autismadvocate

I'd go for the less expensive school. Me, I followed the rule of 'do not go into more debt than you expect to earn in your first year on the job.' Which meant I calculated how much all my schools would cost and then didn't consider any of them if the overall debt load was over that number. Of course, you can't predict exactly how much you'll earn your first year on the job, but I went to BLS and found that the salary for the bottom paid 10% of SLPs was about $45,000. And then any of the schools I was thinking about that were above that, I took out of the running. I would strongly suggest you do the same. Prestige doesn't mean much in the SLP world and if you're concerned about classes one school offers that another doesn't, remember, it's not like you can't take continuing education courses after you're practicing (in fact, they're required).

Awwww! See, this is why I love our SLP Grad Cafe cohort - you guys are so NICE! I am feeling better, thanks. The healing power of dark rooms is amazing.

I COMPLETELY agree! For real, that would be awesome. You guys are so great and I keep wanting to meet all of you and hoping that by some chance we end up practicing together. Also, I feel you on the migraine. So sorry to hear that. I have one right now - I'm typing this from a dark room (with a monitor set to darkroom mode, meaning black background and red text). Yeah. It's bad. It was actually worse at work today, but thankfully the little boy I care for just wanted to play ghost, which to him meant lying down under a sheet whispering to himself. I don't know why he thought it was so fun, but that meant I got to lie down under a sheet with my sunglasses on for an hour which significantly helped...

All my friends are starting grad school right now and their hands down opinion no matter what program they're in is this; grad school is hard. Gruelingly so. Undergrad was easy. My last semester of college I was taking 22 credits of classwork (in a major that I struggled in and should never have had, economics), had leadership roles in four different student orgs, AND I was starting up my website. And I'm expecting grad school to be more difficult than that (and believe you me, people, that was difficult). But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Challenges are an opportunity to grow, to test and expand your boundaries. They're difficult, yes, but you come out the other end with so much more gained from the experience. So I'm hoping grad school is challenging, because if it wasn't I wouldn't feel like I was getting everything out of it that I have the potential to.

sayjo, you rock! Thanks, that really does help. I can't beat you by much with the prereqs, btw, I only have three done myself, although I'm enrolled in four more and taking three more classes this summer. And congrats on your acceptances!

You guys I am SO NERVOUS right now! I feel like I've gone through an anxiety roller coaster ride. Way back when I created this thread (the end of January) I was super stressed and wondering how on earth I was going to make it until March 1st (when I had thought I'd have at least one answer by). After a while of being freaking out levels of anxious I dropped all the way down to the 'maybe a little nervous but nothing much' levels (which were really nice, let me tell you). But then the school moved the March 1st date, the date I was supposed to have heard back, to March 15th. And ever since the 1st, I've been getting more and more anxious. Like, when I started this post I was back to freaking out levels of anxious. Only now I'm calmer, because I just logically reasoned through my two biggest fears. (Which were 1) what if they filled all their slots because I applied right before the deadline and 2) what if they reject me because I won't have the prereqs done until the summer?) Because either way, I can't change those. Anxiety isn't going to help me any, and those shouldn't be particularly big factors counting against me anyways. Wow, even this post was a mini anxiety roller coaster.

Wow, it sounds like this application season is just being brutal to you! So sorry On the happy side, the six schools you have yet to hear back from are more than I applied to overall. So you have PLENTY of schools left to hear back from.

Oh my goodness! Man, I am SO SORRY to hear that! Great that you're keeping a positive attitude, but that sounds like enough to frazzle even...I don't know, someone really unfrazzleable. Dumbledore? The Dalai Lama? (I love how those are the two examples I came up with, lol.) It sounds like, despite all that, that your actual interview went pretty well. Even the question that you feel like you stumbled on it sounds like you gave a pretty good answer despite all the chaos that was going on around you. Giant kudos and hopefully you'll be hearing good news from them!!!!

I just thought of this - check the school's program page? If they offer scholarships, a lot of them will say so there.

I wish I knew... My tactic was only to apply to less expensive schools/schools that give a lot of funding. I, too, am really hoping that someone here has the answer to this...

Wow, kbell, that is an AWESOME Monday! I don't know if it's possible for my Monday to be as great as yours, but here's hoping! :) And CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DeafAudi, if you're worried I would just use that as an opportunity to write a letter of continued interest. Write the letter under the pretext of telling them about the resume issue (a note will probably go In your file) but use the chance to remind them how interested you are in their school!

In Spanish, at least, I actually have the child experience - I volunteered teaching third grade in a Costa Rican elementary school. I was supposed to just be an assistant, but so many teachers took absences (dunno if anything was going on behind the scenes at the school or not, I think there may have been some drama) that instead of assisting the third grade teacher, I ended up teaching on my own the combined second and third grades. And, yes, this was completely in Spanish (except when I was doing their English lessons, naturally, but all the other subjects were in Spanish). So I ended up with a bit more experience with children than I'd anticipated, lol.

I thought the same, but that was the date FSU had originally given so I thought it might be something schools do.

That is always the trick - trying to figure out how much is too much! I had that problem myself...

