Low GPA

[abigaill93]

Hello yall, 

I am planning to apply to MPH programs (interested in epidemiology or behavioral sciences, not exactly sure yet but leaning more towards epi) in either 2017 or 2018 and was wondering what kind of advice any of you had for applicants with a low GPA. I graduated this past June 2015 with a whopping 2.9 in Sociology & Chicano Studies from a top 10 public university due to mental health issues throughout all of undergrad. I did have 3 quarters my junior year where my grades improved a bit and my GPA was rising but it dropped again when I got bad   I had a career change so most of the stuff I did during college is related to education and child development. My STEM background is limited to one quarter of general chemistry and lab (C- in both, yikes!), B in two quarters in "easy" Calculus, an A- in Statistics for Communications and a B- in a global change biology class. 

I'm planning on taking several science and math courses at a local community college and hopefully save up money to take a couple of grad courses at a nearby university with an accredited public health program. I'm currently a blood drive volunteer with the American Red Cross and am planning on becoming a volunteer at our local community health center and possibly the public health department in disease control in my county. I'm currently on the job hunt (the struggle is so real lol) but from the looks of it I doubt I'll be able to get anything related to public health. 

So my questions are:

1) Do I even have a chance to get into an epidemiology program? I've read and heard that they tend to be harder to get into. 

2) Would a good GRE score (160+) outweigh a low GPA? 

3) Would my limited and not that great quantitative background be a drawback if I end up doing epi? 

4) How bad does a No Pass look? It's not calculated into my GPA but it's still there on my transcript.

5) What schools should I realistically look into? I'd prefer to stay in state (California) but I'm not ruling out schools and programs that are out of state. 

6) When schools review your application do they look at the SOPHAS GPA or the one on your transcript? For example if SOPHAS bumps up my GPA to above a 3.0 will I be tossed away (because of my sub 3.0 GPA) from places that have a 3.0 requirement? 

Sorry it's so long but I just want to be ready and know what to do during my gap years. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated  

[Jade355]

Hi, I finished my MPH in epidemiology last year. I will try to answer your questions below. Hope this helps!

1. Yes, just make sure to apply broadly and see what happens.

2. I think this depends on the school, but high V and Q scores on the GRE could definitely save your life if your GPA is on the low side (<3.3). I personally think any score above 75 percentile (157V/159Q) is very competitive. I am not sure how much epi programs care about the writing score. I did poorly in the writing section (4.0) and was accepted at every place I applied to.

3. Epidemiology is heavily statistics dependent. It is definitely helpful to know some statistics going into the program. However, some of my colleagues who did not have any statistics background ended up doing very well. Do not worry too much about it at this stage.

4. Is "No Pass" same as "Withdraw"? In that case, it should be okay. If it is an equivalent of "Fail", then you may want to include an explanation along with your application.

5. PM me on this issue. I do not want to name specific schools here as it could start a controversy.

6. Schools almost exclusively look at your SOPHAS GPA. Some schools look at specific GPAs (example: Science GPA)