Suelli5

Wow, Rezzy. I hope you hear more soon. It's so weird how so many schools are on such different calendars. Waiting can be excruciating.

I applied to 8 schools and am still waiting to hear back from one (Eastern Washington). So far I have been accepted by 5 and rejected by 2. I did an interview with EWU, and I liked what they had to say & they are in my home state. I'm confused as to why it is taking them longer than other schools, but I am reluctant to contact them. Are a lot of you still waiting to hear decisions? It seems like most programs (like the 7 I've heard from) have agreed to a April 15 student decision date, so timing does matter.

The good news is speech language pathologists are in high demand and the pay is decent. It is highly unusual for a SLP student not to find work upon graduation. Scope out our starting salaries for SLPs In an area you’d like to work. (This particularly easy if you want to work in a public school system, most of which - particularly in large metro areas always need more SLPs) and calculate how much more money you’ll probably be making than you are now. Then look at school expenses (tuition/cost of living in school’s area/moving costs/textbooks) from that perspective. It is very likely that you will see that getting a SLP master’s is worth the investment. Of course, you can save a whole lot of money by sticking to an in-state, public university. If you aren’t planning to pursue research & a PhD, then your school’s ranking isn’t really important, but the school’s program completion rates, post-grad employment rate & praxis pass rate are important & those tend to be high for most accredited schools. Good luck!

I know this is an old thread, but I recently met someone who told me this year was her third time applying to grad school. She is an excellent special ed preschool teacher & I believe she majored in CSD, so I was really surprised. I know SLP programs are competitive overall and very competitive in certain regions. I think the key is not to limit yourself to applying to one or two or even three schools. You’ve got to cast a wide net & apply to a lot of schools. Yes, applications themselves are expensive, but casting a wide net gets you into school then it’s worth it. Also, if you start the process early enough you can apply for financial assistance with application fees. For those of you who feel like you can’t move because of family, then I’d recommend scoping out online options - the numberof online programs is growing - or sitting down with your spouse and having a heart to heart. If you are really passionate about being an SLP, then perhaps it’s worth getting your family on board with a 2 year temporary relocation. SLPs, after all, make decent money and you could end up helping your family’s finances in the long run. There are a lot of decent programs in smaller cities with lower costs of living that do a great job training their students to be good clinicians but aren’t highly ranked because they’re not research powerhouses. Just my two cents.

Thank you so much, bibliophile, for that info & for your earlier description of the program. It sounds really good & Burlington sounds like a town I’d be happy in. I’m just hesitant about the expense: out-of-state tuition/area COL/relocation costs. I am still waiting to hear from a few more schools, but I will need to weigh the caliber of the program vs. costs. I don’t care about ranking as much as current & former students’ reports of good teaching, supportive faculty/staff & good clinical opportunities. Good luck with your schooling & future career.

Hi! I just got into UVM too and live in the PNW. I have some questions too. How easy is it to find pet-friendly housing near campus? I have a cat & a dog. How good are the athletic facilities (student gym/pool/fitness classes,etc?) Do they have late hours? How easy is it to visit Montreal? Am I right in that it is the closest big city? Thanks!

I asked about the difference between the programs in my EWU interview too and asked what they felt the strengths of EWU’s program were. They responded that the classes are shared and taught by both WSU and EWU faculty, but my advisor(s) would be from the EWU. Also, at EWU students are required to do a thesis or a research project, while at WSU those are optional. They also felt that since EWU is not a comprehensive research university, its faculty members are able to focus more on teaching.

I am a Washingtonian who would love to hear from anyone who has firsthand experience with WWU’s, EWU’s, and/ or ISU-Meridian’s grad SLP programs. Which one would you choose? Why? (ISU offers in-state tuition to WA residents.) If you are/were a student in one of these programs, what’s your opinion of it? Thanks!

