Puffer Fish

Well, it's been 2 years since this thread was last posted in, and you resurrected it from the dead, but maybe your info will help someone new!

If you have no chance then I REALLY have no chance; most of your stats are better than mine! Stats help a lot but aren't necessarily the end all. I emailed Emerson College today (my reachiest school) with my stats asking if they accept students like me, and they said that they do (!!!!!) and the best way to help lower GPA apps is with killer personal statements and exceptional LORs, all of which are within your control (sorta). I hope that instills some confidence in both you and all my lovely lurkers.

In essence, yes, but phrasing is key. If you say it like that they're gonna be like this. If you can prove that your past grades do not reflect your current abilities and dedication, and that you need a second chance to prove yourself (via their additional training in the three year program), they might be more willing to give you a shot. But just email them a short but polite message summarizing the above. Save all the real confidence building for your personal statement and/or letter writers. Note: I have not been accepted yet but these are the efforts I am also trying in my apps (though my GPA is not below minimum...it's just barely AT minimum).

Hi everybody, This year, I'm applying to speech-language pathology programs for the second time. My stats are in my sig, but in case you're on mobile I'll repost them here. 3.07 undergrad GPA, 3.3 post-bacc GPA, and GRE scores of 162V/152Q/3.5AW. The writing score is killing me. Most schools in my department look for a 4.0, some even have a minimum cutoff of 4.5! Is it worth taking the whole GRE again just to try to improve my writing score? If so, should I study for the whole thing or just try to improve my writing? Schools only look at the top scores in each section, don't they? Thanks in advance.

It's possible that that advisor thinks the cycle opens mid-September, like it did last year. They opened it earlier this year and allowed previous applicants from last year to import data from their old apps. That's probably why they added the extra month this year.

You have totally valid points. I have received input from one of my professors about a personal statement draft and she said the same thing you did. I am going to generically mention it and will provide more detail in the interview if asked. I am debating retaking the GRE. The only score I need to improve is the writing one. I could do better in math, I guess, but it's not quite as vital to my apps I don't thinkl. Mostly I haven't reached out to the autism clinics because I work during their business hours and cannot take time off to go shadow someone. Though I have just found one that is open for 1 hour after I get off of work, so I could get almost an hour of observation if they took me. I don't have any more post-bacc courses to complete, unfortunately, unless I retake them. I am planning on applying to several 3-year, "post-bacc-into-grad-program' schools along with regular 2 year programs. I'm just worried I don't have enough time to get a good record with anybody. One of my profs for my LORs is ill and may not be able to write for me. I have no backup plan for if he can't do it.

I know that many schools insist you have the post baccs/prereqs done before starting in the fall. In theory you could get accepted to a school, sign up for those two other classes for the summer at that location, and complete them before fall semester starts and be good to go.

Try applying for 3 year programs? Even though you already have a background in it, maybe stating that you're able to prove yourself in X program's prerequisite/3 year program would help. I don't know how common it is, I just know that I'm doing this so hopefully it works.

Have you modified the school list to include "future schools" and not just "current schools?" The list with future schools shows the ones that will be added during this cycle. Several of the schools I want to apply to are not yet included (or, in the case of Central Florida, only has the spring app up for some reason) but are on the future schools list.

Go us, out-of-field applicants! How many schools are you looking at? Have you taken pre-reqs? I just finished 8/9 of the prereqs offered by Longwood University, and if I get accepted to a school that needs the 9th I'll gladly take it before fall semester. Even if it means taking one more class online...

Hi, I haven't been accepted anywhere either (second time applicant woo). I feel your pain; my stats aren't much better. One major thing you should work on, if you can, is increasing your speech GPA. It's NOT a good sign to grad committees if your major GPA in-field is lower than your overall GPA by any amount at all. Is there any way you can retake classes or take additional courses in-field? What's your non-academic stats like? Have you done any volunteering/etc? If you cannot fix the GPA in any way at all, I think you really need to at least address it in your SOP. Even if it's only a sentence or two. But I'll leave advice on that to people who've actually been accepted to programs. Best of luck to you!

