blueled

Okay so the general question is this: How hard is it to get a job as a MSW? I'm not interested in going into private practice and having my own private therapy sessions. I just want a long, fulfilling career that doesn't involve me having to manage my own company/business. In particular, how hard is it to get a job as a medical social worker as a hospital or hospice or medical clinic? I have a friend who is currently getting her MSW with a concentration on health services and she interned as a hospital as a medical social worker, though she told me the hospital won't be hiring her full time upon graduation. I decided to look up "medical social worker" on job websites, and it appears that almost all of the positions are per diem. Per diem was a bit ambiguous to me, and I couldn't find too much information about it. I've read some forum posts elsewhere that per diem can mean either no work for 6 months, or work for 1 weekend per month, or 3 hours a month. This is pretty frightening if you ask me. Of course, they're just forum posts from other sites so the credibility is questionable. So that's why I'm posting here to see what you all have to say about it

Is 50k really that of a long shot? I know in LA County, the Department of Child and Family Services pays $53k starting salary for newly graduated MSWs...

For those that were accepted or rejected, is it possible if you could PM me your stats (that is, if you feel uncomfortable with posting it on this board). I would really like to get an idea just so I can personally assess my own chances as I'm a prospective student who won't be applying until this upcoming year. Thank you so much.

Sounds good to me. I have a 3.6 overall GPA, but I think if they're just counting the last 2 years (or last ## credits or whatever) then it might be a hit higher since I got 2 C+s during my freshman year. I can get LoR from a professor, if not 2, and the rest from previous employers. As for work experience, I have a year of AmeriCorps under my belt helping families with divorces and child custody. I might potentially (hope I'm not jinxing it) have a full time job as a clerk in a non-profit children and families services organization when I graduate. It's a clerk job...but nonetheless it shows my interest in the field I am interested in.

Alright, I've lurked on a few boards and have read comments like "So and so school only accepts 30 people. I have a 3.99 but there's no way I can get in!!!!!!" To be honest, I'm pretty sure what that person meant was, "There are 30 spots for the program, so 30 people will matriculate, but 100 people are accepted." Otherwise it doesn't make any sense cause no school ever has 100% matriculation. Anyways, the GPA comments adds to some hysteria so I was curious about it and wanted to ask since schools generally don't post admission profiles. Anyways, what is considered a good GPA and how many years of work experience is considered adequate? i.e. 3.1 GPA and no work experience = bad 3.5 GPA and 1 year work experience = okay/good 3.9 GPA and 5 years work experience = great/awesome I know it depends on the program, but if we have to be specific, let's say for the UCs and CSUs in California...

I understand what you're saying, but I'm trying to be realistic. Working in the jobs as you described, like a visitation monitor or case manager, are extremely hard to get right now and realistically I might not even hired for it until months later. I only have from June until December or whenever I submit my apps to do what I can. I guess all I can really do is try to get some volunteer experience.

I'll be graduating from undergrad this spring, but I don't think I have any relevant work experience...and I don't know if I can get any. You see, I was previously under the impression that I wanted to go into public interest law. I have 2 internships, one of them was with a law firm and the other was with AmeriCorps at a courthouse. I'm sure I can use the AmeriCorps experience for my personal statement as I worked with many families and children going through custodies and divorces and such. However, I'm also taking a year off from school. I'm having a hard time finding any "children's social worker" relevant work experience as most of those positions require an MSW. Based on my resume, the best type of job for me to realistically get is like a legal assistant or paralegal type of job. I need to make some money to pay off some of my UG debt, but at the same time I want to try to at least get some relevant work experience. If I decide to apply for legal jobs, do you think this will hurt me significantly in my application?

Okay so a few days I talked to an admissions person and even though I met all the requirements for the MSW program and had a year of work experience, that person told me, "Well, because you aren't specifically a Sociology, Anthropology, or Social Work major in undergrad, the chances of you getting accepted will be difficult." For the record, I'm a humanities major (think English, History, Art, etc.) Is this a joke? That's like saying a pre-med who is a English major won't be admitted to med school because he isn't a Biology major. And we all know there ARE pre-med non-bio majors out there that DO get into med school. I don't know if this person was just pulling my neck or something, but the whole time I was feeling cynical of what the person was saying. It's kinda like when during advertisements or orientation, you'll hear from staff that their program/university is the "best" in the world and that there is no other university like them. But anyways, I'm a humanities major and I've met all the requirements for admission. Do you think I'll be denied simply because I'm not specifically a Sociology/Psychology/Social Work undergrad major? Seems ridiculous if you ask me. Also, I wanted to ask, if I wanted to work in a city's department of child/family services and become a Children's Social Worker, does it matter if I choose my concentration for micro or macro? The admission person was basically telling me, "Since you have not taken any psychology classes, I don't see why you would even choose micro as a concentration."

From what I know, if you just want to do clinical work, prestige isn't important. So if you want to go into the field and just work as a social worker, then any accredited MSW program will be fine. Prestigious schools are important if you want to go into politics or if you plan to do a phD in the future. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. More importantly though, don't go to a school where you have to shell out a lot of money, regardless of prestige. If you're paying 100k to get an MSW, that's just stupid considering how little MSWs make.

I was just citing the stats I saw. I could be wrong though. I wasn't aware that MSW programs were so competitive. I called CSUF's office today and they told me, in the last 4 or 5 years they've been opened or so, they have around 300 students that apply and around 35-40 of them matriculate. They wouldn't give me a number or percentage as to how many are actually admitted though. And of course the person I was speaking to stressed how competitive it was (naturally....no program is going to straight up acknowledge they aren't competitive and they take anyone). They also told me they just wanted at least 1 year of social service work experience/volunteer work/internships, that they only look at analytical and verbal section for GRE, and that there were only 28 full time CalSWEC stipend recipients at the moment, meaning there was probably like 11-14 people per class, so 11-14/35-40. Just random info if anyone was interested...

Here is the link I used. It shows the average number of people who applied and who were accepted between 2006 and 2010. http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu/asis/progprofile/result.asp?selectmajor=0864

If anyone applied to CSUF, I'd love to hear about your decisions. Do you guys think CSUF is particularly hard to get into because it's relatively new and recently accredited, or do you think it's more or less the opposite? I am not sure what to expect from MSW programs. I looked at UCLA's MSW acceptance rate online and they accept around 50%, which is pretty darn high to me.

Hello, I'm not waiting for decisions and am a prospective student, but I was wondering, are all the Cal States extremely difficult to get into or just CSULB? And why is CSULB so hard to get into particularly?

Dude, it says (note: fees are per semester). That means it's $9500 x 2 for 1 academic year. In other words, that's about 20k.

Dayum. Wow. I didn't see that. That's a lot Lisbeth. Man, makes me wonder if I should even apply to UCLA because that means I'd basically be 60k in debt (20k tuition + about 10k living expense). 60k debt for a job that pays 40-60k isn't that great. My parents can't help me so I'd basically have to just get loans. I already have around 20k in undergrad debt so taking on 60k would kill me. I don't really plan to go into academia and become a professor anyways so I'm not sure a phD really attracts me.