Non-competitive, Good Grad programs in social statistics / public health / public policy

Graduate School
1

Hello,

question: I am currently researching graduate schools for public health / epidemiology with an emphasis in applied econometrics. Due to some unfortunate circumstances and lack of focus in my first two years, my transcript has suffered quite a bit. For these reasons, I am looking for non-competitive, high-moderately ranked graduate schools in social statistics / public health / public policy. Ideally, I would like to enter a phd program in applied economics (or any of the fields mentioned) that is fully-funded, but I know that these programs are more competitive and that my chances of entering these programs are slim, given my low grades in fundamental theory courses, microeconomics and macroeconomics (I got a C and B, respectively), which were taken in my first and second year.

Here is a summary of my profile:
Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
Major: Political Science and Economics, 3rd year, second semester

GPA: cumulative: 2.59 (got depressed in my first year and could not take finals. I failed all of my classes that semester). My gpa improved quite a bit and I managed a 4.0 in my 3rd year. I am going to try to keep this up in upcoming semesters.

Other activities: I am going to co-public a paper in epidemiology and applied micro-econometrics with my thesis professor. I have been a research assistant for this professor for almost a year now. I did a paid internship as a management consultant at Deloitte for NGOs.

Overview of transcript:
I have taken classes in intermediate statistics (denoted as Basic Econometrics 01 on transcript), research design, and Basic Econometrics 02 (covering all of Introduction to Econometrics: A modern approach by Woolridge). I got an A+, A, and A+, respectively, but as mentioned earlier, my grades in intermediate micro and macro were terrible. In addition, I am hoping that my terrible grade in introduction to statistics (another C) can be overlooked by my grade in intermediate statistics.

Other skills: proficient in STATA programming and research design.

GRE score: I am studying for it at the moment. I am confident that I can achieve close to a perfect score in the quant section.

second question: after looking at my profile, do you think it is wise that I apply for grad schools after I graduate? I am in my 3rd year second semester, and my cumulative GPA will certainly improve if I wait until after I graduate to apply. I know that some programs look only at my 3rd and 4th year GPA (or last 60 credits).

If anyone can offer a list of potential programs – both Masters and phd programs in these fields --, then I will greatly appreciate it. I will also appreciate any additional advice after examining my profile. For example, is “getting depressed” and “having trouble adjusting to college” a good enough justification for my low GPA in my 1st and 2nd years?

Thank you in advance!

2

I don’t think there are any graduate programs that only look at your GPA in your last two years. They may weight more heavily your junior and senior GPA, or may discount earlier performance as indicative of an adjustment period, but I don’t think any programs simply completely ignore the first two years.

I’m not sure there’s any such thing as a non-competitive but high-to-moderately ranked program in any of these fields. Public health and public policy (and most professional master’s programs) are less competitive than people think - even the best MPH programs have acceptance rates in the 35-60% range. [url=<a href=“https://depts.washington.edu/sphnet/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/FINAL_ASPH-Annual-Data-Report-2011.pdf%5DThis%5B/url”>https://depts.washington.edu/sphnet/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/FINAL_ASPH-Annual-Data-Report-2011.pdf]This[/url] data is a little old - I’m not sure that UW is doing this analysis every year like they used to - but on page 26 you can see the acceptance rates of all the MPH programs in 2011. Here’s an isolation of some of the top schools:

Berkeley: 26%
Columbia: 60%
Emory: 51%
George Washington: 59%
Johns Hopkins: 42%
Michigan: 50%
Minnesota: 48%
UNC: 42%
Tulane: 77%
UW: 35%
Yale: 35%

I’m sure the absolute percentages have declined a bit in the last 5 years due to rising awareness of and interest in public health programs, but these aren’t programs that are accepting 5-10% of students.

That said, though, a 2.59 is still pretty low for good programs - especially for a student straight from undergrad. My recommendation is that you take a couple of years after college (3-5+) to work in the sector of your interest and put some distance between you and your undergrad GPA.