limegreen19

@rzilbyYooo I'm from NJ too!! I was also accepted to Montclair. My situation is a bit diff because Syracuse is actually cheaper for me than Montclair so take that as you will. None of the NJ schools were really appealing to me mostly because they're not strong research universities - which contributes to their lower rankings (>#100 on the US News). That doesn't mean they are BAD programs at all! They'll absolutely provide good education, get you the same degree/license and give you well-rounded clinical experiences...but they don't have strong publishing presence in the academic world. I really wanted to get involved in labs, potentially do a thesis, and keep the option open for a PhD - which is not the norm - so don't feel like you have to put so much emphasis on research. Keeping all of this in mind- if you want to work in NJ after you graduate, then yes DEF go to school in NJ, where you'll do your externships and make those connections for the CFY. But if you want to work in NY state at all - even slightly - you should go to a NY school because I've heard the TSSLD (NY state specific teaching license for SLPs) is a bitch to get if you do grad school elsewhere. Here's some things about Montclair that turned me off when I visited last spring: the program is 2.5 years for in-field and 3 years for out-of-field (the 3 years OOF is expected but 2.5 is a bit long for those in-field). The clinic&CSD dept building is beautiful and modern....but it's an external site separated from main campus and it's located in a professional park with other businesses. It was hard to find because it didn't really look like it was part of the university. The clinic at Syracuse is in "South campus" which is separated as well from main campus, but it is still in the immediate university area with buses running to/from that location. Other than those two things, nothing else really stood out in a bad way about Montclair. So basically for me, I chose SU for cost and research. There's also a variety of placement locations in the city (3 major hospitals in the city, many school districts, private practices, rehab centers, etc...)

Declined my acceptance at Emerson, hope this helps you out!

1. Why did you choose the program you're going to? What really sold it for you? I'm going to Syracuse! To be perfectly honest it's mainly for the scholarship they offered (no other schools offered me as much as they did) but I'm also super excited about the research opportunities there. I reached out to a professor there and she and I have been super friendly since my acceptance. Also they're friendly to out-of-field people, which is wonderful since I'm coming from neuro, with only 2 prereqs in progress this semester. 2. How many schools did you apply to Too many... I panicked and applied to every school I could find that would take out-of-field students. Applied 12, accepted to 11 (!!!??? yeah..), and waitlisted at 1 (and I'm pretty sure that's because Temple marked my supplemental app as "incomplete" for weeks after the deadline because they expected a transcript for my in-progress prereqs at a new university - which was not available... grr whatever not complaining). In case anyone's curious: accepted at Syracuse, Iowa, Vanderbilt, MGH, Emerson, TC Columbia, NYU, Kean, Montclair, William Paterson, UVA. Stats: GPA (neuro) 3.8, GRE 162/168/5 (verbal/math/essay), SLP shadowing experience 3. If you haven't decided, what is going to be the factor that pushes you to decide? God this decision was tough, my main factors were: cost, location, externship placements type&number, research opportunities, length of program (ideally 2.5 or even 2 years for OOF) I was torn between Vandy and Syracuse for the longest time. Vanderbilt's facilities are AH-MAZING and are exceptionally above-and-beyond any other visit I've been on (the program takes place literally inside the hospital and has state-of-the-art equipment&resources), but they didn't offer any scholarship and I'd be moving really far away from anyone I know. I was tempted by their ranking as well, but the most important thing is getting a degree&license. Syracuse checks off all the boxes and costs a lot less for me. Plus it's still a great program and will let me stay near friends/family in NJ. I'll be getting 2 full-time off-site placements vs. only 1 at Vanderbilt (though their "on-campus" semesters are really like real-world settings). So in the end, I chose my head over my heart and made the practical choice that would leave me with minimal debt. I think I'm making the smart choice, and only time will tell if I made the right choice. I am very fortunate to have this problem and now that the decision is made, I am feeling so relieved.

