caterpillar
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Posts posted by caterpillar
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2 hours ago, BamaBelle said:
Any thoughts on Central Arkansas?
I know my husband would be happy to answer questions, feel free to PM me.
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When we moved to AR, I emailed a ton of rental agencies in the April prior and gathered a list of people who said they'd accept student loans as income. Then in June, I went back through all their listings, found a place that was for rent about a month out, and applied for it. We were lucky that they were willing to hold the unit for us without charging rent until August 1st, and all the lease signing/application was able to be done online. It worked out pretty well with a little bit of prep work in advance.
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12 hours ago, flapjackal said:
So after recently attending a campus tour, I was surprised to find out that there were no men in the graduate program. I knew going into the field that seeing male graduate students or SLPs would be a rarity, but I didn't expect there to be none. It's not that I necessarily mind being surrounded my women (I'm a gay male and many of my close friends are women), but I still can't help but feel nervous about not integrating as well with my cohort or sticking out like a sore thumb. I absolutely LOVE everything about the program; the facilities, the professors, the ample opportunities for research alongside clinical training are all great, but potentially being the token guy in my department kinda threw me for a loop. Am I just being silly?
This was honestly kind of an issue for my husband. He made it through it (graduating in August!) but it was pretty isolating, especially because there was a pretty significant age difference between him and the rest of his cohort. Being excluded from cohort social events, either intentionally or unintentionally, was not a great feeling for him.
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So I've been thinking this over and just decided to ask, even if nobody really knows. It seems like a lot of you are having good luck applying to these schools, I was just curious does anyone think that since this list has been around a couple cycles and might pop up say if you google "less competitive schools" that these schools may be becoming in fact harder to get into due to a higher number of students considering them to be "safety" schools? I wouldn't discourage anyone from applying at all since it seems like a lot of people have had success. I'm just curious if these "easier to find" schools are becoming more competitive as a result...
Probably. UCA had a significant increase in the number of students applying for fall 2015 as compared to previous years.
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This is UCA's course sequence. I would be surprised if any SLP schools manage a full time 2 year program at 9 units or less per term. ASHA has a lot of requirements for them to meet.
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Something else to consider when looking at places to apply is how they let you do your clinical placement. At UCA, your last two semesters (spring and summer) are 100% clinical placements in a school and then medical setting, but they let you do the placement anywhere in the country. We're not from Arkansas nor was it on the list of places I ever thought I'd find myself living, but the discomfort/challenges we've faced in living here have been easier to deal with because we know that in December, we're leaving the state for good.
This wasn't something that was advertised on the website (my husband was notified partway through his first term) so it may be something you can email programs and ask about, if you find yourself having to choose between a less desirable location that's cheaper and one that you like better but is more expensive.
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UCA, FHSU, and USM are all under $20k for out of state tuition.
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I just wanted to give a huge thank you to all who have contributed to this post. I'm a long-time reader, but first-time poster and I basically copied all of you regarding where to apply haha. This round (Fall 2015) is my second time applying and my stats are low... I have a 3.39 cumulative GPA and only a 3.28 major. My GRE scores (second time taking the test) are V: 151, Q: 150, AW: 4.0. My first time applying was for Fall 2014 and I applied to West Texas A&M (got an interview), Texas Woman's, Texas State, CU Boulder (my alma mater), Univ of Northern Colorado, and Northern Arizona. I was rejected from all without even a waitlist.
This time, I did my research and applied to 11 "less competitive" schools with the help of this post. I applied to Univ of Northern Colorado (this one is super competitive, but less than Boulder and I currently live in the Boulder area), Pacific Univ Oregon, Fort Hays State, Indiana State, Idaho State, Univ of Central Arkansas, Hofstra, Harding, Eastern New Mexico, Grand Valley State, and Loyola Maryland. I'm waitlisted at Indiana State, still waiting to hear from Loyola, Idaho State, and Grand Valley State (but I know they interview & I didn't get one, sooo pretty sure that's a rejection), but a few days ago I got an acceptance from Univ of Central Arkansas!!! I was/still am shocked.
