WAMC, Non Traditional Grad Student - Guidance appreciated:)

[cavsiev]

Hi all - I am a somewhat non-traditional 23-year-old student from AZ with a strong educational background in public health. I will be finishing my MPH next spring and would love some feedback on how things are looking for me. I was a Division I athlete through undergrad and sustained a pretty serious injury junior year, so I have one VERY bad semester (All D's and W's) on my transcripts that heavily weigh on my culm/science GPAs. I love public health and do intend on working in that field eventually.

My primary goal here is to figure out what schools are realistic for me to apply to, as I know some places value different things. I greatly appreciate all feedback on that, and really value the perspectives of others!

Cumulative GPA: 3.67 (Grad school & undergrad)
Science GPA: 3.64 (Will still have 2 prereqs in progress by the time I submit my application)
last 45: 3.86

Any degrees achieved
BS Public Health, minor in Health Sciences
Will graduate next spring with MPH & emphasis in Veterinary Public Health

GRE results: Q/V/W - did not take

Veterinary Experience:

• Overnight ICU Technician in ECC teaching hospital: 2000 hrs
• Small animal GP Technician: 3000 hrs
• Shelter Med Surgical team (SA & Exotics): 160

Animal Experience:

• Volunteer Barn Assistant at Equine facility: 50hrs

Research Experience:

• Research project as an optional piece of class in which we investigated how people of low socioeconomic status are affected by regionally specific fungal infections. Included governmental database access approval, symposium presentation - About 80 hrs

Awards/scholarships:

• Deans list x7
• A variety of athletic awards that I go into greater depth on in my application
• Athletic full ride

Extracurriculars:

• Division I athlete in undergrad
• Volunteer weekly with a group that teaches cognitively disabled children how to ride horses
• SAAC Representative in undergrad

Employment:

• Lab assistant in an Animal Disease Research Laboratory
• Youth sports coaching
• Bartending/retail jobs through college
• Resident Advisor Sophomore year

Thank you again to this community!

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[matthirten13]

Honestly your app looks pretty solid from a holistic standpoint

Overnight ICU Technician in ECC teaching hospital: 2000 hrs

Was this small animal? or did you do anything with large animal?

Lab assistant in an Animal Disease Research Laboratory

What were your duties here? I'm asking because it could be research experience and having more of that will help your app imo.

Adding some hour counts to your main post might help me/others get a better insight, but as I said, from a holistic standpoint with 5k vet hours and a little bit of research + decent ECs, I think you'd have a decent shot at most schools that won't immediately lock you out based on GPA alone.

The three schools I am most familiar with are Illinois, Davis, and CSU in terms of applying: I think you'd have a shot at CSU with your background. Davis will lock you out based on GPA, and Illinois had high-ish cutoffs for GPA this past year and I would peruse the forums to guesstimate your chances with that (although tbh I think you have other options with better odds, unless you plan to apply essentially everywhere). I don't really know much about University of Arizona, but I imagine it's your cheapest since IS and would advise applying there if that is the case.

 

[cavsiev]

Honestly your app looks pretty solid from a holistic standpoint


Was this small animal? or did you do anything with large animal?



What were your duties here? I'm asking because it could be research experience and having more of that will help your app imo.

Adding some hour counts to your main post might help me/others get a better insight, but as I said, from a holistic standpoint with 5k vet hours and a little bit of research + decent ECs, I think you'd have a decent shot at most schools that won't immediately lock you out based on GPA alone.

The three schools I am most familiar with are Illinois, Davis, and CSU in terms of applying: I think you'd have a shot at CSU with your background. Davis will lock you out based on GPA, and Illinois had high-ish cutoffs for GPA this past year and I would peruse the forums to guesstimate your chances with that (although tbh I think you have other options with better odds, unless you plan to apply essentially everywhere). I don't really know much about University of Arizona, but I imagine it's your cheapest since IS and would advise applying there if that is the case.

Hello! Thank you for your response!

UCD, although I grew up in Sacramento, is out of the question anyway unfortunately because I took anatomy at a community college and they require this course to be taken at a 4-year. Such a bummer! I did not take cellular biology so I will not be applying to CSU either, unfortunately. I DID plan on applying to Illinois, so I'm glad to hear I may have a chance there.

To answer your questions: The ECC ICU tech work is all SA, however, I feel my degree of autonomy will make this experience valuable. I routinely set central lines, art lines, drum lines, U-caths, etc., and have a ton of advanced nursing experience from this job. I have not done any large animal veterinary work

For the research lab, I did consider listing it as research experience, but I worried it would be perceived as disingenuous considering my duties. I worked in media preparation (We did prepare media for the research department though) and also worked in the diagnostic department of bacteriology. I have about 300hrs of experience in this lab.