Tips on How to Complete an Effective Admission Application

Start the Process Early: Note the application deadline and make it a priority to get all parts of your application in on time. Starting a year before the semester you would like to begin your studies is advisable. This will give you time to prepare a strong application and to tackle any unforeseen obstacles (e.g., one of your references being out of the country).

Letters of Recommendation: Letters of recommendation are an important part of your application. They provide one of two opportunities (the other is your personal statement), to make sure the admissions committee knows those characteristics about you that you want them to know. Always ask people to write for you who know your work best (never a peer-colleague, friend or a relative), no matter what his/her title is. Reference letters should address your academic and research abilities. It is especially important in graduate school to know your ability to work independently. Your ability to comprehend, digest, and assimilate new knowledge is also important. Employment or character reference letters are less helpful, as they concentrate on other aspects of your record. Examples of character reference letters are "s/he is a great person," "s/he is very punctual."

Professors are the most logical choice to write this type of letter. If you have been out of school for a while, a supervisor, especially in the practice of public health, broadly defined, or someone who you've done research with, can also touch upon your intellectual abilities and research skills.

If you are requesting a reference from someone you have not communicated with for several years, it will be wise to prepare a reference dossier for them. Consider providing each with the following:

• Your current CV, covered by a letter that provides more detail about what you've been doing since you last saw him/her
• Information from The Bulletin about the MSPH, and the academic department and track you are interested in at the MSPH
• A copy of the current draft of your personal statement
• The areas they already know about you that you hope they might address
• An offer to meet with them for an interview, if this would help.

While we accept letters that come directly from your dossier service at your undergraduate institutions, we find that these letters tend to be vague and general. They also fail to address the potential match between Public Health and the applicant.

If those writing references for you will be submitting the letters online, please ask them to submit them from their professional email accounts (as opposed to yahoo or hotmail accounts). If the letters of reference are sent by regular mail, they must arrive in a sealed envelope and be signed across the seal by the sender.

Standardized Test Scores:. The GRE is a required part of your application (although scores from another standardized test can be submitted in place of the GRE - MCAT, LSAT, GMAT). Make the time to prepare for the exam. Standardized tests are exams for which you need to study. Few who take them "cold" do well. If you choose to take a GRE preparation course, remember that these help you with the process or methodology of the exam, but you are responsible for the content. There are GRE study books that can be purchased at bookstores and which many people find useful to study before taking the GRE, or before taking a GRE preparation course; information on the GRE can also be readily found on the internet. While you can request a waiver of the standardized test requirement, these are seldom granted. Applying for such a waiver may mean that quite late in the admissions decision process you find that you have to take the GRE. While we do not have strict score cutoffs, most of our students score at or above the 50th percentile in each of the three parts of the GRE. When applicants submit standardized tests that do not test quantitative ability, the Admissions Committee looks to the undergraduate and/or prior graduate transcript(s) for a strong indication that you have the quantitative ability to be successful in your coursework here.

Personal Statement: This is a crucial component of your application. You should convey who you are, why you are interested in Public Health, what your goals are, as well as how this degree would help you reach your goals. Keep in mind that our MPH and MS are considered to be professional degrees. This means that anyone seriously considering an MPH or MS should have a clear understanding of the field, and how they hope to fit into it. Some questions you might want to ask yourself before tackling the personal statement are:

• Why are you interested in Public Health and not another field?
• Why are you interested in a specific academic department and track and not another department or another track within that academic department?
• What are the things about yourself, your transcript, your test scores, your career goals, etc. that would help us to understand you and to evaluate your admission application better?

Keep in mind that while the essay you wrote as part of your college application was about finding out who you are, essays for a graduate program should tell us who you are. Furthermore, it should tell us why you know this is the professional path you want to follow. Remember that you do not pursue a professional degree to find out if you really like it or not.

Be sure to proof read your personal statement for spelling and grammar.

CV or Resume: Please send us an updated CV/Resume that lists all of the educational degrees you have earned and the employment experiences you have had, especially those related to public health, broadly defined, as well as any other professional skills and accomplishments. It is often valuable to also list employment experience you have had as a volunteer.

Transcripts: We require official transcripts from each of the colleges and universities you list on your application. While we do not have a GPA cutoff, most of our applicants have earned a 3.0 GPA or better. If your transcript is not competitive, there is not much you can do about it, but in the admission process, more emphasis will be placed on your standardized test scores. You might also want to address the reason for your low GPA in your personal statement, or in a short addendum.

Please start the process to obtain your transcripts early as it may take many weeks for your college or university to issue and mail these documents to us.