You always read on here to never give up, it will happen, etc. It's so true! I was truly about to give up. Sorry to ramble for days, but THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed to this post. You all were huge influences to me in where I applied my second time and it worked!! So now I'm going to join in and say to never give up! It will happen
Congratulations!! Let me know if you want any info about Conway or UCA, I'm happy to relay them to my husband.
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So I was accepted to a school yesterday and when I emailed back asking about when scholarship/assistantship/any financial information would be available, I got this response:
"In the past we do not get information about what is available until Summer when budgets come in. I know this is tricky because the letter of intent is due before April 15th. With that, I would make your decision based on worse case scenario in that that you may have federal financial aid and loans but no scholarship offers."
Has anyone else received something similar? How am I supposed to make a final decision based on no information? Help?
This same scenario is ultimately the reason my husband chose UCA over FHSU. FHSU wasn't going to have funding information until after responses were due, so we went with the guaranteed money over the "maybe".
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That's what I'd like to get to the root of understanding.
Disclaimer that I am not a POC so this is all speculative/born of what I learned from a Sociology minor, but: It could be a lot of things. As noted before, institutionalized racism is alive and well in America, and starts long before the admissions committee. There are lots of different ways that a POC can be disadvantaged prior to applying, many of them that directly impact probability of admission. And even if all other things are equal, there's still that possibility that the admissions committee can be swayed via unconscious (or conscious) racism.
Twinguy also brings up a good point.
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Anecdotally... my husband's observations of SLP undergrads (post-bacc or otherwise) is that it draws interest from a diverse range of people. At the graduate level, however, that diversity is much less obvious.
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Random question. For the people who have been accepted via mail, do you usually receive big packets in the mail or just a letter? I've been told if it's just a letter it's most likely a rejection.
Fort Hays State's acceptance is a small letter.
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We were in California too, and after being rejected from West Coast schools in his first year applying, decided to cast a wider net. Our thought process was "where DON'T people want to live?" and that's how we narrowed down the list of safety schools. Definitely Twinguy's point #2 was conclusion we came to, as well.
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So what happens after you get into the school you want and accept their offer? I want all the information ASAP - I'm impatient! When do classes start? Is there an orientation I need to attend? What will my class schedule be like?
I'm juggling family vacation schedule with summer class schedule with my kids' daycare schedules. How soon after an acceptance do you actually get the rest of the information to start planning out the rest of my life (or next 2 years)? I've emailed the department twice now with no response, not even "we'll let you know in April" or something similar. Any idea what happens now?
When my husband was accepted by the department (this was a CSDCAS app), he was then instructed to apply to the graduate school as a formality. So that meant another wait while we paid for the app fee and all his transcripts to be sent yet again and admission to eventually be granted. He was eventually given a list of the classes he was supposed to sign up for, I believe around May. He didn't get the department handbook until late June/early July. There was an orientation the week before classes were supposed to start. A lot of the information trickled out to him over the course of a couple months. Since all the classes he's supposed to take are only offered once a year and nobody gets the option of taking different classes than the rest of the cohort, there was no rush to get that information out so that people could register ASAP.
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Hey Twinguy, I'm not sure if you're on Reddit, but there's an SLP subreddit that has a lot of working SLPs in it who might be helpful, if you can't get an answer here.
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No, you send it to the CSD program-specific CSDCAS GRE code for the school you're applying to. So it'll be a separate fee for each school and you will be sending multiple score reports.
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Check out this thread to start:
Most of the participants there were in a similar situation to you, GRE/gradewise, and there were many success stories.
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SLPs are needed nation-wide. The demand is greater in some areas than other, and a great deal depends on which settings you're willing to work in, but I've been following SLP blogs/boards/etc for the last four years and the overwhelming impression I've had is that it's generally not difficult to find a job away from where you go to school.
