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At WashU they offer students a base stipend of $18,500 plus full tuition coverage and health insurance per year for four years. They say you can earn more doing research or teaching assistantships, of course. I was offered an NIMH pre-doctoral fellowship through the school that gives me a stipend of $22,000 (instead of the $18.5k) plus full tuition coverage, health insurance, equipment/software allowance, and travel/conference allowance per year for three years. They said after the three years the fellows are picked up on one of the faculty's research projects and their stipend is paid for out of the grant money and that can usually be in the low $30ks per year. The tuition and health insurance I assume are covered under the base coverage that everyone receives. So in short, tuition is always covered, health insurance always provided, and at least $18,500 per year for living expenses. You can make more by applying for fellowships or doing assistantships.

I come from a somewhat similar background so I think I can offer a little advice. I have my BA in Journalism (not a top program but a pretty well-respected one nationally) and even worked as a journalist for a while after graduating. I decided I didn't want to do journalism anymore and used my interviewing skills to get an entry-level research assistant job at a university interviewing research subjects. I fell in love with research and worked there for two years and during that time I saw that a lot of the research coordinators were MSWs or MPHs. So after a couple years I decided to apply for my MSW at Washington University in St. Louis (which happened to be the university I was working at and it is also one of the top MSW programs in the country). Also important to note, during the two years between my undergrad and applying for my MSW I did NO volunteering/civic engagement/etc. I worked strictly as a research assistant. 9-5. I was worried I wouldn't be accepted because 1) I wasn't a psychology, sociology, BSW and 2) I hadn't done any real "social work" or international stuff. But that's not my interest and I didn't try to hide that. I wanted to stay in research and WashU's MSW program had a "research concentration" that I knew would give me the skills I needed to advance in the research field. So when I applied I didn't try to play down my journalism background or try to hide the fact that I hadn't saved dying babies in Africa. I said that I got into journalism because I wanted to help people but that I realized I was only writing about the problems, not solving them. And when I found the field of public health/social work research, I felt like I was really making headway on the problems. Well, not only did I get accepted but I really found that the skills I had learned as a reporter (specifically the writing and grammar and proofreading) along with the "real world" work experience I had served me FAR, FAR better in the MSW program than the people who were fresh out of a psychology undergrad and had spent a year in AmeriCorp. (Nothing against folks with these backgrounds, I'm just saying that the skill set I had going into the MSW program served me really well for what I wanted to do). I was even hired as a graduate research assistant in a research center at the university doing health communication research BECAUSE I was a journalism undergrad major. They needed someone to read news stories and code them and then write mock news stories. It was a perfect fit for me. And I still find that my journalism experience helps me. I got a job immediately after graduating (in research) and was just accepted a few weeks ago to the PhD program in social work at WashU! And I'm not kidding, during the interview process for the PhD program, one of the top researchers in her/my field of interest told me that she thinks there is a need for people with journalism experience in the field and that it a sought-after quality. There were over 60 applicants to the program this year and they invited 20 in for interviews and I was the only one with a background in journalism. They accepted 10 and I was one of them, so I have to think that my journalism experience truly helped me and I have no doubt that it will continue to serve me well through the PhD program. SOOOOO...the moral of the story is that your journalism experience and your real world work experience will absolutely set you apart and count for something. I felt exactly how you do when I was applying for my MSW. I worried that because I wasn't a psychology major with massive international volunteer work on my application that I wouldn't even be considered. But that wasn't the case and now I feel like I have such an edge over other students/applicants because I have such a unique background and such a strong working skill set. Apply, talk up your experience and background, and make sure you have a well written statement of purpose and you will do just fine! Good luck!

Hey everyone, just got the email acceptance to Washington University for their PhD program so decisions are being rolled out! Good luck to everyone else!