autismadvocate

To anyone who was waitlisted at USF...there's one more slot left. Because although one person accepted the withdrawal of my candidacy this morning, I still got an email this afternoon telling me I was accepted to the school. So if you were waitlisted (I don't know if they sent out all decisions or just some) there is hope for you!

It might be made for students who aren't sure, but either way I'm going! Like you, I can't wait to meet other people in our cohort, not to mention see the faculty in person! I'll see you there! (My real name, so you'll know me, is Creigh.)

I'm sorry to hear that. In an ideal world, family would be supportive no matter where we went. But this is not an ideal world, and I understand moving away is diffcult (the reason I'm assuming your family is banking on New Hampshire). Either way, though, know that I'm REALLY happy for you having gotten accepted!!!! You know you have one school in the bag and take your confidence in that - in the Fall, you are definitely going to be able to go become an SLP! And that's awesome. :

Good luck Sammehh!!!!!!

Just withdrew from all my other schools! It was kind of scary doing so, as I keep second guessing whether I'm really accepted into FSU, but the email gave me enough confidence to be able to do so.

So many of you guys are interested in autism and/or on the spectrum, it makes me so excited!!!!! Those who are interested, please PM me with any questions. The real world speech path arena kind of worries me, because there are just a lot of things that theory doesn't cover, so I'm glad there are more of us going out into it. For instance, I was emailing with a doctoral speech path student who thought children on the spectrum couldn't play pretend/do symbolic play. (False.) And one of the little boy I care for's therapists is expressly interested with autism and credited it with getting her into the world of therapy...yet does the worst job I've seen of anyone working with him. My only thought is that maybe in grad school that you don't get to learn about the autistic perspective? Because that is actually super critical if you're trying to help people on the spectrum. That's the only thing I can think of that would explain the sort of things I'm seeing. But I digress... Gaby is it weird if I think it's cool that you're PDD-NOS (what I assume you're referring to when you said pervasive disorder)? Lots of my friends are and we tend to bond quite quickly...autism does run in families and I may not quite be on the spectrum myself, but that's only by the slightest of margins (to put it this way, I'm the least typical supposed neurotypical you'll ever meet). I knew there had to be more people on the spectrum on this forum!

I think you'd be fine to email them, _fairydust. Actually, when you're waitlisted a letter of continued interest is appropriate. Let them know not only that you still want to go to their school, but try to if you can enclose more information in the email. For example, how you've been doing at school, if you're doing any new shadowing or volunteering projects that you didn't mention in your application, etc. From what I've read, admissions officers do actually consider these things and they will end up in your file. Just only send one email, though - you don't want to end up badgering them. Also, I go this today in response to my email asking for acknowledgement of my acceptance of the offer. "Received. Welcome to FSU!" Four words, but they made me so happy! And now I feel confident enough to withdraw my application from the other schools.

Absolutely brilliant thread idea. I have had the same thought, feeling so close with this community but not knowing much about the people themselves. Some people may not be able to contribute yet, if they're trying to stay anonymous, but with school decisions coming in more and more people should be able to post here. Here's my bit. My name is Creigh. I'm a girl, if you were wondering (I feel I should say that because Creigh's a rather gender neutral name, or even a masculine sounding name, particularly if you think it's pronounced Craig - if anyone's wondering, my family pronounces it "Kree", or should I say /kri/, lol). I'll be honest, when most people describe me (those my age, at least), the first adjective they tend to come up with is 'weird'. That's probably because I choose to bypass many of the social norms that aren't useful. Hence, I think little of running around the park playing pretend with a five year old (he's autistic and I'm trying to engage him on his terms and encourage him to communicate), regularly interrupt and call out people who use the r-word, and am pretty resistant to peer pressure. I am also incredibly rational and think the scientific method was the best concept ever thought of. My interests mostly, unsuprisingly, focus on autism advocacy. As most of you have read by now, my sister's autistic, which served as my gateway into the advocacy world. Other intersts are basically the state of the world, foreign languages, and - well, is helping other people an interest? if so it's one of mine. And I think the world would be a better place if we were all kinder to each other. Fun fact: While I don't quite have a photographic memory I come close, which was a serious asset in anatomy and physiology. Also, happy birthday, Emilee!

Thanks so much, LDadvocate! I'm SO excited!!!! Dad was...relieved? And Caley was more sad than anything, although she tried to hide it - broke my heart. I'll be moving away to go to FSU, so she's sad about that. But she has her own friends and her own life to support her now, so I don't feel as guilty. (And she wouldn't want me to feel guilty, she's just sad.) But I celebrated with my mom, who was overjoyed, and with all of you guys, so that went well.

Did anyone else get into FSU?!

You've got a good point with the scholarships. I'll wait until the school acknowledges my acceptance of the offer (is it bad I still feel like this offer might go away?), and then email everyone to withdraw. _fairydust, that does mean I won't be able to give you a heads up on Marshall...but I'm guessing you'll still be happy because of the whole greater chance for scholarships thing. (We all love funding!) Thanks again everyone! It's so great to be part of such a supportive and awesome community. You guys made my heart happy. And MaxSLP, thanks for your kind words.

Yes it is! Just sent in my email acceptance! ...does anyone know what the protocol is for other schools? Do I just email to tell them? Or do I wait until I get letters from them?

