samiamslp

There is always next year-- or next semester, depending on the program! Grades and GRE scores are not everything, just remember that! Look for grad schools that focus on the whole package, rather than the numbers. Your bio sounds like you have so much experience, so keep doing what you're doing. You gave it a good run, and you'll give it another great one next application season. And also, don't forget to feel proud of yourself-- you worked hard to get to this point, with undergrad, working, and the wild, scary ride that is the application process. You made it through it all! (And you'll make it through again😊) If you're looking for other ideas (schools, careers, and whatever else), there's this thread on here that people have been posting on. Best of luck to you!!

That sounds amazing! Google tends to be your best friend with this stuff😃 A quick search gave me these programs (blurbs following). North Carolina Central University: "In addition to receiving top scores for Praxis exam pass rates, employment rates among recent graduates and on-time completion rates, we love North Carolina Central University because it’s home to a fully accredited clinic: the NCCU Speech and Hearing Clinic. Communications disorder graduate students here enjoy a variety of opportunities for specialized experience through the Assistive Technology for Infants and Preschoolers Program, the Augmentative and Alternative Communication Assessment and Consultation Clinic, and the Bilingual Clinic." Louisiana State University- Baton Rouge: "At LSU, SLP grad students get an unrivaled learning experience through flipped classrooms, simulated learning, interprofessional clinics, and will soon also get first hand exposure to telepractice. Students here learn to work with eye-tracking equipment, video stroboscopy, and state of the art augmentative and alternative communication devices. In fact, just last year the department invested $82,000 to update it’s ACC equipment. LSU grad students routinely present original research at state and national conferences and have a track record for taking home awards and scholarships. This program has it all." San Francisco State University: "The purpose of Project Building Bridges is to prepare 60 fully credentialed Speech Language Pathologists to work effectively with culturally and linguistically diverse children with significant disabilities and augmentative communication needs, ages birth to 21. Project scholars will complete a Master’s degree in Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences in a two-year time frame, with a concentration in AAC and a focus on cultural and linguistic diversity. Scholar competencies to be acquired include: (a) culturally responsive AAC assessment; (b) culturally responsive AAC intervention; (c) collaborative teaming; and (d) development of AAC applications to support the language and literacy skills of culturally and linguistically diverse children and youth....The project will use evidence-based curricula and pedagogy carefully coordinated with substantial, mentored field experiences. The M.S. concentration in AAC will include: 1) two graduate seminars in AAC assessment and intervention; 2) an on campus clinic with a focus on diversity; 3) a one-week summer camp for children who use AAC; and 4) a school internship in a high need community agency or school serving children with AAC needs. Penn State University: "The AAC community at Penn State is one of the largest AAC-focused efforts in the world, with a wide range of research activities, coursework, and clinical experiences. Students at Penn State have the opportunity to: • participate in graduate level coursework on AAC taught by nationally recognized faculty, • assist in research projects designed to improve the lives of individuals with complex communication needs, and • provide clinical services to individuals with complex communication needs in clinical and community settings. Penn State students also have participated in our Global AAC Initiative, and worked with AAC teams in Mexico, South Africa, Eastern Europe, India, and China." Nova Southeastern: not a blurb, but they have Carole Zangari (author of prAACticalAAC.org) as a faculty member (!!!!) and she is AMAZING with all things AAC. And she runs a lab there. i don't know much about the program, but if I met her, I'd be seriously star-struck😂. Temple University: Has its Institute on Disabilities, which hosts this amazing program during the summer for teens(?) using AAC. "Augmentative Communication and Empowerment Supports, or "ACES," is a program for young adults who use communication technology (speech generating devices or "SGD") transitioning from school to work, to help develop and refine their communication, including computer access and use for daily living/job skills." They stay on campus and I'm pretty sure the CSD students are the volunteers. In general, Temple has the Pennsylvania’s Initiative on Assistive Technology (PIAT), which provides training, AAC evaluations, device demonstrations, and AT consultations led by the CSD department. If I remember correctly, there is a specialty clinic that you can do as a grad student specifically in AAC, plus faculty are involved in AAC research. Some programs have AAC certification listed as for practicing SLPs, so I don't know if you'd be able to be certified as a grad student, but it would be worth a shot to ask the program directly. See the University of Memphis as an example. Certain programs, like the University of Iowa and George Washington University, require you to have rotations in a variety of subfields of SLP, and the AAC track is one of those rotations. Other programs just have faculty members who are doing exceptional research about AAC (the three that I looked at are at Northeastern University, Temple University, Emerson University, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), so if there is a researcher who you know of from articles or whatever else who specializes in AAC, it would be great to see if they are doing research through a university, and if you would then be able to do research with that professor. If you're part of ASHA, you can check out who is writing and publishing in the AAC SIG. (I did that with literacy, the area I want to concentrate in, and now some of the people I've looked up to as top scholars in my area will be my professors in the fall... I'm seriously still swooning.😃) A lot of the program websites are not the best and most up-to-date, so researching specific people in the field can be really helpful, and can lead you back to the school they work at and the programs they have at that grad school. Editing to add this reddit link I just found with additional programs to add to this list. Worth checking out. Best of luck on your search!

