Fall15Applicant

I feel your pain! Decisions are also not my friend. I am familiar with MGH IHP but not the ASU program, so take that into account when reading these. Here are some questions I had to ask myself in order to decide. Hope it helps! - Where do you want to live after school? For example, if you want to live & work in Boston after school (especially in a highly coveted hospital job), you will make more connections by going to school in Boston. But if you don't care and/or don't have a special preference, maybe the location doesn't matter as much. - Based on where you want to live and in what setting (hospital, school, etc), what salary would you be making? Looking up salary data (with cost of living taken into account) will help you decide how many loans you'd be comfortable with. - If you are interested in medical SLP, does ASU guarantee a medical placement? (I believe MGH does.) If not, try to find out how likely you are to get one if you want one. - Did you visit both programs? Talk to current students or alumni? Talk with faculty? I definitely felt more attracted to certain programs based on my interactions with students & faculty. Many schools I visited were basically tied in the rankings, but I got completely different vibes and could picture myself at one over the other. - Are you interested in research? If so, does either school have better research opportunities? - Is there a faculty member at either school who specializes in your area of interest? If I was having a super hard time deciding between two programs and they both checked the boxes for what I wanted in a grad program (good variety of placements, approachable faculty doing interesting things in my area of interest, good reputation with students, alums, and the community, research opps, etc).. finances would be the tipping factor. But if you truly believe MGH IHP checks more boxes than ASU, only you can decide if those extra checkmarks are worth the extra money.

I read that too and have the same question! Would love to know if you find out anything new.