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Jordyn_M463

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Everything posted by Jordyn_M463

  1. I can't speak for any recommendations for leveling classes, but I don't think the break will hurt your chances at all. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to get LORs but something to think about, in my case, my letters were from professors and employers that new me very well but had no affiliation with SLP. If you can find individuals who know you well enough and can speak on your behalf about work ethic and personality, that can definitely be enough. I know that your GRE scores (if applying to schools that ask for them) have to be within the past 5 years. Your situation is unique, and I believe your personal statement would be a shining point in your application. Not everyone has had experiences like you have which is awesome! As for chemistry, I took a basic Chem class that was the university's equivalent of "high school chemistry" which had no lab. So you should be fine with an online chem or physics! You could always ask prospective grad schools to be sure! My particular program has a handful of individuals who came back to grad school for SLP after having other (unrelated) careers for 10-15 years. I wouldn't stress too much about the break! Best of luck!
  2. I bought a GRE book from Kaplan off of amazon. It gave tips and tricks and explained every practice problem it provided. It reviewed all 3. I didn't know Magoosh was thing. I just sat down and worked through a couple hours of each section during the week days leading up to the GRE. This particular book had an online code that had practice problems and a timed test that mimicked the GRE test to see how well you could do in the "testing environment".
  3. Hi @SLPtbd and anyone else who may read this with interest, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania My program is located near Erie, Pennsylvania! I chose this school because of its extreme affordability! It still rates pretty high in "Pennsylvania Programs". It is a fairly small school. I did not attend here for undergrad but I think they really think about the price for their graduate students! Every first year SLP graduate student is offered a GA position that you can accept or decline. If you accept (which I believe most do) it is 3/4 tuition reduction for the first year and you get paid $7.50/hr with your "paychecks" coming bi-weekly. You can work in the clinic, under a professor with their undergrad classes, or in research. They try to give everyone the choice they are most interested in. You will have to work in those positions 13.5 hours a week for the 15 weeks of the semester (including finals week). They estimate that the GA "award" is worth $10,462 based on tuition rates as of 2017-2018. If you are a "calculations" person, as of right now I believe it is $550 per credit. Im not sure how that compares to every school, but within the 5 schools I applied to, that seemed to be the "standard". There are 5 placements (externships) in the program. 2 will be in the clinic on campus and 3 will be outside placements that you can choose. You don't have to worry about them being close to the school. They can be close to your hometown if that is far away! You will have to work with adults and children and both in the school and hospital setting, but they want you to focus the majority of your externship placements on the population and setting you are most interested in. A staff member will discuss it all with you, and place you where you will work best and be the happiest. My particular cohort will be 26 individuals this coming fall. I am not sure how that compares to other programs but I believe that is considered on the smaller side. They have a 100% passing rate on the Praxis exam between 2015-2017, a 97% employment rate within 1 year of graduation, and a 95% completion rate. Which they explained only 3 people between 2015-2017 didn't complete the program because they found out within their first year of graduate school that SLP was just not for them. Your summer between your 1st and 2nd year, you will have to take 1 class on campus for a small portion of the first half of summer. Then the rest of the summer you will be able to be wherever you want with your placement. They do require neuroanatomy. You can take it your first semester of graduate school if needed. So if you don't have that class, I wouldn't be too concerned. But keep in mind, that is just one more class you need to pay for in grad school. If you are interested in what is in the area of the school, here is what I can tell you: Edinboro, itself, is pretty small. The town is very cute, and it is rural enough that I do not believe there to be any sort of "safety" issues. (I haven't lived here yet so I can't say for sure). I live about 2 hours south of Edinboro so I have been in the area numerous times. Erie PA is about a 20 minute drive north of Edinboro. There is a bit more to do in this area if you have a car or make a friend that has a car. There is a beach right on Lake Erie (lake not ocean). There is Waldameer which is an amusement park and Water World water park for the hotter portion of the first semester. There is also Splash Lagoon which is an indoor water park with laser tag and other things to do. There is also fishing, boating and other recreational things you can do outdoors. Ultimately you can find something to do, you just have to look for it. (That is if there is any free time available in grad school). The only downfall I can see for some people, is that Edinboro is right in the snow belt. Edinboro gets A LOT of snow. Lake effect snow tends to fall directly on Edinboro. If anyone has anything to add, please do! Like I said, I can only speak for what I know from experience and family experience who have gone to school in that area for college. I obviously don't know everything there is to know about the program because I did not attend there for undergrad and the Fall semester hasn't begun yet. I only know that if you are looking for an affordable school, I really do think this is a good option. It was definitely one of the selling points for me! Feel free to ask me any questions! I will try to answer them or find the answers for you!
