PhD applicants: Fall 2018

[hccgrl]

3 hours ago, storm_jonas said:

My SOPHAS application for JHU is still not verified. Last cycle I applied it took 5 business days. Now I'm worried it won't be done by their supporting material deadline of Dec. 19th. Definitely my fault for not getting transcripts submitted earlier, but now I feel powerless.

Anyone have experience with talking to the admissions office in cases where supporting material didn't make it by the deadline? Would they really throw out my application if SOPHAS ends up getting it to them a few days late?

I was worried as well..I sent them an email through sophas asking what's the waiting period for verifications and it was verified in like 1-2 days after the email. This was just like two weeks ago. 

[storm_jonas]

14 hours ago, hccgrl said:

I was worried as well..I sent them an email through sophas asking what's the waiting period for verifications and it was verified in like 1-2 days after the email. This was just like two weeks ago. 

Thanks for the reply. What was your total wait time? 

Edited December 13, 2017 by storm_jonas

[hccgrl]

1 hour ago, storm_jonas said:

Thanks for the reply. What was your total wait time? 

It was only 4 days. Well I submitted Nov 27 12pm and verified Dec 1st 438am. 

 

I was freaking out because last year it took only 1-2 days. my deadline to have sophas and supplemental application this year is Dec 15! And they take about 1 week after.being verified to send the supplemental. So yeah... I was getting impatient and just emailed. 

[storm_jonas]

1 hour ago, hccgrl said:

It was only 4 days. Well I submitted Nov 27 12pm and verified Dec 1st 438am. 

 

I was freaking out because last year it took only 1-2 days. my deadline to have sophas and supplemental application this year is Dec 15! And they take about 1 week after.being verified to send the supplemental. So yeah... I was getting impatient and just emailed. 

Great data point. Thanks.

I did end up reaching out to JHU and SOPHAS and I think I'm in the clear. I also stumbled onto the JHU Admissions Blog (https://www.jhsph.edu/admissions/admissions-blog/what-you-ve-been-asking-sophas-verification#comments) and it seems like they'll review the application even if verification takes longer than the supporting materials deadline. That's a big weight off my shoulders.

Anyway good luck everyone!

[linnbear]

Hello all! I just joined the forum. It's been a few years since I've followed a forum like this. Can't believe I just finished my 3rd round of applications for higher education (bachelors, masters, and now PhD). 

• Undergrad Institution: One of the UCs
• Major: Public Health and Psychology (double major)
• Minor(s): N/A
• GPA: 3.1-3.2 (Explained this in a supplement. my GPA was in the mid 3.0s until the quarter/semester I studied abroad. Long story short- was told classes would be in English.. they were not.)
• Grad Institution: Yale, EHS
• Grad GPA: Not calculated 
• GRE: 157 V, 159 Q, 4.5 W

Work Experience: (all at well known academic medical center) 

• Research Statistician (full time 2 yrs)
• Senior Clinical Data Analyst in Hospital Operations dept (will be 2 years full time by the time PhD program starts) 

Publications/Presentations: Statistician/co-author on a few papers

Applied to

• All epi: Emory, UNC Chapel Hill, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Boston University 

[ceterisparibus9]

Hopeful PhD in Epidemiology here. Wrapping up my MSPH at UAB today! 

All apps paid and submitted to in no particular order:

• Brown
• Harvard
• Yale
• Tulane
• UNC Chapel Hill
• Oregon State
• Colorado
• Columbia

Also applying for Fulbright grant to study metabolomics in the Netherlands (fingers crossed!)

General stats:

• 3.8 GPA (if appeal for misgraded online final holds, 3.66 otherwise- would this be a dealbreaker??);
• 158/156/4.5 GRE;
• five pubs, two first author in review;
• two posters and conferences; TA'ship for statistics;
• 1 year experience outside master's working in surgical outcomes.

Undergraduate degree in English and Philosophy with published thesis.

Anyone care to pontificate my chances, and/or share in my anxiety to wait till at least late January?!

Edited December 15, 2017 by ceterisparibus9

[ceterisparibus9]

On 12/1/2017 at 12:44 AM, ewriad18 said:

Hi all,

I recently was accepted to the University of Gothenburg in Sweden for a joint PhD project between there and UCLA Fielding School. I HIGHLY encourage you all if you are unsuccessful or do not get the stipend you want to consider European/Scandinavian schools.  Although the process is a bit different, I'm going to Gothenburg with all tuition and fees paid and $40,000/yr salary. In most Scandinavian schools PhD students are considered more of junior researchers/junior faculty rather than students, so you get a lot more benefits and opportunities for growth, research abroad, etc. 

