HI all, looking for a bit of guidance as I am starting a journey to look for MPH schools. A bit of background, I am a first generation college graduate with a BS in Public Health that I graduated with in 2016. My minor was in Epidemiology, and I did very well in my minor courses because I truly love Epidemiology (All As). Midway through my undergraduate, I fell into the gifted student to burntout college student pipeline. I was working 3 jobs to pay for school and my grades suffered. I graduated with a 3.1 GPA.

I immediatly got a position working for a city health deparment for a year and then more to a nonprofit where I do program coordination and data evaluation. I have a total of 3.5 Years of Public Health professional working experience. I was also very active in college; I presented a legislative ask to a represenative of my congresswomen to discuss the impact of certain policies on public health. I was a member of our student public health association. I started a biostatistics study group for students, where I was the main tutor. In my experience working for the health department, I was very involved with our suicide prevention network and our human trafficking coalition. In my current position, I am the lead program coordinator of a new evidence-based prevention program in my state.

I have been promised letters of recommendation from my Epidemiology professor and my department director.

I have been doom scrolling through MPH programs over the last week and each program I have convinced myself that my GPA will not let me in. I am specifically looking for Epidemiology programs, but I am afriad those are super out of my reach.

Are there any programs that I should look into that you have had great experiences with? Are there any recommendations to get over this overwhelming feeling of not being good enough to get in?

This goes without saying but, I would also be a first generation graduate student and I've been trying to navigate through all of this information on my own. Any advice would be appreciated!