DraySLP1, Congratulations on landing those interviews. Keep us updated! I'm sure you'll get into a program. Moving will be an exciting adventure. I've already been scoping out Meetup groups (on meetup.com) in the cities of schools I've applied to. I am worried about having a hard time making friends my age if I end up relocating. I'm sure my classmates whereever I go will be friendly, but it can be nice to socialize with people of the same age too and with people outside of school. The average age of the pre-req classes I took on campus was 20 or 21. A big generation gap. & Ecstatic! Glad to hear you were admitted. I hope it all goes well. &SoCali - Thanks!

Hi draySLP1, I'm 49! And I'm also single with no kids. I have lived in the same city for over 25 years, and most of my friends and family are here, but chances are I will have to relocate which is both stressful and exciting. Actually, my biggest worry is how I will manage to move my old dog and ancient cat with me. I intend to rent out my home while I'm in grad school and come back to it after I've graduated. I'm fairly confident I will be able to find work as an SLP here. In fact, I know schools in my area have a shortage of SLPs. I have found the application process really stressful. I finished my last two applications just before Feb. 1. I applied to eight schools -- all public - some ranked ranked highly & some that I think are good but don't appear in the top 25 -- four in-state, one in another state that has a tuition exchange with my state, and three in three other states even though initially I hadn't planned to do that because of the extra tuition cost and the cost of relocating. I figured it'd be best to cast a wide net because I feel like I am a real wild card. My previous career, teaching (including nine years working with kids with autism), has some strong connections to speech language pathology. I did well in my M.Ed. program (GPA 4.0) and in my post-bacc courses (GPA 3.9), but my GPA from college (a zillion years ago) was low: 2.9. My Verbal GRE score was 167 but my Math & Writing scores were solidly average & I have no research experience within the field of speech language pathology. I have volunteered a few hours a week in a community speech therapy clinic since last July. And, I did most of my Speech & Hearing post-bacc courses online, so two of my references are professors who never met me IRL - however both were wonderful, we were in frequent contact online, I wrote a lot for both of them, and they both gave amazing amounts of individualized, constructive feedback on my work. To my delight, yesterday I received a letter of admittance to the first program I applied to back in December. I will wait and see if I get in anywhere else before formally accepting, but I'm really relieved. If it ends up being the only program I get into, I'll still be very happy. I hope the application process is going/went smoothly for you! Best wishes.

I did a lot of pre-requisite courses with University of Vermont's online program too and, overall, my experience was very good. I had some really amazing professors. I WAS able to take an audiology course over summer quarter through UVM even though it technically wasn't part of their Pre-Master's Track program. And, as a bonus, I got grad credit for it (we were given an option once enrolled) So a word of caution: Different master's programs require different amounts of prerequisite courses. If you have some grad schools in mind make sure you know what prerequisites they require. The online pre-master's program I participated in didn't offer all of the courses that the grad programs I was interested in required. Luckily, I live near a big public university and was able to take some day time classes to fill in the gaps. Second, grad programs generally want at least two of your three recommendations to be from professors who've had you recently. When I asked one of my online professors for a recommendation she was happy to give it but cautioned that grad programs often give less weight to letters of references written by online professors because online professors haven't met you in person. I think that's pretty unfair & in my experience I communicated a lot more with two of my online professors than I did with my "IRL" professors. The prerequisites I took as "regular" day-time classes were both lecture classes with over 50 students each, while one of my online classes had about 20 students and two of them had about 12 students each. For those three classes I was in frequent email correspondence with the professors & the professors gave really good individualized feedback on every major assignment. I also did a lot more writing for more of my online classes than I did for my in-seat classes. At any rate, despite the fact that two of my three references for grad school were online professors, I was just admitted to a grad program. It's the first school I've heard back from. I have seven more to hear from. Fingers crossed. It's a relief to know I will be starting a program this fall. Good luck to you!

KEC14 did you get any response through other channels? I just applied to ISU's program and would really like to know more about it. I liked what I read on their website. It had a friendly and encouraging vibe and some of the research the faculty are doing (particularly at the Meridian campus) really intrigued me. However, I don't know anyone who's actually gone through the program.