caterpillar

Usually not, actually! I tend to have very elabourate, very random dreams unless I'm stressing about something in particular (any guesses, here??) whereas he usually doesn't dream much, and they're not usually very good when he does.

Last night I had a dream that today my husband was rejected by Portland State, and I was bewildered because CSDCAS hasn't verified his application yet. The rejection told him to take more 400-level classes in the major, which was also baffling since he's taken all the 400-level SPHS classes they offer at PSU. My husband dreamed about bunnies, apparently. I think we should trade.

That's definitely good! Better than being rejected out of hand.

That's good to know!! But even once yours was verified, it took until today to be mailed?

I've been refreshing CSDCAS because my husband's account says (grrr): Your application is Complete/Not Verified Complete Date: 01/15/14 Complete date currently being verified: 01/15/14 Come on, guys! And USM still hasn't entered his GRE scores (it's been 2 weeks since they were sent, now) nor answered the email he sent last week.

SLPamy, in my experience, you didn't wait too long! Teachers aide/paraeducator jobs open up allll the time because the pay is low compared to the stress of the job, and there's a lot of turnover. Last year, my husband finished up his pre-reqs in March, got a one-month temp position with a district as a SPED aide, and then jumped from that to a fulltime regular position at a different site within the district. He worked March-June and there were multiple other job postings in that same time period. Keep looking!

Tomorrow USM and FHSU are due. That pesky 3rd LOR writer finally submitted the letter, but even though GRE scores were sent by ETS on the 22nd, neither school has registered them as received. Nerve-wracking. Hopefully they both have a fairly lenient policy about receiving things outside of the actually application.

You're ahead of the game! Their due date is soooooooo late. I know my husband submitted the little online form, but I'm pretty positive he hasn't sent off the paper form yet because he hasn't asked me (ye olde secretary of transcript requests) to send his transcripts! I imagine harassing his one consistently-late LOR writer will keep him busy in the coming month.

Can I join in? USM's app is due on the 1st. Only one LOR writer hasn't turned in the letter. My husband messaged him last night and got back, "I'll try." Wth? You literally just have to copy and paste the same letter you wrote (and already turned in) for CSDCAS ... ugh.

And yet mid-March is still so far away! I'm already antsy.

The color codes are here https://portal.csdcas.org/csdcasHelpPages/participating-programs-2/

Hahaha basically. There's absolutely no way for us to pay for grad school without more loans, so at this point we've stopped worrying about it and are just looking forward to him being in a profession that has a quality starting pay.

Isn't that the truth! We moved from Portland to San Jose last summer (we're originally from SJ) and I've literally given up drinking beer because the selection here is so poor compared to Portland. I can't wait to go back!

He only took it once. He was registered for it a second time, but we backed out because he was advised by several of his colleagues that one score shouldn't keep him out of the running, and that he should probably just diversify his applications instead of rolling the dice on another test. His writing is strong but he's a fairly slow typist - he's fairly sure that running out of time to proofread the essays was the biggest contributor to his low score. I'm glad to hear the news about FHSU though!

You know my husband's story, but yes! His AW score was 3.0, which disqualifies him from a lot of schools, so other than SJSU and PSU, he's aiming lower with less competitive schools in the south and midwest. If nothing works out this season, he's planning on applying to Eastern New Mexico in the spring, just to see what happens. Let's hope it doesn't come to that!

Portland State also has a bilingual track.

Fort Hays State is also due 2/1 and only requires 2 letters. Jackson State isn't due until 3/1 but requires 3.

FYI to anyone applying to Fort Hays State - my husband was filling out the app last night and it capped the number of schools he could enter at 5. He called them today because he's attended 6 schools and wanted to know what he should do. The gentleman in the grad office said that as far as the grad office is concerned, they really only care about receiving transcripts from the school you got your bachelors from, providing you completed at least 60 units at that school. Obviously my husband will still be sending on transcripts from his post-bacc, but it sounds like they don't put a huge stress on reviewing every single transcript. I wasn't clear what the final verdict was on the 6th school, but I'm assuming that they don't really care about that either haha.

Can you comment on Jackson State's program specifically? What you enjoyed about it, what you didn't, about Jackson (the city) itself?

It's really hard to say. It seems like some schools understand the delays in processing and give some wiggle room, and others don't. I looked at FSU's website and it looks like they take a pretty hard line on the due date, but Portland State's site looks like that too and they emailed to let people know that it was still okay to submit applications even if the transcripts haven't been processed as received yet, so... I wouldn't count yourself out of the running but it would be good to keep trying to get in touch with the school.

Update on this end - third LOR writer apparently submitted his letter some time after 10:30 last night. My husband told him they were due by 11:59 (just in case). But CSDCAS finally emailed him back and now his GRE scores are posted. WHOO! Three apps in, three to go.

Oh man, so nerve-wracking. Perhaps you could also email the school who sent the transcripts, asking when they went out?

So relieved. Portland State sent out an email telling everyone to submit their applications even if things like GRE scores (which CSDCAS still hasn't posted nor responded to my husband's email asking why, after two weeks, they're not posted) and LORs aren't in, as they'll continue to accept documents past the 15th. This is great news since that pesky third LOR writer emailed my husband at midnight to say that he's been sick and would be turning it in today... And still we wait. (can you tell i'm stressing as much as my husband? hahaha )

I had also heard that they were out of date, but if you look at the Edfind entries, each of them have a "date last updated" date at the top... I think the oldest information I saw was from September of 2013. Maybe ASHA heard the complaints and decided to do some updates?

I honestly think your stats are great and very competitive, and would be genuinely surprised if you didn't get into at least one of your schools, if not several/all. Don't put yourself into debt just to apply! Even though it was a huge bummer when my husband didn't get in anywhere last year, it did allow him a whole year to refine his application, statement, recommendations, and so on, and in the meantime I was very glad that we didn't take money we didn't have just to try to force him into grad school somewhere.