sackofcrap

I feel like if it's basically the same after the first year, you should go to the program you like more!

I am not applying this cycle. I actually applied last cycle and was accepted and decided to defer for a year, so I will be starting my School Psych PsyD program in Fall 2022!!

Basically, I have been accepted to a doctoral degree program. It’s the right degree to get a job doing what I want to be doing. I’m extremely happy about it. It is in a different state than the one I currently live in, so accepting the offer would mean moving. Now, here come the issues. 
I currently work full time and I have health insurance. I am in the process of preparing to get a surgery done. For privacy reasons, I won’t go into detail about the exact surgery, but this surgery is not literally life or death, but would be extremely life improving for me. Right now, it feels like getting this surgery is like one of the most important things in my life. The tricky thing is that due to covid, I can't get the surgery right away. I have not been given an exact date, but it is looking like I wouldn’t be able to get the surgery until August. With that being the case, I would no longer have my current health insurance, as I would have left the job and started school by then. If I accept my offer and go to school and leave my job, then I will lose my insurance and therefore won’t be able to afford the surgery. 
On the other hand, if I stay where I am now at my current job and turn down the grad school offer in order to get the surgery, I am terrified I will never get the chance again. I mean, is it really worth it to turn down something as great as a doctoral opportunity for a surgery?? Will I be good enough to get in anywhere next year? I feel like I barely got in this year.
I know this post is kind of jumbled and going nowhere. I guess my question is, does anyone have any advice or words of encouragement for dealing with an uncertain future. I am at a complete loss about what I should do right now and the deadline is approaching. If I turn down the offer, I know it doesn’t have to be forever and I could still apply next year, but I have a sinking feeling I wouldn’t be able to get in again. If I go to the program and forgo the surgery, I feel like I won’t really be able to live the type of life that I want.

Thank you guys for your words and suggestions. I have reached out to the university and they have given me an admission deferral form to fill out, so I have sent that in and now I am just waiting to see if it will be approved or denied. If I can get the approval, then I can start in Fall 2022 instead of Fall 2021 and by then I will have had the operation.

We only have about 1 more month left and then we are done with our first year of graduate school. 

We only have about 1 more month left and then we are done with our first year of graduate school. 

There is something called a graduate plus loan. It is available to cover everything up to your total cost of attendance. If you need to take out a loan for graduate school, it is there. It does have a certain credit requirement, but I believe it is easy to qualify for. A lot of students take out graduate plus loans. Another thing to consider is working as a graduate assistant. Usually those jobs will have you work 20 hours per week on campus and pay enough to cover rent and living expenses.
Also, this is outrageous!
I went to a 4 year, private college in the northeast for undergraduate and my tuition still wasn't that high. To be paying that much for just a technical school is absolutely crazy. If I were you, I would re investigate what school I am going to. You are getting royally ripped off.

There is something called a graduate plus loan. It is available to cover everything up to your total cost of attendance. If you need to take out a loan for graduate school, it is there. It does have a certain credit requirement, but I believe it is easy to qualify for. A lot of students take out graduate plus loans. Another thing to consider is working as a graduate assistant. Usually those jobs will have you work 20 hours per week on campus and pay enough to cover rent and living expenses.
Also, this is outrageous!
I went to a 4 year, private college in the northeast for undergraduate and my tuition still wasn't that high. To be paying that much for just a technical school is absolutely crazy. If I were you, I would re investigate what school I am going to. You are getting royally ripped off.

I can understand why they would be concerned. It is a very very frustrating situation for you though, especially if you didn't know he worked there!

If you know you won't be happy there and you think so lowly of the school, don't go there and take that spot from someone who actually wants to be there. 

If you know you won't be happy there and you think so lowly of the school, don't go there and take that spot from someone who actually wants to be there. 

There is something called a graduate plus loan. It is available to cover everything up to your total cost of attendance. If you need to take out a loan for graduate school, it is there. It does have a certain credit requirement, but I believe it is easy to qualify for. A lot of students take out graduate plus loans. Another thing to consider is working as a graduate assistant. Usually those jobs will have you work 20 hours per week on campus and pay enough to cover rent and living expenses.
Also, this is outrageous!
I went to a 4 year, private college in the northeast for undergraduate and my tuition still wasn't that high. To be paying that much for just a technical school is absolutely crazy. If I were you, I would re investigate what school I am going to. You are getting royally ripped off.

