jhyo2

Hi, my girlfriend and i have both just completed our final year of college. i'll be starting medical school in new york city this coming fall while she has chosen to take a gap year. we're a serious couple so we're hoping to be in the same area for graduate school, especially after spending our four years of college being four hours apart at different schools. i really want to help her achieve her goal of becoming a speech therapist as its a goal she has had since she was a high schooler and continues to still feel passionate about it. ideally, she'd be at a school not too far from me, but she's been hit with a strong bout of graduation blues for the past three months thats been making her feel very inferior / unworthy of applying to programs at all (her friends are off to the jobs or grad school programs they'd been hoping for). so i realize that now's the time for me to step up and be her rock and keep her as ambitious and focused as she has always been. i'm positive this forum is filled with tons of helpful people with helpful advice so i thought i'd turn here. to keep things short, i have a few basic questions: are schools in the NJ/CT/NYC area very competitive? what GPA and GRE scores are expected of SLP applicants? what can my girlfriend do during her gap year to strengthen her application? what are the most important components to an application? what are some resources i can find to best understand the application process? she's told me she's interested in spending her gap year either traveling internationally (to a spanish-speaking country) or in new york city with me. i'm very happy with either, i just have no clue what i should be looking for in terms of strengthening her application. do SLPs emphasize research or clinical volunteering or even something more informal but equally challenging like nannying children of all ages? how important is being bilingual? thank you!