MPH Program Decision

Graduate School
1

I have applied to both George Washington University (GWU) and the University of Pennsylvania for public health. I am interested in going into the global health field. Last week I received my admissions acceptance letters to both institutions. I like both schools, and would like opinions from people who know more about public health (working in the sector, students, former students, faculty, etc).

  1. Does school reputation matter? Penn is an ivy league however GWU has a ranked MPH program
  2. Are both schools equal in rank and employability?

Any and all advice is appreciated.

2

I am in public health myself (PhD from Columbia)

Yes, school reputation does matter, but in this case you have a difficult decision. Penn is often left out of public health program rankings because they don’t have a school of public health - their MPH is a collaborative effort between 8 different schools. However, all 8 of those schools are strong, and Penn has a strong traditional of health and medical research. There are very prominent public health researchers at Penn. In addition, the Penn and Ivy League name is pretty powerful, particularly if your goal is to work in a somewhat prestigious (inter)national NGO or agency or something after (like UNICEF, or the federal government, or Booz Allen Hamilton, or an MBB consulting firm, etc.)

However, GWU has a very well-respected MPH program and school of public health; they also have top faculty and research going on; their location in DC is ideal for internships at federal and international agencies.

I think GWU is better-known in the public health world, but Penn has a wider reputation outside of public health. So I would kind of think about what you want to do after the MPH. I will say as someone who, by the end of my PhD, wasn’t completely married to the idea of staying within public health - I am really grateful for the top-notch reputation of Columbia, because I feel like it gives me wider access to jobs (one well-known tech company I applied to recently specifically asks for people with degrees from “top-ranked universities”).

3

My question would be total cost of attendance…

4

Penn is going to be more, but not by a lot. I’d have to take out loans for either.

5

Juillet, thank you so much for your insight! I do want to work for an international NGO, as I would like to go into the global health field. I was stuck between the two since Penn is a very well known and respected school. Like you said, GWU does have great internship opportunities.

6

So perhaps consider these:

  1. Coursework offered. Do either of them have coursework or special offerings, like certificates, that are appealing to you? Penn has a global health track and GWU has four separate global health tracks (policy, environmental health, health communication, and program design & evaluation). The thing to remember is that all of the Penn electives in global health are coming from other fields - anthropology, communications, demography - and so, by and large, aren’t really designed specifically for a public health audience. GWU appears to have a lot of global health electives taught in the school by public health professors.

  2. Faculty. MPH students often assist in a research project while completing the degree; this can be useful experience to have, particularly since some NGOs do research or evaluation and would like people who know basic research skills and tools. Are there faculty at one or the other department that do research that’s really interesting to you, on whose projects you might like to work?

  3. Career center/connections/internships. My school of public health had it’s own career center, and IIRC guests could browse it to see what kinds of featured jobs and internships there were. AS a prospective, check out 1) whether GWU has its own career center for the Milken Institute and 2) what kinds of opportunities students at each school have after graduation. Having your own career center can be good or bad. You do get more tailored experiences, but the university’s might be stronger - for instance, MPH students at Columbia used career services at Mailman, but PhD students were technically registered in the Graduate School and could use both career services at Mailman and the ones for the larger university. The larger university CCE was WAY better, and had forged relationships with some really prestigious companies across sectors. I’m betting that given that your MPH at Penn is not in a specific school/program, you might have access to more general Penn recruiting and career services - which could be a really excellent thing.

7

International work is prestige heavy and I’m not sure either school would do it for you. With that focus, I’d recommend someone try to get into schools which are well known for international health (Hopkins, Harvard, Emory, Michigan, Columbia…).