Just a thought.  Best of luck to everyone else! Just wish I had found out about this before I submitted all my GRE scores for about $300  But I guess it's better to spend there than on submitting 10 applications.......

If you have any questions feel free to message me, happy to help as much as I can as this process was really long (I had been applying and interviewing pretty consistently since May before I found one but feel it was pretty worth it in the end).

Cheers and best of luck!

I have seriously considered this and often chicken on out on the thought. Let's say I find out in February that I did not get into my top schools, what are some "American friendly" PhD programs like you mention in Public health/epidemiology specificallly? I find it really hard to just sift through websites and faculty profiles in some of those countries... 

I would particularly be interested in Germany/Netherlands/Scandinavia if I were to indeed apply. I'd love to hear some of the finer details of your process!

Edited December 15, 2017 by ceterisparibus9

[eek_]

11 hours ago, ceterisparibus9 said:

Hopeful PhD in Epidemiology here. Wrapping up my MSPH at UAB today! 

All apps paid and submitted to in no particular order:

• Brown
• Harvard
• Yale
• Tulane
• UNC Chapel Hill
• Oregon State
• Colorado
• Columbia

Also applying for Fulbright grant to study metabolomics in the Netherlands (fingers crossed!)

General stats:

• 3.8 GPA (if appeal for misgraded online final holds, 3.66 otherwise- would this be a dealbreaker??);
• 158/156/4.5 GRE;
• five pubs, two first author in review;
• two posters and conferences; TA'ship for statistics;
• 1 year experience outside master's working in surgical outcomes.

Undergraduate degree in English and Philosophy with published thesis.

Anyone care to pontificate my chances, and/or share in my anxiety to wait till at least late January?!

I doubt a 3.66 would be a deal breaker-maybe if you had a C in a course that might be a more serious problem. I doubt a 3.66 vs a 3.8 isn't going to make much of a difference. It's also about the rigor of the courses you are taking. I'm of the opinion (and think this is backed by professors I've spoken to) that getting rigorous biostatistics and epidemiology coursework with some Bs and As is far better than trying to get into a PhD program taking only easy A classes imo-i.e. those without strong quant skills necessary for a PhD in Epi. 

 

[eek_]

11 hours ago, ceterisparibus9 said:

I have seriously considered this and often chicken on out on the thought. Let's say I find out in February that I did not get into my top schools, what are some "American friendly" PhD programs like you mention in Public health/epidemiology specificallly? I find it really hard to just sift through websites and faculty profiles in some of those countries... 

I would particularly be interested in Germany/Netherlands/Scandinavia if I were to indeed apply. I'd love to hear some of the finer details of your process!

Also what do you think about Oregon State? I applied as well and liked the faculty I spoke to-but when I told other people I was applying there they were like,  "Why Oregon?" or "Don't sell yourself short" -which I found kind of offensive actually. Am I being naive? 

[storm_jonas]

53 minutes ago, eek_ said:

Also what do you think about Oregon State? I applied as well and liked the faculty I spoke to-but when I told other people I was applying there they were like,  "Why Oregon?" or "Don't sell yourself short" -which I found kind of offensive actually. Am I being naive? 

The reputation of the University as a whole tends to shape people's opinions of any program/degree at that uni. That's the hard thing with doctoral degrees - the training you get isn't necessarily dependent on the school as a whole but your department (to some extent) and your mentor/advisor (most of it). I had a few schools on my list that got the same response that you got. When I tried to explain that I was going for a specific faculty member or research center/group that made some sense, but the stigma lingered.

[eek_]

1 hour ago, storm_jonas said:

The reputation of the University as a whole tends to shape people's opinions of any program/degree at that uni. That's the hard thing with doctoral degrees - the training you get isn't necessarily dependent on the school as a whole but your department (to some extent) and your mentor/advisor (most of it). I had a few schools on my list that got the same response that you got. When I tried to explain that I was going for a specific faculty member or research center/group that made some sense, but the stigma lingered.

 

Sorry to hear you've had similar experience...sigh the egos  in academia are rife. 

[ewriad18]

On 12/15/2017 at 5:27 AM, ceterisparibus9 said:

I have seriously considered this and often chicken on out on the thought. Let's say I find out in February that I did not get into my top schools, what are some "American friendly" PhD programs like you mention in Public health/epidemiology specificallly? I find it really hard to just sift through websites and faculty profiles in some of those countries... 

I would particularly be interested in Germany/Netherlands/Scandinavia if I were to indeed apply. I'd love to hear some of the finer details of your process!

I'm not sure if any of them are exactly "American friendly" per se, I think its honestly a case-by-case basis. I interviewed for one PhD at University of Oslo that dragged me through the process, called my references, then ended up choosing some Norwegian that already worked at the department. Same happened to me when I interviewed for an Epi PhD at University of Copenhagen.