Oh, wow, there are so many bilingual continuing education classes! I have hope! Thanks so much for passing on those links! Yes, I never call myself trilingual with laypeople or when interviewing for jobs. I am trilingual, but to the layperson that sounds like I mean I speak my other languages just as well as I do English. And I don't. Could you send me abroad to a Chinese or Spanish speaking country and I'd be able to navigate everything in the native language? Yes - actually, I've worked/taught/studied/lived in both Chinese and Spanish speaking countries. But what trilingual means in practice and what it means to laypeople are very different things.

Awwww...thanks so much! And np, Shuca, I'll swap to English (although I'm also interested in what language you speak!). I actually do have a Spanish-speaking parent and grandparents....I even have a Spanish-speaking grandparent on the other side, too! Unfortunately, though, we have a terrible tradition in my family of not passing the language on, so my grandmother never taught my mother and my father never taught me. (A tradition I have sworn to break!) That said, even though I never learned to speak or understand Spanish as a child, I was exposed to it fairly frequently - TV, music, phone calls to abuelos, etc - so my pronunciation is native-level. Learning about bilingual development is I think where I might be lacking post-Masters. Since I prioritized autism specialties in my search (and it's still the number one variable I'm weighing), it's just a bonus if a school has bilingual classes as well. Which means it's pretty likely I won't emerge from a program with this bilingual development background. I'd hoped that there'd be some distance learning certificate programs that I could complete while working as an SLP, but having looked, it seems like that's not the case...

This old thread may be applicable...

I KNOW! I was so excited, I was literally counting the days on my calendar. But March 1st has come and gone and I haven't heard from anyone...*sighs*

Oh how I hope you're right! One of my schools was supposed to release decisions tomorrow, but on their website (without telling applicants) they changed the date they'd let everyone hear back to the fifteenth. I keep hoping that was a mistake or that they'll start telling us tomorrow and the fifteenth was just the last day they'll give decisions and the first is tomorrow or something, anything like that. No knowing from any of my schools is just a terrible feeling, but thinking I was going to hear back and then having that day changed on me - that's worse.

Many professionals are still behind the times in the autism world. Case in point - after two hours of knowing the boy and not even doing an IQ test, a psychologist told a family I work with that their son was mentally retarded...I know better, the kid's actually pretty bright and crafty as anything, lol, but it's just ridiculous the psych thought he knew that from just having watched the kid hang out in his office - obviously the psych made assumptions based on stereotypes about people with classic autism. But they're less far behind now (when my sister was first diagnosed, they were still telling mothers that their lack of maternal affection caused their child's autism). We have a long way to go, though... And thanks for the like!

The blog article's up! Caley LOVED and approved it wholeheartedly. Here's the link to our FB page where I posted it. DeafAudi thanks, because you helped inspire me to extend the message to the whole disability community. (arthritiskid, you inspire me, too, only I didn't see your post until after I wrote the essay!) Please read and share because in this, as in everything, I'm thinking bigger picture, and every person who reads this I think of as just another person who will treat Caley, and you guys, DeafAudi and arthritiskid, and our future patients, and everyone in the disability community at large the way you all deserve to be treated: with respect. https://www.facebook.com/autismspectrumexplained/posts/266340446876968 Let me know what you guys think! On another note, DeafAudi, I upvoted arthritiskid for you. Totally agreed, arthritiskid, you're preaching to the choir! DeafAudi, the person that made that particular argument to her did so online. She called me crying, asking me if it was true that she would be a bad mother and shouldn't have children and I ripped apart the argument for her, but it just sucks she has to deal with that. That's not the only instance - she's been explicitly told her entire life that she shouldn't have children because she has autism. (And that she shouldn't/couldn't be in mainstream classes, be in Honors classes, be in AP classes, live away from home....the list goes on and on and on.)

I'll post it as soon as my sister reads through and approves it. :) On another note, someone questioned my sister's ability to have children recently on account of her autism. Before they said that, Caley had said there were a lot of similarities between the autism community's fight for rights and the Deaf community's and the person responded saying there were no similarities...and then said my sister wouldn't be a good parent because she 'wouldn't be able to read the subtle differences in the child's crying'. I couldn't help but think (and I hope this has never been used against you) that people had almost used a similar argument (except for not hearing the child cry at all) against parents with hearing loss. It made me very, very sad to think about. People will look for any excuse to find areas where people with disabilities are supposedly lacking. Autistic parents (generally undiagnosed) and deaf parents have been raising children just fine for generations, but all people do is try to find examples of incompetence (questionable in this case) as opposed to competence. It's sad.

Yeah, I thought of you when I posted it - kind of hoped you hadn't experienced it for your sake, but it seems to be a universal thing in the community. You could an amputee in a wheelchair and all of a sudden, despite your legs having NOTHING TO DO with your intelligence level (nor hearing loss nor autism, but laypeople are really uninformed and don't always know those) it's like your IQ is perceived to drop fifty points because you have a disability. It's ridiculous. Talking to you guys about this has actually inspired me to write a blog post, I'll put it up here for you guys to read when I'm done. :)

Oh dear...I know I was the one that said it, but I'll be honest, I was kind of hoping it wasn't true! But I think it is probably true, and that makes me nervous!