Medical Anthropology After Peace Corps Advice

[Britt32011]

Hi Everyone,

I am hoping to get advice from people who are familiar with anthropology graduate admissions.

I graduated from a state school with a degree in math and a minor in Spanish. I am hoping that people who are more familiar with what anthropology graduate schools are looking for can advice me on how to improve my application. Most of my experience is with physical and life sciences but I have realized that anthropology is my passion.

My stats:

Research: I have 5 years of biology lab assistant experience, 1 year of bioengineering lab experience, one conference paper and presentation for biomath research, and a NFS REU in biomathematics and a top state school.

GPA: My gpa is pretty low (3.3) but most of my low grades are in my upper level math courses and my social science grades are great. I hope to raise this a bit with the classes this fall.

GRE: Verbal: 77%, Math 89%, Writing: 72%

I am part of the way through the Peace Corps Application process. I really would like to apply for graduate school while I am in the Peace Corps so I would like to have my resume and experience ready before hand. I know that an undergrad degree in math is a bit odd for medical anthro graduate school but I do have the biology and medical experience? I am not sure if my application will be great or completely disregarded. Thank you so much!

[Britt32011]

I forgot to mention that I did do a summer study abroad program in Latin America and since then have volunteered as a translator at a medical clinic near my school. I am not sure if this matters or not! Thanks again!

[anthropos]

Britt32011: The key question is what do you want to do with your PhD afterwards? After PeaceCorps, when your graduate training is done, what do you imagine you want to do with that training... what kind of job?

are you thinking academic research faculty? public health interventions through an NGO/not-for-profit? do you want to go into development work with a government agency?

the answer to these questions then leads to thinking whether you want a program with a more applied focus or a more theoretical concentration? do you want to stop with a masters or do you really need a doctoral degree?

Your thoughts about graduate education should not be "what are programs looking for?" unless you have already asked, "what am I looking to get out of a graduate education? how will an advanced degree help me do what I want to do next?"

once you've decided that, and consequently narrowed down your options to a set of school programs that can give you that, you can begin to think about how best to represent yourself in applications to those specific schools.

Another user posted a similary query asking about whether s/he should go to an Ivy or a State school, having been admitted to both.

The answers were unfortunately only about debt versus reputation... but what I thought s/he needed to hear about was the relative strengths of the two different programs, how their graduates have secured funding, what jobs their graduates go on to hold.