Summary of application experience at Johns Hopkins University in the United States

In recent years, China’s economy has developed rapidly, its people’s living standards have improved, and they have become richer and richer. China’s international status and international influence have also become more and more important. Now, Chinese people very much like to study abroad or travel abroad. It's immigration, which has become a craze. The education system and living environment abroad are better than those in China. In addition, many Chinese people work abroad, so studying abroad is becoming more and more popular. What I want to bring to you today is a summary of my application experience at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.

Applicant student: Classmate Z

Classmate background: Clinical major at Peking University School of Medicine

Admission scores: GPA 3.68, TOEFL: 109, GRE: 13:90,

Application target: Top 5 Master of Public Health (MPH) in prestigious public universities in the United States

Admitted school: In 2013, US News ranked No. 1 Public Health in public health majors in American universities. Johns Hopkins University

I am an undergraduate student majoring in clinical medicine at Peking University School of Medicine in 2006. After graduating from the undergraduate program in 2010, I went to Johns Hopkins University to study for an MPH degree because I have no interest in basic research. I lean toward Health Administration, which means I lean toward management. There are too few summaries on public health. As someone who has applied for MPH at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, I feel it is my responsibility to write down some of my experiences and feelings. , I hope it will be helpful to my fellow students.

First. Persevere and persist. This is especially important for students who are applying for a master's degree in public health to go abroad! Medical school courses are relatively heavy, exams, and hospital internships have taken up a lot of time, but the main problem is that there are no students from medical school or public health school who want to go abroad. Tradition and atmosphere, teachers and colleges all expect you to follow the conventional path for many years and stay in the health department and work in hospitals. The idea of ??going abroad is considered unique, non-mainstream and not taken seriously. I remember that I had the idea of ??going abroad when I was a sophomore, but as soon as I learned about it, I discovered that no one in our major has ever gone abroad after graduating from a bachelor's degree since its establishment. Most of the teachers have been visiting scholars to exchange abroad or postgraduate and doctoral students to achieve results. When I went abroad to study, they knew very little about the application process and situation, which made me feel quite heartbroken. Because this means that you have no previous experience to refer to. My major is not like the mainstream public health majors such as epidemiology and biostat. At that time, I didn’t even know which schools in the United States had this major. I was basically trying to cross the river by feeling the stones. The direct result was that I applied to all public health schools in the United States. Even if you decide to go abroad, taking the G and T exams is basically going against the current. When everyone is busy with various interviews at the Health Bureau and CDC and discussing various anecdotes about internships, are you willing to immerse yourself in reciting Hongbao over and over again without knowing it? What will this bring to you? These problems are also common in other majors, but they are more prominent for public health students, because you are often the only person in the entire major or even the college who applies to go abroad, and you often feel lonely and helpless. Feeling of help. Fortunately, Fudan has a very good WKFB team, and we strongly recommend students from medical schools and public health to join it and learn from the experience and strengths of students from other majors. I truly found a sense of like-mindedness there, and became very good brothers and sisters with many people. Now I feel grateful every time I think about it.

Second. Have a clear understanding of your life goals. This is a big and common question. I think going abroad should not be too utilitarian. Just look at which direction is easier to apply for scholarships and which direction is easier to get a good offer. Instead, you should take a longer-term view. After all, going abroad is just a means. No matter what major or degree you apply for, it should be for the purpose. closely related to the life goals you set. I very much agree with Euphoria's point of view, we need to think deeply about the value of life. Many students feel that it is empty, but this is not the case.

In the short term, thinking about this question well will enable you to write a very targeted and thoughtful application essay. In the long term, only thinking about this question well can make you motivated along the way and make every decision well-targeted. . Master's and even PhD studies will soon be over, and you will soon be faced with a crossroads of choice. Many of my master's classmates only found out after graduation that they still didn't know what they wanted to do, so they could only combine various jobs and schools. After a quick review, in my opinion this approach is not advisable.

Third. For social subjects such as public health (except for biostat), the accumulation of experience is very important. To apply for the top universities in the United States, a master's degree is very important, although it does not have the admission requirement at the school. listed in requirement. Take our department at Harvard as an example. All doctoral students recruited in the past years have a master's degree (including American students). It was impossible for me to directly apply for a PhD as an undergraduate. Epidemiology and environmental health are slightly better, and they pay more attention to experiments. Every year, 0-1 of the new doctoral students are undergraduates.