@alicecdstudentnp I wanted to give u the full picture with pros/cons thank u for linking the fb group on the other thread!

Wow... nobody mentioned this at the open house. I wonder how closely it is associated with the grad program. I find it somewhat alarming that the school as a whole has this organization. But I don't think it's actually tied to the SLP program. There weren't any faculty members associated with this "institute" or even working on any related topics like autism. I certainly understand where you're coming from though, as it does fall under the whole university.

@Yanceywhich lab is that? On the tour, we saw the 7 labs listed on the website ( http://csd.syr.edu/Research/CSD_Research-Focus.html ). There's no descriptions that match what you said. Is this a course you're talking about, and where did you learn about this?

Hello, I was accepted to both as an out-of-field applicant. They're both 2.5 years, which is great for us out-of-field people. I just declined at UVA and will be accepting at Syracuse with the main motivation being that Syracuse offered me scholarship money and UVA did not. So your situation may be different, but I'll talk about my visits to both and my impressions of the schools. UVA - Clean, professional atmosphere, the "campus" must be referred to as "grounds," clinic is used for both psych&speech, professors are friendly&knowledgeable (Dr. Robey esp - do not hesitate to email him with any questions!), for our track there are 2 semesters of on-campus clinic, 2 semesters of externship (Charlottesville area), and 1 full-time internship anywhere in the country ( you can go back to DC!). There are specialty groups such as fluency, accent mod, aphasia, etc.. which grad students can lead. There is very little flexibility in the curriculum so no electives or chance to "specialize" - you get a very well-rounded exposure to all types of populations&settings (child&adult, school, med, etc...). Many students come from out-of-state and out-of-field, so it's not unusual to be in your situation. Research is not really encouraged (but it is available), which is also why I chose Syracuse. UVA a highly clinically-focused program, preparing you for professional practice, so not many people do master's theses or research projects. Weather is warm, of course, and the surrounding areas are very safe. Housing is very affordable based on craigslist ads Syracuse - the building was isolated from the main campus, so it's sort of in a quiet area. The clinic was clean and professional as well. There were more treatment rooms than UVA if I remember correctly. Clinic is used for speech&audiology. Professors were friendly&knowledgeable and introduced themselves (I got to see all of them at this open house event rather than just 1 at the short UVA tour, so keep that in mind). There are 5 semesters of on-campus clinic, 2 semesters of full-time internships (one of these must be in the Syracuse area, the other you MAY be able to complete anywhere, depending on grades&performance in the program so far). There are a small number of electives in the program. One placement must be with children, one placement must be with adults. The faculty gets really excited when students are interested in research, and it's encouraged to volunteer/work in a lab, etc... There's a lot of exciting work being done in the labs (I didn't hear about the labs at UVA so I assume there's not much there) - like ultrasound biofeedback and EEG and even a pharmacological clinical trial with the voice professor! Weather is generally cold&snowy, but it was sunny on my visit day so that was nice The city & surrounding areas are sketchy, but the immediate university area is safe. I plan to stick to the campus so this is not a major concern. Housing is also very affordable and there are many apartment complexes near the university area (some offer snow removal and covered garages!). Oh and a lot of the students come from in-state (many were from Buffalo or some other upstate NY cities), a few of them were from out-of-state (CA, NJ, PA). There's also a good amount of people without a background. I met several older students at the Syracuse open house (many who've been working for a few years), whereas at the smaller UVA visit day the students seemed fresh out of undergrad or 1-2 years out of school. These are just first impressions so I don't know as much as current students could tell you, but hope this helps! I'm obviously biased towards Syracuse but both schools are very good choices! Congrats and good luck with choosing. You can relax a bit knowing you'll get a great experience at both schools.

