MSWplease123

Hello, I've been lurking around on this forum for quite some time and have learned so much from all of you who take the time to share your insights. Right now I'm struggling with whether or not to take a chance and apply this fall or wait another year. I am in my late twenties, graduated with an unrelated undergrad degree, and had a difficult time during the second half of college/in the years after graduation because I was caring for two terminally ill parents. I eeked out with a 3.0 but know that my last 60 hours in undergrad were definitely below that. I volunteered quite a lot in college, but after graduation I was not in a position to go to grad school/volunteer/make any other commitments while caring for my parents. I did manage to start and run my own business and still do so full time today. Life has started to normalize in the last year and a half and I've been working on re-engaging academically and in my community. If I were to apply this year, by the time I send my application in this fall I will have (in addition to volunteer work in undergrad): - 9 months as a hotline advocate at a domestic violence agency, 6 additional months as an intern there (16-20 hrs/week) - 6 months as a DV shelter volunteer (different agency, different county) - 6 months as co-facilitator of a support group for people who have lost loved ones to suicide - 6 post-bacc credit hours of undergraduate coursework in mental health and child welfare (4.0) - Two completed graduate certificate programs - one in substance abuse counseling and one in military/trauma counseling (4.0 expected, total of ~24 graduate-level credit hours) I have not taken the GRE yet but plan to in late summer/early fall. My main issue right now is that I really just have no sense of whether the work I will have put in in the 1.5-2 years before applying will be enough to make up for the 4-5 years I spent just running a business and caring for family. I've really tried over the last year and a half to explore many different avenues of social work to figure out my interests and re-engage with school to demonstrate that I am capable of doing well academically when I'm not in crisis mode. Is there anything else that might make me a stronger applicant? I am going back and forth thinking that perhaps I need to just wait and add another whole year of volunteer/intern experience before applying, but I know that this is the right field for me and want to get started sooner rather than later. The program I really want to attend seems pretty competitive, so I'm just really worried about my low undergrad GPA and that long gap in social work-related experience. Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom or advice you may have to share!