I agree. I did not really gain much maturity while in undergrad, and I am not 100% sure why . I realize now that I never gave myself the opportunity to mature. Uncontrolled anxiety (see below) combined with my unstable family life led to me not being allowed to learn how to function as an independent adult for a lot longer than most people. Despite that, when I graduated and took my leveling courses, I moved home with my parents to save money. That is the only reason I took them online. Now that I have moved out (for the moment, hopefully forever) I am finding myself growing by leaps and bounds since I have the freedom to learn how to be functional and independent. My previous academic record doesn't reflect the work I know I could do now if given the opportunity. I also have an anxiety disorder which affected me throughout college and still affects me now, though I am attempting to work on getting it to affect me less. My undergrad GPA would be better except for extenuating circumstances regarding the disorder in one semester, which took me until I graduated to recover from academically (and even then it was not enough to significantly raise my GPA by that point). In my leveling courses, I had another extenuating circumstance where a friend died and I was overwhelmed during one semester, so I got my one and only C+ in one of the two courses in that semester. Since I only took 8 courses, it was a significant damper. I would love to move again and retake courses in person somewhere, but I know right now I could not handle a full time job AND classes. I need to focus on one or the other in order to be successful. My parents are gracious and wonderful and willing to help me pay for school, but I know they would see it as wasteful to take the classes again. Many schools I am applying to also have the 3 year pre-req track, and I am considering applying to those instead of the regular 2 year track. I could use the extra background knowledge. EDIT: I also do not know how I could work in a related field. There are no SLPAs in my state, I have no medical certifications, etc.

Unfortunately, I have moved back to my undergrad's town, and all there is around here regarding speech is autism clinics and the hospital. I am almost considering reaching otu to the autism clinics, but I am not terribly interested in that population. The hospital is the one that is not returning my calls; all I've done is cold call lol.

Hi, I'm applying to SLP as well, with a similar GPA to your friend. While I can't give any advice on if it's possible or not for us to get in, I can speak as someone like her. It'll be harder for folks like her and I (I too was a slacker for a while longer than was good for me), but it definitely seems like it should be possible to get in somewhere. Additionally, she's starting a new thing now. Schools look a LOT at your in-field courses. As long as she works really hard at the SLP courses over the next year, makes good connections to her new professors, and really sells it that she's a worthwhile candidate in this field, she'll have a lot better chance. She should also probably take the GRE again if her scores are "bad". You're a good friend for wanting to help her out like this.

I hate to add to the infinite list of "what are my chances" threads...but here I am. I'm an out of field applicant who graduated a semester early in December, 2014; my undergrad was a special major in psycholinguistics and developmental psychology. My overall GPA was 3.07. My best GRE scores are 162V, 152Q, 3.5AW I took a year to take leveling courses online (and discovered I am NEVER taking online courses again if I can help it). My GPA in those was a 3.34. Not good enough for schools with a hard 3.5 minimum, but still drastically better if you compare. I applied last year before I'd finished my online courses. 5/6 rejections outright, 1/6 apps was late (thanks to my letter writers who missed the deadline) and then put on a waitlist for a month and a half only to be denied later. Though I haven't done much academically since then, I can feel that i've achieved a lot of personal growth and I am working on figuring out how to word that in my personal statements. I have 2 tangible experiences in the field: an internship at an elementary school in my last semester of undergrad, and a few undocumented hours of shadowing at a hospital which made me decide I want to focus on adult, acute care. After graduating, while taking the online courses, I worked part-time at a restaurant. Now I work as the front desk person in a real estate office. I have several examples of people I have interacted with in all of these places (plus some examples from my personal life) that can be made relevant to SLP and my interests therein. I have tried to get a second internship or shadowing experience where I live now, but no one will return my calls/emails so it hasn't worked out yet. I'm worried that my lack of experience with the field will make admissions think I'm barely invested in this. I want this more than anything else in my life right now, but I have just had poor opportunities for experience since I didn't know the profession existed until nearly my junior year of college while attending an institution which barely has a linguistics department let alone having a CSD facility. Any advice? Suggestions? Concerns? etc.? Thanks in advance.