Fourth. It is easier to apply for a master's degree in public health in the United States, but it is difficult to get a scholarship. Except for the master programs at Harvard, JHU, UWashington, and UC Berkeley, which are more difficult to apply for, the others are not difficult. As a classmate of Fudan University, my GPA is passable, my GT is not bad, and I have some relevant projects, internship or research experience. If I apply to several schools, I will basically be full of ADs by then. But the situation is that I have a lot of ADs but no offer. I will give you a few thousand dollars at most. Although many people can apply for RA in the second year after entering the program to cover living expenses, the high tuition fee is still a drop in the bucket. There are usually two ways to apply directly for undergraduates. If your family is not well-off, you can apply for programs in Hong Kong or Singapore. The admission rate is high and there are many scholarships. However, it will be very difficult to apply for a top PhD in the future. It seems that Fudan students have applied to Hong Kong and NUS for several consecutive years. None went. If your family conditions permit, you can apply for a master's degree from a top university in the United States. Americans are very attached to prestigious schools. It will be much easier for people who graduated from a top university to find a job or apply again. For students who want to continue applying for a Ph.D., it is very important to go to a good master's program and pay attention to improving yourself during the master's period. In a good school, you can do projects with mentor Niu, send papers, or get a letter of recommendation from mentor Niu. . Personally speaking, it was a difficult decision for me to give up a full scholarship from Oxford and go to Harvard at my own expense. After all, my family didn’t have enough money to spend it casually, but I knew very well that I would need to continue applying for a PhD in the future, and Through some teachers and senior fellow students, I learned that the level of public health research in the UK has declined. Oxford and the United States do not belong to the same system and are not recognized by prestigious schools in the United States. It will be very difficult to apply for a good school in the United States after graduating from Oxford, so I gave up on Oxford. In addition, Americans also know that masters recruit more people and are relatively less qualified, so students studying for masters should pay attention to improving themselves during this period, and do not think that masters who have entered a good school can stay and study for PhD.

Fifth. The situation of finding jobs in the United States for public health majors is not as optimistic as everyone thinks. Generally speaking, it is not difficult to find a job, but it is difficult to find a good job. Public health is about public service, rather than making money. It is not a good choice for students who want to make money to study public health. However, public health jobs are relatively stable and not stressful, which is why many girls choose public health.

For master's degree graduates, after graduation, they mainly work as junior employees in various NGOs, CDC, Research Institute, or related consultants. Epi is a highly professional major. Graduates can also go to pharmaceutical companies. The U.S. government has many related Work. In general, MPH has advantages over master of science in finding a job. After all, it is a professional degree, but the advantage is not significant. For American students, employment opportunities in the public health sector are abundant, but this is not the case for international students. Especially during the financial crisis in the past two years, many jobs require U.S. citizen/permanent residents. International students want to find a job after graduating with a master's degree. It is still difficult to get a good job, unless you go to some small NGOs, but whether it is worth the large amount of money to study for a master's degree depends on everyone. Many people who graduate with a Ph.D. work as faculty, or go to international organizations, such as the WHO, or some to consulting companies.

Sixth. Participate in more academic activities such as seminars, and apply for Wangdao, military and political research projects to give yourself more research exposure. The School of Public Health gives undergraduates too few opportunities to participate in research, so I don’t want to Many majors have related laboratories. Therefore, public health students should improve their autonomy and initiative, proactively contact professors and teaching and research offices, and ask to participate in some projects, even if they are just doing very basic and trivial things. I was chatting with a classmate from Peking University two days ago. She said that she didn’t know what public health research was like when she was an undergraduate because she had too little research exposure. She didn’t know what public health research was like until the United States. Students should make full use of the various resources provided by Fudan to expose themselves to more relevant research. The more utilitarian ones can make their resumes more beautiful, and the more pragmatic ones can help them know which directions they like (or dislike).

Seventh. In addition, I suggest that you contact the secretaries of relevant projects during the school selection stage. Many problems in the application are caused by information asymmetry. The results of public health applications are mostly determined by committee members. It is rare for a teacher to have the final say like in some basic subjects, so it is necessary to send a letter to ask the secretary. They are usually willing to answer questions about the enrollment plan for that year. Don't apply to many schools that don't plan to recruit international students. The application fees and energy will be wasted. When I was applying for undergraduate studies, I asked a lot about related projects. Firstly, I didn’t have the experience of my seniors and knew nothing about these projects. Secondly, I wanted to use this to narrow down my school selection list. It turned out that some schools had insufficient funds that year and basically had no plans to recruit international students, so they had to give up decisively. The SOPHAS website has links to relatively comprehensive public health projects, and the Gter forum also has many suggestions from current American students, which are very helpful for applying to schools. The specific professional directions of each school are listed on SOPHAS and gter, so I won’t go into details here.

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