  4. I received a very similar email from a different school, and it meant that the cohort was full unfortunately. ?
  5. I would suggest applying to smaller programs in Rural areas as the above poster has said. Also focus on getting the highest scores you can on GREs and strengthening every other aspect of your resume. Maybe even apply to programs that do interviews. In some programs it matters less about grades and more about the fact that you can hold a conversation with another person. My advisor always suggested applying to a large amount of schools that match your stats pretty closely. You can find that info on EdFind on the ASHA website. Then apply to a few "reach" schools. They may see something in you and be willing to give you a shot! It is worth the try!
  6. I used my school email when applying. However, I have been having a lot of trouble receiving emails through that server since graduation. I am supposed to have access to that particular email account for 6 months. I suggest using your personal email, as long as it is something professional and isn't your email account from middle school. ? Just in case you would have trouble getting emails to that particular server in the future!
  7. Even if you have a lower GPA, your resume can shine is so many other places. Focus pretty hard on the GREs and try to get the best scores you possibly can. Then play up that you are bilingual and have taken ASL classes (even if you aren't fluent). Highlight any experience you have in the field (volunteer/work). My undergrad professors said that bilingual SLPs are extremely sought after (as well as men in the field) because there isn't an abundance of them. So I think this could really work as an advantage for you. Look for strong letters of rec and write a bomb personal statement and you should be just fine. Best of luck to you!
  8. I think it depends on you. I would call and ask the school about what the accreditation means for you like the poster about said but in the end it is what you want most out of your time in grad school. If you are ok with the more expensive schools because they offer opportunities you would not get elsewhere, then that is what you should choose! But there is also nothing wrong with going with a cheaper school. In my case, I chose a cheaper school. The school is a great school and offers a lot of interesting and great experiences as well but a large factor for me was saving money where I can. I figured within the 5 externship placements my program does, I think I will be able to go to the places that interest me most. It will just some work on my part. In the end, as long as you finish and pass the exam for licensure, you will be an SLP. Where you go with your career is up to you!
  9. I want to encourage you that if SLP is something you really want, you should 100% apply again. Do not let letters of rec deter you. Try asking employers who know you, and professors that may not be CSD or SLP related but know your capabilities. I didn't have a single LOC from an SLP or professor of CSD. I was accepted into 3/5 schools. I honestly thought that would be my biggest downfall because I didn't connect with my CSD professors. So it is not a necessity. If this is what you want, go for it and don't give up!
  10. I don't want to discourage you, and if this is what you are truly passionate about you should definitely pursue it. However, I would consider retaking some of the classes you didn't do well in. I think getting A's in classes the second time around shows your dedication to the field and that you are serious about SLP as a profession. Then, I would continue to pad your resume and application in other areas. Good GREs, a lot of relevant work and volunteer experience, good letters of recommendation that can attest to you as a person and your work ethic, as well as why you fit into the field. Then honestly, do research on EdFind and look for programs who may have lower GPA requirements. Some of the larger more competitive schools only accept students with high GPAs. My undergraduate school would tell people to not bother applying to their program unless you had a 3.5 at least. That being said, it was a Top 10 school/program so they were able to require that of people. Smaller programs can have just as much reputation and can provide just as good of an education without having such high expectations of their applicants. When I was starting senior year in the fall, my undergraduate program director told us that applications work like this: A board combs through all the applicants and selects the ones they think best fit the cohort. Then they take it to whoever is in charge of the graduate school in general. They person has to approve these applicants and has the authority to refuse them. If an applicant is worth making an argument for, and worth putting up a fight for, the board will make a case for that student. (Now, I don't know how true this is. It might have been a scare tactic but I lived by it in my application process because it made me really think "What will make me stand out? What makes me worth fighting for?") When writing your letter of intent/personal statement, I would explain the your struggles in undergrad and then how you have changed what you learned from it. Then connect it to why that would make you a great SLP. It comes down to more than GPA. I honestly believe that this bump in the road should not deter you from this field if that is genuinely what you want to do. Do some research and maybe contact some of the programs you may be interested and see if they recommend anything to make your resume look better for next year's applications. Programs are usually very helpful if you are honest and express interest in them. Best of luck to you! Do not give up!
  11. If I were you, I would try taking the GREs one more time in all honestly. Maybe get a practice book off amazon and do some review, even if it isn't very intense studying. With a lower GPA, I think you would want to balance it out with good GRE scores, strong personal statement/letter of intent, resume and letters of rec. As @WesttoEast18 said above, look on EdFind and research some programs that have lower average GPA acceptances. Good luck!
  12. I think that it all depends on what you want out of the next 2 years of your life. For me, it was about money. I already owe a hefty amount of money for my undergrad because I chose to go to a large state university with one of the highest tuitions. ? (I loved every second of it though) For graduate school, I chose smaller, less expensive programs, in areas that aren't very pricey to live in either. My program gives every first year SLP grad student a GA position (you can turn it down if you want) and it covers 3/4 of your tuition and equates to about $500 a month in paychecks/stipends. That being said, the program is definitely "higher ranked" than the other schools I was accepted to, but in the end if they would have costed less I would have chosen them. My thoughts at this point are to owe as little as possible for graduate school. As for your special interests, if multilingual/cultural is something that is incredibly important to you and you love the program, and money is not an issue then I say go for it. Something else to think about is ASHA special interest groups. One of my professors for undergrad talked highly about getting involved in special interest groups for pretty much anything you can think of. The professionals all share research and ideas and it is a good way to stay connected to something you are passionate about. So if you chose to do the cheaper route, without the multilingual/cultural focus, this might be something you could look into and do research on. In the end, it is all about what you want out of your last 2 years of education. Do what makes you happy and what makes the most sense for you!
