committee at my school I feel like I would be able to get fairly good letters of reference and could write a pretty great LOI but i'm so concerned with my chances! If anyone has some insight that has been accepted or is in the process I would greatly appreciate it. Additionally if anyone has insight into UBC's MASTER OF SCIENCE IN POPULATION AND PUBLIC HEALTH (MSC) vs. their MPH as far as how competitive it is pros/cons I would greatly appreciate it! If anyone had advice to up my chances of getting in I would really appreciate that as well Thanks in advance Cheers!

Hi All Im applying for an MPH at the following universities: 1. population health at UBC 2. health promotion at UofT 3. Health policy at UofA 4. mph at SFU My specs: I graduated form Queen's University in biology with a 3.7 GPA in the last two years and overal cGPA of a 3.0. I have some volunteer experience in health but no professional designation. I took a year off but worked in a bank, so completely unrelated. Im wondering what people are applying for and what their specs are. Lets get this thread going!