So after those two disappointments, I started emailing the professors listed in the contact info of the call and asked if they had someone in mind before I applied or wrote a proposal to them. Often, the professors were really honest. They either said they "knew someone at the department was applying" (aka they will probably get it) or they said "no, this is truly an open call and we look forward to receiving applications." To those ones I applied. 

I only was applying for fully funded PhDs (the ones that give you a salary and benefits outright, not ones that I would then need to secure my own funding), so I didn't contact any professors that were not listed on the announcement call (similar to a job posting). So I would honestly start by looking at the pages for doctoral positions available. IMHO it's much better to be attached to a project than to sort of be a lone wolf PhD sort of having to struggle to find your way. 

The shitty thing about most (all?) EU PhDs is that if you DO come in through an announced doctoral position, you often have many people applying for just one spot. It's not like the US where you come in as a cohort of a few people. It's more of a job - you get a computer, office space, health insurance, etc. Your salary also increases each year. For the position I applied for, I had to write a research proposal (about 5 pages), and had an interview with three professors. There were between 55-60 applicants for what turned into two spots (they couldn't choose between me and another girl. She came from a more academia/data science background and I had the field work/development work experience they wanted, so they chose us both, which is HIGHLY unusual as they had to secure extra funding to hire us both).

I would definitely say look at schools in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark as they're the best paid (Sweden actually pays the worst and their starting salaries are around $40,000/year, Denmark starts around 45 and Norway around 50 - because it's least expensive to live in Sweden and most in Norway) and often offer great opportunities for collaboration. Since your tuition is paid, it's not uncommon to do research stays at other Scandinavian/European Universities since you have right of free movement. A lot of schools (take University of Bergen, for example) have mini-Universities every summer to allow other PhD students to come and take courses on specific topics - it's great because there is no tuition, you just need a letter from your PI saying you can go there for the course.  Also look at University of Utrecht in NL and Wageningen, they have a lot of public health/nutrition courses. I've never found much in Germany that pays more than like 800/month. I was looking mostly at Scandinavia and the Netherlands. I was interviewed for one in Marseille, but their pay is on par with US (about 1200 Euro/month with max of 1600 with teaching).

Anyway, I know this is long but hopefully it helps you. Use FindaPhD.com to your advantage, and Euraxess and search for entry research jobs (where funded PhDs are found). These were my starting points along with specific school websites. Let me know if you have more questions!

[epi_aspire]

Hi guys! I'm new to this thread and was wondering whether any of you have heard from UMichigan Epi?

[FrozenFreshMeat]

14 hours ago, epi_aspire said:

Hi guys! I'm new to this thread and was wondering whether any of you have heard from UMichigan Epi?

Yes, invited to school visit (did not say "interview" in that email)

The date conflicts with another school (drexel)

[pbcup]

11 hours ago, FrozenFreshMeat said:

Yes, invited to school visit (did not say "interview" in that email)

The date conflicts with another school (drexel)

Yeah I also got that email. The email did say that we would get interviewed by a panel sometime on Friday. Does anybody have any experience going on the UMich Epi Doctoral day? 

[FrozenFreshMeat]

9 hours ago, pbcup said:

Yeah I also got that email. The email did say that we would get interviewed by a panel sometime on Friday. Does anybody have any experience going on the UMich Epi Doctoral day? 

My bad, confused with the one from Drexel. Umich did say about interviewing. 

 

[ceterisparibus9]

Hello all!

So as I wait to hear back from PhD programs on admittance/rejection, I am back home twitting my thumbs for 6-8 months. Any advice on things to do (even just quick daily exercises) to stay sharp and prepared to go back into work mode? I am struggling not to be lazy at home and need some direction haha

Thoughts I have already circulated and pursued:

1) Working with local department of health (no response in two weeks).

2) Applied to local research hospital for project work (hard given my timeline).

3) Try to work on manuscripts with old professors, but no one seems up to it and I live in another state now...

HELP!

[EpiNYC]

Hey y’all, this is my second time applying (first time I only applied to three programs all on the day of the deadline). Hoping this round is a little more successful. This time I have a very clear focus on what research I would pursue as a doctoral student, and also communicated with professors before submitting my application at the majority of the programs I applied to… Fingers crossed this pans out well this time around. Good luck to all!