My impression is that most people who cast a wide net to schools across the country aren't able to visit them all, no. Neither my husband nor I had ever set foot in Arkansas, Mississippi, or Kansas when he decided to apply to schools there, and once he chose those schools, we decided that we needed to be saving our money for a potential cross-country move, rather than spending it visiting those places. I don't think we would have made a different choice if we had visited beforehand, but it would have been nice if we'd had the money for it. I know that Twinguy (you'll see him in other recent threads) visited many of the schools he applied to, so perhaps he can offer some insight on timing with visitation days or how receptive the departments were to having visitors outside of scheduled visit days.
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Normally I would say that it wouldn't have an impact on your application either way, but if your GPA is 3.03 as written in your signature, it may be worth taking that extra quarter and seeing if you can inch the GPA up a bit.
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Nope. My husband's post-bacc was set up the same and one of his letters was from an audiology teacher. Nobody questioned it.
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it doesnt show what their gre or gpa were
or am i looking wrong?
If there's a little red diamond on the posting, you can hover over it and it will show you whatever stats they entered.
Alternately, you can scroll through the past years' comment threads to see the stats in people's signatures.
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1. It varies depending on his credit load. This term, he's taking 13 units, so it will be the most expensive term, and it came out to about $7200. Next term, it will only be $5600. Once he's in-state, it will drop to about $3100. Our ideal cut-off for tuition prices was "under the maximum federal loan allotment."
2. Federal unsub grad loans. Grad PLUS loans. He also was given a small GA that he didn't apply for - it was offered with admission. It is VERY small though (he works 5 hours a week for it) so keep in mind that the stats on Edfind about "how many accepted students were offered financial help" are not indicative of the amount of financial help offered.
3. He works 5 hours a week, which is fine as the position is low stress (and also just not many hours). Many of the second year students work 20 hours a week, so several of his classmates have continued part time jobs as they entered the program, but he's expressed that he would find it very challenging to keep up with the requirements of his coursework and work that many hours a week.
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We signed a 13 month lease on an apartment we've only seen pictures of, so hopefully it's decent. Yesterday was my husband's last day of work as a one-on-one (like, EVER!) and it was a rather unceremonious ending to something that's been his career (off and on) since 2007. He's all registered for classes, I've given my 2 weeks at my job, and the pod to ship our stuff arrives on the 22nd. His loans, as far as we can tell, don't get disbursed until September ... luckily we do have some savings to live off of in the meantime. I've been applying for jobs (now with our new local address) but no bites so far. I'm optimistic that I'll get better results once I'm physically there and applying in earnest, though!
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I feel stupid for asking this, but do you know if they accept students for Winter? I applied recently and it asked me if I wanted to apply for Fall/Winter/Spring/Summer. Also, do they pretty much accept anyone? From researching and reading all these forums, it seems like they are willing to accept anyone with an undergraduate degree. I'm from California, so I'm wondering if that will give me a bigger chance of being accepted. (since I'll be paying a lot more for tuition haha)
thanks so much!
I believe they do, as they are non-competitive and classes are offered on a staggered schedule. (but most class are offered most terms)
If you'd like a money-saving tip and are willing to take ~2 years to complete the pre-reqs, move to Vancouver, WA at least 90 days prior to the term in which you intend to enroll. Follow the instructions for qualifying for the Border Bill (http://www.pdx.edu/registration/sites/www.pdx.edu.registration/files/Washington_Border_Policy.pdf). It takes longer to complete the pre-reqs but it keeps the tuition costs low as you are part-time at an in-state rate, and if you aren't able to find work/aren't independently supported otherwise, leaves you money left over from loans to live off of. The negative is that you'll be a WA resident (assuming you intend to apply to PSU for grad school, too) so attending PSU as a grad student will be expensive. Just a thought.
Did anyone make it with a 3.0 AW score on GRE??
in Speech-Language Pathology Forum
Posted
My husband did, back in 2014 - see signature.