$50k tuition for a two-year technical school is a rip off, and I'm guessing most graduates can't afford to pay back their student loans. Also have a feeling this question is better suited for College Confidential.

You have $50k in tuition and $17k (maybe) in federal aid. How are you planning on paying the $33k difference, before you even start worrying about living expenses? Does attending actually make financial sense?

Though it's just a small thing but it can go a long way-- see if you can apply for SNAP benefits to help pay for the food.

Have you looked at getting a studio apartment instead? that should be cheaper. I would recommend roommates but since it's two of you, it wouldn't make much sense. However, if you think coming up with approximately $1000 a month will be hard between the two of you (that's for a place, utilities, internet, and food), then you two need to start working as much as you can now and start saving up as much money as you can.
the FASFA is open now, so both of you should go ahead and submit for that. I was in a similar situation when I was getting my Master's degree, and I ended up maxing on my government loans to pay my bills. That might be your only option. However, I suggest that you only get federal loans, no private loans. People do this all the time, but keep in mind what you borrow you have to pay back so take that into account that taking all these loans for schooling and bills will cut into your income greatly once you start working. 
Also bartending is better than taking a minimum wage job. I use to pick up bartending jobs all the time to pay for things, on a good night I could make $300 plus dollars which was enough to pay quite a few bills and get food. 

I can only give my 2 cents on this, take it or leave it.
Let's say you enter and get your ph.d. you'll be 55 or 56 when you graduate. In the increasingly competitive job market in the humanities, few schools (if any) are going to hire someone who is near retirement age. They want to get the most bang for their buck--young, enthusiastic people who are going to stick around for 20 years. Ideally, anyways. Things are changing, of course, and tenure-track positions vanish every year. But if I were on an adcom, I doubt I would accept someone who is 50, for the simple practicality of it. Not to mention that there have been unprecedented numbers of applicants this year. But I am not on an adcom, and so can't speak to what they would do. I would say that someone who is 50 and going to grad school would have to be really amazing, beating out all the younger folks, which would be pretty hard to do, I think. I don't want to rain on your parade, and I certainly don't want to discourage you, if this is what you want to do. Keep trying, if that is the case.

At the EdS level you can work in public or private schools, or at therapy centers (often that send you into schools).
The problem with working in a hospital is internship. They tell us in our program that hospital is a problem because of the breakdown of hours (so fewer therapy/contact hours) that you will have to supplement, plus these internships are VERY competitive, because they generally go to clinical and other kinds of students, and are rarely given to school psych students. To answer your question, yes, this is for doctoral level students. I think it would be almost impossible to do this with an EdS because you need the right level of experience to even land the job (or internship). An EdS with a clinical doctorate (or even Master's) might be a better route for you.

I have a person just like this in my program. Drives me insane in class. And they are blissfully unaware of how annoying they are. I have talked about it with some of my other classmates. We just let it go on because really the person is just being annoying, but isn't necessarily hurting our education in any way. They just talk a lot and always have to answer the question and always have something stupid to ask.

Some guy named Jose gets more mail at my address than I do. Almost every day it's something different. It's out of control. 

I can't wait for this semester to end. We are getting so close.

You might be interested at two professors at WUSTL.
Arpana Agrawal's research focuses on epidemiological and genomic approaches to the study of substance use and addiction. She is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to study how genetic and environmental factors work together to shape our liability to use cannabis and become addicted to it.

Ryan Bogdan’s research examines how genomic variation and environmental experience contribute to individual differences in neural phenotypes, behavior, and psychopathology (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance use disorders).

I can't wait for this semester to end. We are getting so close.

I applied to St John's. They are a good program. The admissions people that I was in contact with were all very nice to me. If you live far away, they are willing to do a phone interview so you won't have to fly all the way out there.
Your GPA is better than my GPA was, so that is in your favor. My GRE scores were higher than yours. If you're thinking about PhD, you may want to retake the GRE. It is incredibly competitive. As for the EdS, I think you will be fine. They may want to see a writing score that is a bit higher, because there will be a lot of report writing in the field of school psychology, so that would be the only concern. 
The only benefit to getting a doctorate in school psychology is that you will have a doctorate. That is pretty much it. If you actually want to be a school psychologist, then there is no benefit. If you really want to be a researcher and teach at the university, then get the doctorate.

It depends on if you are applying for EdS or PhD. Last I checked, USNews doesn't have a specific category for School Psych sub doctoral programs.