My understand is it means you are in the first batch of people on the wait-list that the program would send acceptances to as soon as someone declines their offer of attendance.

I would be turned off as well. I'm glad everything worked out in your favor this application season!

CUNY Lehman College. They have a really great program there!

I was thinking of applying there, but the probation from ASHA made me nervous about doing it. Do you know why they were placed on probation in the first place?

Of course! Feel free to message me if you have any questions. Do you have a specific interest or specialty that MGH offers? I feel like that is a lot of the reason why many people choose MGH over other programs. Are you leaning towards the program you previously accepted or towards MGH at this point?

Wow, that's wild! Did you have their acceptance of deferment from them in writing?

I believe it's the same thing, but different programs use different terminology for it!

Congrats! That's amazing!! And not a weird question at all. Fair warning, this is no particular order! So, for me personally: Our scope of practice and all of the things that we can pursue as SLPs is HUGE, but what I've always been most intrigued by is the literacy aspect of speech therapy. MGH offers classes and clinical experiences in written language disorders, which I've really never seen at all in other programs, and because they offer various tracks and the electives to go with them, I can really focus on the part of speech that I love the most, while also getting a well-rounded academic and clinical education in every other aspect of the speech world. I love that they are in Boston, and it's not totally in central Boston which I personally actually prefer, because it's not as wild people-wise and is set on this beautiful location on the water, and yet you can easily drive or take the T to placements throughout the Greater Boston area. I really like that we don't start clinic until about a month in, so they ease us into it that way with seminars and whatnot, and then after the first two semesters, everyone does three different placements (medical, school, and one more which tends to be in some specialty-- the grad student I spoke to was doing it with an AAC specialist, which sounds AMAZING), so you really get to experience so many different of the subfields in our career and get comfortable with it all. And I really like the professors are not old and retired lol, they're still working and doing research and are completely up to date on best practices, yet everyone I met seemed so ridiculously down to earth and welcoming, to the point where students call their profs by their first names? I wanted to go to a program that was warm and welcoming, yet would give me a great education and make me come out feeling confident in my abilities as an SLP, and I feel like their combination of electives and clinical opportunities will really help me with that last part. Cons: the price of the program and Boston in general is obviously really high, and the courseload seems more than other programs. But I feel like for me, the pros outweigh the cons, because I honestly wouldn't have the opportunities that I would have in my future specialty as an SLP anywhere else.

It works for me!

'Sup, my subreddit pal!

I declined Lehman College!

I declined UofM last week! They have an amazing program and I would have loved to have gone, but it was too far away for me to move. I hope you get off their waitlist! I was so incredibly impressed with the program, the faculty, and the city when I visited!

Both subreddits are helpful-- r/slpgradschool for this whole process, and r/slp will be especially helpful now for advice for clinic and placements!