Of course I will! I have a feeling it will be a while before any of us here from them, though - they didn't explicitly state, but I get the impression that letters will be sent via snail mail.

Oddly enough, your words seem to have been enough to make it feel real! I have a beatific grin on my face right now...

Haha - I may have beaten you on the calling everyone I know and screaming for joy and smiling fronts, lol. But printing the acceptance letter...that sounds like a remarkably good idea, actually. It keeps not feeling real! I keep double checking it - to see that yes, it does say accepted, and no, there aren't any caveats, and yes, it is for the right school, and yes, it is for Fall (as you can see I've already quadruple checked it). I feel happy, but in a weird way because I keep expecting to wake up and have this not be real. (There is precedent for this - I had a dream that I got accepted to a school once and was very disappointed to wake up and find it wasn't real.) I think it's going to slowly sink in...

Thanks so much everyone for the congratulations! And thanks for believing in me even when I didn't believe in myself, that means a lot. I tried to up vote everyone's congrats, but it told me I've 'reached my limit of positive votes for the day' so I couldn't. But either way, just know that I think you all are super awesome, I'm still going to stay involved on this board because I feel like we're a team (or even, dare I say it, a family) here and I've gotten to know you guys and I'm rooting for every single one of you to succeed!

OH MY GOODNESS GUYS, I GOT INTO FSU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At this point I think I can reveal that it was my top choice school and I am definitely accepting (so anyone who applied to any of my other schools, know that you have one less competitor). They have the BEST autism program - which I also have to apply for, so expect me to continue posting with more application worries - and I'm SO excited about this! I don't even know what to do with myself right now. I find myself checking and rechecking the letter they emailed (yes, it was email). This doesn't feel like real life. I'll probably post again more when this has sunken in. But in the meanwhile OMG I GOT IN!!!!!!!

So sorry to hear that, SweetPea21. Here's hoping your relocation turns into a wonderful adventure for everyone involved! (I'm a glass half full person.) And hoping for great news from your other schools who appreciate what you have to offer!!!!

Hey futureslpC3Pfan (that's quite a mouthful, lol!) just wanted to reassure you, we're not ignoring you, we do care about what you're saying. If you didn't get an answer to your question, my guess is that no one knows the answer. In order to be able to answer this question, we'd have to have gone through this type of interview at NYMC, which is probably a very small group of people. Just wanted to reassure you that we weren't ignoring you. Actually, if you guys in general have noticed me not replying to as many threads, it's because they all seem to be getting really specific. Like I'm not applying to CA, I've never heard of Molloy, have no clue about Boston programs...you get the idea. Anyways, that's all I'm saying - that if you're not getting many or any replies it may just be a really specific question that we don't know the answer to. I went hunting through this whole forum and I couldn't find any advice at all for the type of interview you described. So I'm guessing it's pretty rare. I don't know if it will help, because it doesn't sound scenario based, but SweetPea21 gave some great general interview advice a while back and that's the best I could come up with - hope it helps! Hope this was helpful!!!! Feel free to keep asking questions, because we do care and are a supportive community, just know that we may not reply if we don't know the answer.

That is actually one of the things I love about the speech path field. There are so many choices! You could work with anyone from a newborn all the way to a centenarian, you could work in a wide range of contexts (hospital, school, own clinic), and you could work on a wide variety of topics (hearing loss, artic, voice, AAC, pragmatics, dysphagia, just to name a few). While the possibilities are not technically endless, they certainly feel like it! I am probably the least useful person to answer the questions about my interests, because the answer's pretty much in my username, lol, but here goes. I want to, obviously, work with people on the autism spectrum. I'm open to adults or children. There are so many areas I'm excited about. AAC, pragmatics, artic/apraxia (common), and more! So many choices!!!!

Oh nice! No, I haven't the faintest about when they'll tell us. I first heard about Marshall when someone from the university came to speak about a program for students on the spectrum they have there and for that reason it always stuck in the back of my mind until it came application time.

I'd never heard of interfolio before, actually, but just wanted to say that making one seems like a smart move no matter what. (Well, depending on cost.) That kind of thing isn't only useful for applying to grad schools, it seems useful for applying to anything.

Gah! You guys, I just made the mistake of reading up again about one of the programs on the school's website and now I want to get into it even more! (It's my first choice school.) But I'm stuck waiting on the decision! This waiting game is just the worst...

I don't have Netfllix, but I do have some favorite TV shows. I like comedy, so basically I just watch anything funny. My life is stressful enough, I don't want to get stressed from the TV shows I watch, too. Alpha House is a really funny political TV show (I think you could enjoy it no matter what party you support or even what nation you're from) that's on Amazon - the first couple episodes are completely free, and then the rest of the season is available only if you pay/are an Amazon Prime member. Really, really funny. Quickdraw is a funny show on Hulu - the cast actually improvs everything, but they're funny enough to pull it off. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is also really funny, a former SNL member stars but seriously everyone on it is great. And then, of course, Community's awesome. I also recommend Firefly. It's a Joss Whedon TV show (which some of you might be familiar with) that I super love. It's not comedy (actually, I think the genre he labeled it as was 'space Western' and I think that's an apt label to use, as funny as it sounds, lol), but I still greatly enjoy it.

Omg, it had me from the first one! (Whenever a patient argues vaccines aren't useful and says they cause autism - "You're entitled to your wrong opinion, that's fine.") Man, I wish I could actually say things like that!