caterpillar

Sure! He has a 4.0 in his pre-reqs (done at Portland State), and a 3.31 in his first bachelors in Psychology. He's worked in special education since 2008, but took the two years off to get his pre-reqs done so I believe it came out to 3 years of experience in SPED altogether. His GRE scores: 160V/153Q/3.0AW. Quite honestly, I think the 3.0 in AW coupled with applying to very competitive programs are what did him in. He applied to San Diego State, University of Washington, and CSU East Bay - we were limited in how many places to apply by financial problems. Two of his LOR writers knew him well, but the third outright told him to ask someone different for a LOR next time, once all the rejections had come through. I think generally, "as many schools as you can afford to apply to" is a good policy hahaha. When choosing schools this time around, he started combing Edfind to figure out 1) which schools would take his low AW score, and 2) which schools accepted the largest percentage of applicants. Some places seem to extend acceptances to a third of their applicants; others accept 40 out of 200+ applicants and with applying as expensive as it is, it didn't seem wise to try his luck there. I believe I've seen the suggestion to apply to 2 dream schools, 2 mid-range schools, and 2 fallback schools, and adjust those numbers based on your own stats/competitiveness.

Good luck to you! If you both get into the same school and decide to go, I'll show him your post so he can keep an eye out for you.

Oh, nice! He didn't get into any of the schools he applied to last year, and they were all on the west coast, so even though we're California natives, we decided to branch out into the southern (and Kansas) schools in hopes that they'd be a little less competitive.

It must be going around. My husband just sent another reminder to his last LOR writer (who approached HIM and volunteered to write it!) that applications and LORs are due Wednesday. So stressful.

Most school sites I've seen have said that a minimum of 2 letters should be from professors, rather than employers.

Anecdotal only - my husband applied to CSUEB last year. 4.0 in CSD, 3.3 1st BA (came out to a 3.7 in the last 60, i think). He was waitlisted and ultimately rejected. It's a very small program - something like 15 seats.

Anyways, is anyone else in the same boat? If so what are you doing differently? My husband is. He's changing out his least-strong LOR writer (a professor) for someone he's worked with professionally while serving kids with speech goals. He was going to retake the GRE but ended up deciding to apply to less competitive schools than last year.

I can only answer the last part - living in San Jose is expensive, unless you come from some of the few cities that are more expensive than it (NYC, SF, etc). It's a very dense city, not very good public transportation, though all public transportation eventually goes downtown (where SJSU is) so that's a small boon. If you have any specific questions about living here, I'd be happy to answer them.

We live in San Jose now and I just got an excellent job with the county, so my husband feels obligated to apply to San Jose State... He was rejected off the waitlist at CSUEB last year, so I'm not sure if he's going to apply there again. GPA: 4.0 2nd BA in Speech Patholgoy, 3.31 1st BA in Psychology GRE: 160V, 153Q, 3.0AW. He's retaking the GRE to increase his AW score, at the end of November. He's on his 4th (I believe) year as a paraeducator and has worked with literally every population serviced by SPED.

I believe the CBEST requirement is a state-wide requirement now. Something about the Chancellor's office requiring it.

Hi! We actually ended up moving back to CA (we're both originally from here) from Portland and are now in the Bay Area. But PSU is his #1 choice or at least getting back to the PNW in general, so I'm sure U of O will make it on the list. He doesn't have any research experience, nor any reasonable way of getting any, unfortunately. He's going to go over the SOP again but last year all the feedback he got from his professors and peers was that it was a strong SOP... so not sure how much work is needed there. It's hard to say if having a lackluster LOR writer was the most damning thing or if there was more he needs to look over as he gets ready for this application season.

Hi folks - I was around here last year on behalf of my husband, the actual grad school applicant. He applied three places (UW-Seattle, CSU East Bay, and SDSU) and didn't get in anywhere. This year we're replacing a LOR writer (who suggested finding a different person after receiving my husband's email about not getting in ... ) and hoping applying to a broader range of places works better. As far as stats go - several years of experience as a paraeducator in special education, currently employed as such. Post-bacc/2nd BA graduate from Portland State with a 4.0 post-bacc GPA and 3.3 1st BA GPA in Psych. 160V, 153Q, 3.0AW (ouch). Here's hoping!

Hi there. My husband is the SLP grad school applicant, but he's not much for message boards so I'm mostly here on his behalf. He also attended Portland State, though he finished the pre-reqs in winter term of this year. He was rejected from the three schools he applied to this year so I guess I'll be seeing you around here once falls rolls back around.

Same here. Good luck on your last waitlist. I/my husband will be back here next year, it seems.

I took it a little positively, actually, as it at least should mean that they didn't just miss notifying him of his rejection when the last round went out. From what I can tell, it seems like they're very slowly offering out spots off the waitlist ... though I'm kind of baffled they haven't filled up already, the program is so small! That being said, it's 4:32 Pacific time and still no word. The original waitlist notification came at 4:58 so I guess we still have a half an hour until we can be truly perturbed.

Aaaahhhhhh my husband emailed the grad coordinator for East Bay confirming he was still interested and asking for any updates, and she responded that he should hear back by the end of today. Nervous now!

Anyone else still hanging around on a waitlist?

Ugh, still waiting... I'm more perturbed that there hasn't been any activity on the results board. This limbo is making it really hard to make decisions about daycare, preschool, etc. for next year!

April 30th has come and gone... we're still waiting here. Anyone hear anything from East Bay?

We're still in limbo over here, too. CSUEB gave a timeline of "everything should be decided by mid-June" .... I can't imagine another month and a half of this though. Do you know when UF is supposed to have their stuff finalized?

Ugh, someone was rejected from CSUEB's waitlist today. Ironically, I harnessed a tiny bit of optimism and applied for a job near CSUEB right before I checked the results board and saw that. Hrm.

Thanks! Nope - the email even specifically said that they do not give out wait list position information to applicants. :/ Looks like it's a pretty large wait list so it's hard to say how it'll all shake out.

Ahhhhhh finally a waitlist. They seem to be discouraging around here but as his last chance at grad school this year, my husband was pretty dang excited, let me tell you!

My husband was waitlisted at CSUEB! I never thought I'd be so excited for a waitlist - at least there's a tiny chance he'll get in, now!

Interesting... I wonder if the smattering of acceptances on the results board were all of a similar theme? Ah well. I don't recall if you've heard anything from Nova, but good luck if not!