Sagittarius

Hello everybody! I hope that this post is permitted. I am currently an undergraduate BSW student at a small, private liberal arts college in Pennsylvania who, while I do not graduate until next year, am already beginning research into possible schools for me to obtain my MSW. This school was really a "safe" option for me because it awarded me a large financial aid package that was a Godsend to me as a VERY low-income student and it's close to my home-- I did not want to venture too far away during the depths of the COVID pandemic. The BSW program here is... Quite lacking, in my opinion (I genuinely learned more in my SW classes at the community college from where I transfered) but even besides that point, I want to go to graduate school elsewhere to help me gain better social, networking, and research opportunities and grow as a person. As the title says, I am ONLY interested in macro level programs, specifically those that focus on policy, policy research, and community organizing. I have a rather "niche" policy interest: lifespan issues (education, communication, housing access and services) for people with developmental disabilities, and I ideally would like to attend a school offering a course in ID/DD as an elective to be combined with macro/policy electives. Some of my contenders so far have been Rutgers NB, UPenn, Temple, UMBC, and Bryn Mawr (maybe). I have also looked at schools in California (SDSU, UCLA, UC Berkeley) but I am not sure if it is worth attending them as someone who may return to the EC after graduation. I also do not have the desired field experience that the UC schools look for in applicants. At present, my GPA is a 3.8, which I know is decent enough for most if not all of these schools. However, I have only had sporadic volunteer experiences, will be starting a DSP summer job in several weeks, and will be doing my 450 hours of field in the fall, and I do not know if that is sufficient enough experience. Any comments help.