Undergrad Institution:

• Top liberal arts school
• Major: English and Pre-Med
• GPA: 3.4
• Variety of writing awards

Grad Institution:

• Reputable university
• Grad GPA: 3.7 (worked full time while completing my MPH full-time)
• GRE: 155V, 154 Q, 5.5 W (most recent)
• Graduation speaker

Work Experience:

• Three years of clinical research operations experience, moving up to a project manager position most recently
• A variety of data analytical work through research experience, including phase 0 and 1 clinical trials, epidemiological studies in the global health setting, etc…

Publications/Presentations:

• 10+ published, peer-reviewed papers (a few as first author)
• Two more manuscripts underway
• Will be submitting a few abstracts to APHA for the coming year

Applied to EPI/Pop Health/Public Health (epi-focused) programs:

• NYU
• Columbia
• Rutgers University
• Harvard
• UCLA
• University of Washington
• University of Michigan
• LSHTM (will be applying given how the above may play out)

Letters of Rec

• All recent public health professors, all established individuals in their respective fields. One recently became the dean for a school of public health.

Edited December 26, 2017 by EpiNYC

[eek_]

Happy holidays all! Just thought I'd post an update-I heard from a professor at the University of Maryland. the admissions committee favorably reviewed my application and I'll be getting the official acceptance in the new few weeks. Thought it might help anyone else who applied to Maryland

[ceterisparibus9]

16 hours ago, EpiNYC said:

Hey y’all, this is my second time applying (first time I only applied to three programs all on the day of the deadline). Hoping this round is a little more successful. This time I have a very clear focus on what research I would pursue as a doctoral student, and also communicated with professors before submitting my application at the majority of the programs I applied to… Fingers crossed this pans out well this time around. Good luck to all!

Undergrad Institution:

• Top liberal arts school
• Major: English and Pre-Med
• GPA: 3.4
• Variety of writing awards

Grad Institution:

• Reputable university
• Grad GPA: 3.7 (worked full time while completing my MPH full-time)
• GRE: 155V, 154 Q, 5.5 W (most recent)
• Graduation speaker

Work Experience:

• Three years of clinical research operations experience, moving up to a project manager position most recently
• A variety of data analytical work through research experience, including phase 0 and 1 clinical trials, epidemiological studies in the global health setting, etc…

Publications/Presentations:

• 10+ published, peer-reviewed papers (a few as first author)
• Two more manuscripts underway
• Will be submitting a few abstracts to APHA for the coming year

Applied to EPI/Pop Health/Public Health (epi-focused) programs:

• NYU
• Columbia
• Rutgers University
• Harvard
• UCLA
• University of Washington
• University of Michigan
• LSHTM (will be applying given how the above may play out)

Letters of Rec

• All recent public health professors, all established individuals in their respective fields. One recently became the dean for a school of public health.

Woah man/woman, it's striking how similar our profiles are-- except you seem to have much more applied experience than I do! Very similar list of schools, and I was too an english major from a liberal arts college

Good luck

[hccgrl]

5 hours ago, eek_ said:

Happy holidays all! Just thought I'd post an update-I heard from a professor at the University of Maryland. the admissions committee favorably reviewed my application and I'll be getting the official acceptance in the new few weeks. Thought it might help anyone else who applied to Maryland

I applied to Maryland but the maternal child health concentration in the family science department. I've been going crazy over here!! I haven't heard anything from them. 

[ianmleavitt]

On 12/24/2017 at 3:49 PM, ceterisparibus9 said:

Hello all!

So as I wait to hear back from PhD programs on admittance/rejection, I am back home twitting my thumbs for 6-8 months. Any advice on things to do (even just quick daily exercises) to stay sharp and prepared to go back into work mode? I am struggling not to be lazy at home and need some direction haha

Thoughts I have already circulated and pursued:

1) Working with local department of health (no response in two weeks).

2) Applied to local research hospital for project work (hard given my timeline).

3) Try to work on manuscripts with old professors, but no one seems up to it and I live in another state now...

HELP!

I would just try to stay on top of current research being published in the field that you are interested, and perhaps take a free online class or two to brush up on topics you may be rusty on. Beyond that, there isn't much you can do aside from what you've already mentioned.

[eek_]

4 hours ago, hccgrl said:

I applied to Maryland but the maternal child health concentration in the family science department. I've been going crazy over here!! I haven't heard anything from them. 

 

Ah- I'm Toxicology and Environmental Health. Might be department specific. 

[EpiNYC]

7 hours ago, ceterisparibus9 said:

Woah man/woman, it's striking how similar our profiles are-- except you seem to have much more applied experience than I do! Very similar list of schools, and I was too an english major from a liberal arts college

Good luck

Hahaha — man. And that is too funny! Here is to hoping both our pursuits are successful this year  

[storm_jonas]

For anyone applying to UNC - are interviews optional and are people planning on doing one? I'm guessing it helps to do an interview if you can find a way down to Chapel Hill?