  13. One of the schools I applied to only sent me a rejection letter in the mail. I didn't receive anything through email. I think it just depends on the program! Good luck!
  14. I would prepare questions to ask them. It shows you are interested in their school and want to know as much as you can about it. I did a tour at 2 of my prospective schools and I honestly just made it a point to introduce myself and show my interest. Maybe think of why you would be good for their cohort so when you meet with the department chair you could say why you love the program so much and what makes you "fit that mold". My program head said they really just want to meet people face-to-face to make sure they can actually hold conversations with people. Its one thing to be impressive on paper, but it seems like they care more that you have the Type A personality that fits a speech-language pathologist. Good luck! Just be yourself!
  15. My GPA was a 3.67 at the time I sent my applications in. GREs in the (low) 150s. I applied to 5 schools and was accepted into 3 of the 5. Waitlisted at 1 and rejected from my "reach school". I didn't have any TA or research experience and my LORs were not in CSD or SLP departments. I really think it depends on the programs you apply to. I applied to smaller programs that get less applicants (and cost less ?) because I realized that I would be more competitive that way. It was also about finances for me, so when my advisor told me to apply to no less than 12 schools, I felt extremely nervous. I didn't have a couple thousand dollars to spend on applications. In total I probably spent about $600 on just 5 applications. In the end, I think it was my strong personal statement and my LORs were people who genuinely knew me and cared about me. My advisor suggests a 3.7 GPA if you want to get into a "Top Ten University", so I don't think that will be a problem at all. Just research programs and choose the ones that will make you the most competitive. Good luck! I am sure you will be fine!
  16. I heard back from my waitlist school, saying the cohort was full so the waitlist had ended. I'm not sure if all schools do this, but it might be worth asking. It might be a good sign if you haven't heard anything otherwise. Good luck everyone!
  17. Just curious about everyone's thoughts on housing for grad school. Are you getting a roommate or living alone? I am contemplating both. I know a roommate will save money and will be nice to have someone to talk to and stress out with but I have lived with a roommate for the past 4 years. I feel like living alone might be a nice change up and it might be nice to go home and be alone after a long day on campus. What are your thoughts? Why are you getting a roommate/living alone?
  18. My mom is an RN and my dad went to a trade school. My sister is a Vet Tech. I am the first in my immediate family to pursue a 4 year degree and now a masters degree. First one in my extended family to pursue a Masters Degree as well. I don't consider it an advantage or disadvantage to be honest. I know my family is happy and proud of me. They don't really push me to do anything, I am more of my own motivator and critic. But they are definitely behind my decisions and willing to help me along the way. It is hard sometimes to not have anyone close to me to ask questions or raise concerns about graduate school, but I am confident in my abilities to just figure it out as I go haha.
  19. This is where I will be attending in the fall! I went to their open house and Dr. Mason said they sometimes accept people off their waitlists up into August. Did you try emailing or calling about waitlist ranking? Good luck! Don't give up hope!
  20. I would do research and look into smaller programs. I don't know what state you are in but in PA there are plenty of smaller schools that do not have as high of expectations academically than others do. So if you are considering reapplying after a year off, perhaps spend the year doing some shadowing or working in a related field to strengthen your resume. Look at programs on ASHA's website that are smaller and less competitive. Larger schools often have way more applicants to choose from so they can be more competitive.
  21. I'll let you know! I guess they usually have someone who was at Edinboro for undergrad as well, make one and a find people.
  22. long shot since I haven't found anyone on here that is attending but... Facebook group for Edinboro University?
  23. I know that a couple of my programs asked for our decisions by noon on the 15th
  24. In response to the idea that Speech Path is "vague", I feel like this is a huge opportunity to push yourself. I personally love SLP because of this. You have to get creative. Not everything works for everyone, so it is up to you as the therapist to do some additional research and push yourself to be better (for yourself and your clients). No two cases are ever the same, and for me that is one of the most exciting things. There will never be a dull day at work. I don't know much about AuD, so I can't really weigh in, but in the case of being an SLP, I don't think short term is a bad thing either. If you are the therapist that works with a client in a hospital or rehab setting, you are probably going to be the one that sets that client up for future therapy elsewhere. I think it can be incredibly personal and connecting when you are probably one of the first people they speak to after their stroke, TBI, diagnosis, etc. which means you would be so much more than just a therapist. You would be a counselor is many ways as well. There is definitely so much that goes into being an SLP. I definitely don't think you could ever go wrong with this profession if it is something you are passionate about.
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