talkingcake

Just got accepted to San Diego State! It's the only CA school I applied to, because I really wanted to go and explore out of state. But because of recent family and financial issues, I might end up going to SDSU even if I get accepted somewhere else. That being said, I'm so very pleasantly surprised that I got accepted! I felt like my personal statement was terrible, so I had already started planning for the Fall 2017 cycle lol

Late reply, but I also got that email. In my case, I minored in communication disorders in my bachelor's and now I'm in a post-bacc. It only asked for post-bacc GPA, so I only put in my post-bacc GPA without my original minor GPA. I agree it's confusing though.

@Puffer Fish Good luck on the rest of your apps!

I was surprised and nervous when I got a letter from University of New Mexico already... only to find that it was actually just a confirmation letter that they received all the materials for my application. Phew, that scared the bejeezers outta me, although it was nice of them to send one This is the second mini heart attack I got from them! They already scared me once when their financial aid department sent me an email saying my application was incomplete (as in they can't process my financial aid app unless I'm fully accepted into the program). Has this happened to anyone else?

@MrsH I was combing through my emails again, and it turns out that the confirmation email was automatically sorted in the wrong folder this whole time. I swear, my inbox just doesn't like NYU for some reason. Thank you, and good luck to you too!

Is the NYU portal separate from the application page? I applied to NYU, but I got neither a confirmation nor a portal link... Then again, I also didn't receive an email containing the password when I tried to create an account for the Steinhardt application page (although I contacted them and got it later). Would you happen to have the link for the portal?

From what I understand, schools generally want to see OOF extracurriculars with substantial leadership experience (club president etc) or faculty research. OOF stuff that contributes to the kind of SLP you want to be is also acceptable, as long as you elaborate in your personal statement. For example, if you want to be a Spanish-English bilingual SLP, being an ESL/EFL or Spanish tutor is a great way to showcase language skills. Depending on the program, they might accept more or less OOF stuff than what I listed. Hopefully none of the schools we're applying to require us to cut down!

I'm currently in a one year post-bacc program, and I'm applying for Fall 2016. I only minored in communication disorders during undergrad, but I tried to tailor my major courses to be as applicable to SLP as possible. That being said, I did not have a car at the time, so I just don't have many in-field extracurricular experiences other than a year of lab work. On the other hand, when it comes to out-of-field extracurriculars, I've got a lot of experience in various areas and I'm proud of what I've accomplished. I figured I should have fun and be as well-rounded as I can be during undergrad because of how intense and focused SLP Masters programs are. I'm volunteering at a couple sites now, but it'll only amount to three or four months worth of volunteer work by the time apps are due. Long story short, I'm relying on my out-of-field extracurriculars to pull me through. It seems like all of my top choice schools do take out-of-field extracurriculars into consideration (to some extent), but does anyone know if there are schools that... don't? I'm asking just in case, because I was recently encouraged to apply to one or two more schools. Please help an OOFer out!

Actually, as a California resident, you can apply for in-state or close to in-state tuition for certain programs under WICHE's Western Regional Graduate Program agreement. The states that are part of the agreement are "Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai‘i, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands." Unfortunately, not all programs in those states will offer in-state tuition, but for SLP they are: University of Utah (PhD only) EWU (MS) University of Colorado Boulder (MA) University of Northern Colorado (MA) Idaho State University (MS, online option available) Utah State University (MA/MS) University of Washington (MS) I pulled the list of programs off of http://www.wiche.edu/info/publications/wrgpHandout.pdf and you can visit the WRGP site at http://wiche.edu/wrgp

There's also the whole Statement of Purpose subforum in Grad Cafe too- i remember reading some tips and pointers floating around there, although it's important to keep in mind that a letter of intent for a professional program like SLP can sometimes be a bit different from one for a research program, depending on what you're gonna write in it

I agree with Jolie about random skills coming in handy: where I volunteer, I was able to connect with a child because we both like the Portal video game series! Eggfish, I'm also somewhat of a type B personality- I sleep in and read webcomics in my spare time. Quite a few of my friends are in engineering and computer science as well. The majority of students in my speech department were also type A, peppy, bubbly, athletic, morning person, in a sorority, different sense of humor etc. You might not get along perfectly with them, but you're bound to meet people who share your peers' personality traits or interests both in grad school and later on in your career, so even if you weren't able to connect with your colleagues during undergrad, it might be good to take small steps outside your comfort zone. All of my peers were willing to open up to me, but that was only after I opened up to them and started conversations with them proactively. Hopefully it's the same with yours!

I feel like there are more options for schools on the East Coast and the South. I'm still applying to mostly West Coast though!

It's also a good idea to keep in mind how many letters your professors are willing to write. They use roughly the same message for each school, but some professors refuse to send more than a certain number. It's good to ask beforehand just in case