It was pretty standard - I think most open houses have the same kind of structure. There was an overview of the program and all the faculty introduced themselves, answering questions. Then some of the students came and answered questions. We had maybe half an hour with the students, which I felt wasn't really enough. Then we had a tour of the labs & clinic. There's lots of rooms and a lot of cute painted walls in some of them. It had more personality than some other school's on-campus clinics. The observation for the majority of the therapy rooms is through a video camera system, and 2 rooms will have the one-way mirror that's pretty common in other schools clinics. If you're interested in research they have some pretty sweet equipment in the labs, like EEG, ultrasound (they use this as biofeedback in both research/therapy, pretty cool), motion tracking, etc.. We had lunch afterwards with the accepted & current students but it was kinda cut short by the current student's next class. One con that I found was that the building itself doesn't look very exciting (concrete and pretty boring-looking), and its location is separated from the main campus. There's not many buildings around it, so there's not too much going on. It used to be located on main campus, right across from all the restaurants/stores, but they recently moved it to this new location. They said it was a tradeoff between the building (apparently it was really old) and the prime location in the center of everything, but they seemed to be really happy with the change overall. I'm not that bothered by these things, but thought I'd just put it out there.

Hi guys, I may be attending Syracuse. Is there a FB group yet? @EmilyGCH what did you think of the open house? I thought everyone was so nice, but it felt a little rushed. Wish we could've had more time.

Thanks @MS! You pretty much cleared up my confusion about that.

Congratulations! Got the same exact thing and it really threw me off at first, but then I realized it was an acceptance. On their website they have 3 different "Master of Science" tracks/degrees. https://www.tc.columbia.edu/biobehavioral-sciences/communication-sciences-and-disorders/nav-sections/academics/ So the degree is MS-CSDR and the 3 tracks are Initial Certification (IN), Professional Certification (PF), and Bilingual Extension (DU). I don't know what the difference is between "IN" and "PF" but maybe it has to do with out-of-field vs. in-field? Something to email and ask. Either way we got in Let me know if you ask and get an answer!

In the online information session - which you can watch here: http://info.mghihp.edu/slpwebinar/recording - Dr. Nicholas said that MGH actually is not a medically-focused program, despite the association with the hospital. In fact, one of their unique characteristics is their focus on literacy (they offer a certification for reading/literacy educators on top of the literacy specialty track). The presentation also had some slides on the settings that graduates from each class work in, and it showed a lot of variation across the years, but pretty much reflected 1/2 school, 1/2 medical. Some years there were more graduates in school settings than medical settings. Some years it was the opposite. Oh and they also have an autism specialty track! Here's some of their sample curriculums: http://www.mghihp.edu/academics/communication-sciences-and-disorders/degree-options/master-of-science-speech-language-pathology/Curriculum-Plans.aspx Just to answer your question, I am more interested in working with adults than children. If I go to MGH, I would be interested in the neurogenic disorders concentration. But I am keeping an open mind. Who knows, I might change my interest once I see what the school setting is like.

Congratulations everybody! I was also worried that I wasn't going to be accepted because I hadn't received a phone call on 3/2 and 3/3. But today I got the call and was so elated! I am attending the visit day on April 9th, as I'm only a 4 hour drive from Boston. @rose6593, I hope it works out for you. I see you've been accepted to 4 schools so far -- that is amazing! I'm in the same boat, too... It's definitely a good problem for us, and we should feel very thankful to have these worries but try to consider factors like cost, length of the program, location & type of location (city vs rural), specialty tracks, externship placements, etc... Don't worry, though, we have until April 15th.

Yeah I was actually wondering the same thing! I would assume so.. And it wouldn't be too odd of a time if that's when grad students are free. But the best thing would be to clarify with the department. I'm gonna call/email to confirm. EDIT: I just called & the lady who picked up said she would find out and get back to me. She sounded confused as well, so it might have been a typo.

I'm taking 2 courses right now online through Kean University. It's not that expensive, but I'm in-state. Not sure if there's a difference for out-of-state people for online classes. The two that I'm taking are super easy (intro to communication disorders and language development) and require very little time commitment, which allows me to work a couple part-time jobs and save for grad school.