The importance of math in getting into a graduate program in Epi?

[greeneyes1]

I will be applying this fall for graduate programs in epidemiology. I graduated in May 2009 with a B.A. in psychology with minors in biology and writing. I took a graduate class in the spring of 2010 - Epidemiology and Biostatistics and received an A.

 

I have several years of clinical experience and am now a research assistant at a hospital established research center.

 

In college I didn't place much emphasis on taking math courses. I took pre-calc the semester I got sick and got a c  

Now I'm worried it's going to hurt my chances on getting in, not only did I get a C, but also that i haven't taken calculus. 

 

One of the researchers I work with told me not to worry about taking calc, and just to study for the GRE's which she thinks is more important, and that she never took calc in college. However her background (PhD in clincial psych) is not the field I am going into (public health).

 

Thoughts? Am I worrying to much about something that isn't going to really matter?

 

 

[MammaD]

I can only speak for my experience, which is that I have been told throughout my MPH and while I was applying to an Epi program that they do want to know you have quantitative chops. I was told to get 70th percentile or better on the Quant GRE. Maybe in your statement of purpose you can say how much you enjoyed the quantitative parts of the Epi/biostats class you did so well in.

[BoilerEpi]

There are few pre-recs for epi programs and public health programs in general, but one of the few I've ever seen is two semesters of calc. Although GREs are probably more important, most of them do expect that u will come in with calc or may even require that u take it once u are admitted.

[mpheels]

Have you had a statistics class? How did you do? I think statistics ability would have far more bearing that pre-calc or calculus. I also think a strong GRE could make up for less than stellar undergraduate math. Epi is a quantitative science, but the math you do by hand is pretty basic. Any advanced math goes through a statistic program.

[greeneyes1]

I have take psych methods, and research methods classes ad received Bs. Psych methods was very statistics based. 

 

i'm also wondering whether it's worth it or not to at least re-take the pre-calc class.