Grrr. Nearly all the personal statement prompts on the schools' websites are wrong, except for like...two. And some of them aren't up on CSDCAS yet so I have no idea what their official prompts are gonna be! There goes my idea of getting ahead early by writing preliminary drafts. At least I have some free time occasionally at work where I can work on writing in a good focus environment for once

Hey, I'm applying to SLP school too! This would absolutely be a great hook to use in your personal statements, in my opinion. You know firsthand how people compensate for hearing loss; you can likely better recognize it in others than fully typical hearing folks could. If you choose to work with adults or geriatrics, that'd be a huge bonus cause so many people absolutely refuse to admit that they're losing their hearing, so it's hard to diagnose some people. I don't see how it would hurt you to acknowledge your experience of life through your hearing loss. Hearing aids are optional, after all!

Hi, I took a "break" year too. Not by choice; I didn't get accepted in my first round. You're right, it feels like you're not making any "progress" but that's not true at all. You're learning how to adult, manage yourself and your time, etc. It would also give you more experience to write your statements on and allows for a better letter of rec in your case. You are allowed to take an academic break for one year. Give yourself time to be a non-student for once, learn who you are without academia forcing you forward all the time. Also who cares about missing one year's salary in the grand scheme of things? Find a different job in your interim year. Any life experience is good on applications, for fresh grads like us. HOWEVER, if you do decide to apply, you have stellar stats already so as long as you don't fail the GRE, you'd be more likely to get in somewhere than I am (see my stats in my sig for proof lol). No matter what you choose to do, you can spin it positively for a personal statement! Good luck.

Oh wow, yeah, what are you doing in this subforum? Lol! Please message me anything you want to tell me about Radford. I know nothing about it (I don't even remember what city it's in)!

Hi everybody, I'm back from my long hiatus and am doing exactly what I did last year: starting the new thread for new applicants right before CSDCAS opens. Hopefully by 2018 I'll have gotten in and won't be here doing this anymore, lol. This thread is for everyone applying for 2017. That includes spring, summer, and fall applicants from any and all countries! Are you guys ready for this round? Who else is applying again that didn't get in before? How's life? etc.

I got no acceptances. As my sig says, I got 5 rejections, 1 waitlist, and was denied off the waitlist due to lack of space. I'm on their "summer waitlist", which is basically "if someone drops out we take people from this list" so I'm not expecting to get in off it at all. My new plan is: move in with my boyfriend, try to find a full-time job (as opposed to my part-time job right now), and apply to a LOT more schools next year.

Hey guys, i haven't been here in ages due to the disheartening status of being on a waitlist and hearing about everyone else getting accepted. However, Pittsburgh told me today I'll be hearing back in a day or two!! I'm trying really hard not to get my hopes up just in case, but it's not really working. I hope I can join the scores of accepted students soon! Crossing all my fingers, toes, legs, arms, and eyes for this.

Man, I really, really hope Pittsburgh gets a lot of applicants who go somewhere else this year...they're my last and only hope. T_T All the waiting is wreaking havoc on my patience!

I have not written to PItt yet. I need to do that, partly for that and partly to ask fi they notify waitlisted students when there's no spots left so we can give up and move on with our lives, lol. Please send me some of that list you've got. Right now my plan B is to find a better job and wait...which isn't a good plan at all.

I didn't know UDC had it. I thought it was only Howard and Gallaudet in DC. I was trying to stay within a day's driving distance of my parents this time around, too, and all that's around here seems to be competitive schools. I also knew that these schools were competitive, and that their average applicant stats are just that: averages. I thought that I'd still have a chance even though I wasn't the "ideal" applicant. I know better now.