Dassine

"Need/market" is a matter of opinion, but men - especially men of non-white ethnicity - are definitely the minority. As of 2010, approximately 13.6% of MSW students are male (that's about 1 out of every ~7.5). Similarly, approximately 15.8% (1 out of every ~7) of all MSW students are african american, although it doesn't say how the breaks down along gender lines. Thus african american men are definitely a rarity (although not that ridiculously unique - maybe 1 out of every 50ish students). How much that helps when it comes to applying (for both school and jobs) is unknowable, but I'm sure it does. I'm a guy myself, so I may be biased, though!

I'll be graduating December 2014, myself, so I've just started looking into a loot of this sort of stuff. The deadline dates depend heavily on if you're looking at advanced standing or not; if you are, most programs start in the Summer, and so deadlines tend to be November/December/January-ish. Regular standing programs starting in the Fall seem to be February/March/April-ish. Either which way you have plenty of time, so just look into the specific schools once it gets closer. If you need to take the GRE, I would probably plan for it sometime around October/November, so that way you have time to retake it if necessary before the deadlines As for the other stuff - references, personal statement, and so forth - as long as you have it ready to go by the fall, you should be solid. If a distance program is most ideal and budget is a heavy consideration, I would definitely give University of North Dakota a consideration. It's super cheap (instate tuition for the online program, regardless of where you live), has an advanced standing option (which is less common for distance programs), and is, of course, accredited and all that jazz.

I know this post is a couple months old, but I'm sure it's a question that comes up often, and there's actually a study of exactly that sort regarding MSW programs: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Journal-Social-Work-Education/193406211.html. It compares admittance rates and yield rates, includes publication rankings, and all that good stuff. Quite informative. There's no "admitted MSW cohort statistic" listings anywhere to my knowledge and, unfortunately, I don't think it would be that informative even were it out there. 60% of full time MSW students start over 25,and that number jumps to 83% for part-time. That means the majority aren't going straight from undergrad to grad school, and once you start including professional experience and what have you, the importance of raw academic numbers like GPA or GRE starts to fall (or not necessarily fall, but just shows a smaller piece of the picture). Not to mention even that info aside, MSW programs probably weigh other factors a bit more heavily than sheer academics to begin with, all that aside.