curiousfuture

My GPA overall is a 3.1, with a 3.7 during community college but during my last 2 years of college at my four year undergrad (I am studying abroad at the current moment in a "fifth year") I received a 2.49 GPA because I was beginning recovery from addiction and a dual diagnosis. I want to be a social worker to do marco and policy work advocating for populations in poverty and with high rates of mental disorders/substance abuse issues. I have 2 years of experience being an activist of a Chicano student organization (I am personally Filipino but they are open to allies) along with 2 years of being an advocate in an organization dedicated to reducing the stigma on mental health issues and diagnoses. I also spent a year volunteering for a presidential campaign. I am born and raised from a city with high rates of poverty and crime that I believe are fundamentally manmade and preventable with the right advocacy and policy. What are my chances to get into the CSU's in general and particularly Cal State San Bernardino? What about the private universities such as Loma Linda University or Azusa Pacific? I feel worried over my slip in GPA over the last two years and am wondering whether or not I should wait until the fall 2020 admissions cycle to apply instead of the fall 2019 one. If I delay, I will have an additional year of study abroad courses with decent grades along with further volunteering experience that will improve my application as well. But I wonder if that is strictly needed, as I would prefer to get started on my MSW sooner rather than later. With all this in mind, what are my chances for the Fall 2019 cycle in California?

I have not been able to find data for this online, so thank you for the assistance

I intend on practicing in the USA, but I'd ideally want to see international countries as much as possible after my undergrad study abroad experiences. Would I face any problems practicing in the USA if I get my MSW abroad, say in the UK, Sweden, or Canada? In the medium and long term I want to pursue a career in academia if that changes anything. Thank you for the advice in advance and have a pleasant day!

Would you recommend getting an MSW program in Canada then or some other English speaking country? The first poster mentioned that in Canada they offer one a thesis option that lets them do research, so that seems appealing to me. Also, how do you account for what feels to me to be the "typical route" to getting a social work PhD (at least judging from this forum), which is getting an MSW, working for a few years then applying to the doctoral programs? Did those folks even focus on research at all during their Masters, or did they just focus on other roles to get them jobs in the interim, then learn how to do any research through their PhD program? If U.S. MSW programs in general don't teach you research, is it even meaningful to choose a pricier out of state MSW program to "better" your Phd prospects versus a cheaper in state school?

This might be a silly question, but with my understanding of the math and using this repayment estimator: https://studentloans.gov/myDirectLoan/mobile/repayment/repaymentEstimator.action#view-repayment-plans It appears that assuming the continued existence of IBR, REPAYE, or PAYE *and* PSLF; the payments from an even worst case scenario of going into debt to pay for the total cost of a Columbia MSW program combined with my other debts (200,000 dollars at 265 to 459 dollars a month), roughly equal the standard payments of the 40,000 undergraduate student debt I have now (401 dollars a month). Using the PAYE plan alone, it is estimated that I would have 284,588 dollars of debt forgiven tax free after 10 years, all along with the possible networking and research benefits that attending a pricey MSW program would bring about, say particularly for a career in academia Playing Devil's Advocate, is the reluctance to take out loans of this magnitude only a fear that PSLF, IBR, and PAYE likeminded plans would not exist in the coming decade or so, because of political decisions by Congress, or is there some financial or legal detail I am missing out here? I understand that if PSLF goes away, to say that a lot of the people who took out huge loans would be harmed is an understatement, but when I hear of people who took out at minimum 100,000 dollar loans to go into any of these pricey schools, is there not a point where with PSLF, the exact numbers on the debt don't matter anymore precisely *because* of how huge they are, thanks to PSLF and repayment plans like PAYE? Realistically speaking, I thought I was probably going to shoot for a state school with the accompanying state school tuition since I would save money in the long run, but with the ramifications of PSLF I am curious about the forum's thoughts on my question. If it is true that my current debt would roughly have the same monthly payments as debts with an IVY League MSW education stacked on top of them it might change my calculus a bit, but it still seems like an incredibly risky endeavor. Thanks to PSLF, is it ever financially worth it to attend an incredibly pricey institution? I am planning a future academic career if that changes anything. Thank you all for the advice in advance and have a pleasant day!

I want to do research on how the medicalization of addiction through practices such as safe injection sites, Portugal like models of decriminalization/harm reduction, and stigma free substance abuse treatment lead to better health and wellness outcomes over the current criminalization and oppression model and its wrongheaded philosophical underpinnings. However, I am a bit confused on the issue of how best to gain experience doing research of this sort. Per my understanding of the topics on this forum, IVY League schools (Columbia, U-Penn)and "Quasi Ivy League" state schools (UC Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan) are best for MSW level research in general. Yet, considering my research interests heavily lie in areas that are clinical and mental health focused in general, I was wondering whether or not it would be best to go to programs that are instead renowned for being clinical focused such as NYU and applying to Phd programs after gaining several years in clinical work and gaining an accreditation such as a LCSW. . Accordingly, I was also wondering not only what programs are best for research in case I am mistaken about my earlier understandings, but what programs would be best for me and my goals in particular. My dream professor to work with is somebody like Jerome C. Wakefield at NYU who also studies the philosophy of social work and philosophy of psychopathology while maintaining a heavily mental health focus, so I am leaning towards NYU of course, but I am curious what the rest of the forum would advise me to do further research on. Thank you folks for the help in advance and have a pleasant day!