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.

PM sent Also, thank you everyone who has responded to this thread so far. I appreciate all the info I can get.

rjose, are you a Bruin and on the UCLA campus? Because I'm an undergraduate and I'd love to have the opportunity to talk with you in person sometime if that's alright with you. I know it probably sounds weird for a stranger to ask you on an online forum aha, but I mean, maybe I could just get coffee with you at Lu Valle or Kerckhoff or something.

Thanks a lot for the info. Well going to Cal State Fullerton would be cheaper for me because while the tuition is only slightly less (~9000 at CSUF vs 14000 at UCLA), I would live at home and commute if I went to CSUF whereas I would have to get an apartment somewhere in LA and pay for housing. I'd save a lot of money with the former. And as I mentioned, if it really doesn't matter what school I go to as long as it's accredited, I'd like to go to CSUF instead. It's cheaper, and let's face it, Social Workers don't make much anyways so I don't think it'd be worth it to spend roughly 50k just for a MSW in UCLA when I would probably end up working the same job if I went to CSUF.

Good to hear school name doesn't matter much. I was talking to some UCLA MSW students and they all insisted school name does matter - although I'm sure it was more or less because they were promoting their school and you know, just kinda being a homer about it. I know Cal State Fullerton's school recently got accredited, and again, one of the strongest reasons I'm interested in going there is because I'd save a lot of money. If job placements are ultimately the same, I wouldn't mind going there. Does anyone know much about CSUF?

So I only recently started looking into MSW programs and I have some questions: First, here is some background information about me. I'm 21 and a senior in undergrad. I will have a B.A. in History with a minor in Urban Planning. My cumulative GPA is around a 3.6 and I was an AmeriCorps member for a year and had a previous paralegal/legal internship. I'm from California and am interested in working around here. My questions are 1) Does it matter where you go for your MSW? I'm mainly interested in UCLA and CSU Fullerton. CSUF is preferable because I could live at home and just commute, and thus save a lot of money. If the schools don't matter, I would also prefer CSUF because all I need to do is take my GRE and I can apply for next fall. For UCLA, however, I would need to take a semester of elementary statistics, which would just be a pain. 2) How much will the GRE matter for admissions? I feel I have a pretty decent GPA and I did a year of AmeriCorps for work experience. I'll study for the GRE, but I don't know if I'll score amazingly. 3) Are there jobs in this field? I was previously interested in going to law school and all my lawyer friends kept telling me there were no jobs. And it was true. A lot of people I know that are lawyers are either a) not practicing law, b ) working a menial paying law job, c) unemployed. If I were to get a MSW, I would mainly be interested in working in Los Angeles County or Orange County or San Bernardino County. 4) How terrible is the "stress?" Honest question. Again, when I was a pre-law student and talked to friends, most were extremely unhappy with their lives and many regretted the path they had taken since they were stressed like insane - if they didn't have a job soon, their 200k student loans were going to eat them alive. I've heard people say things like, "Being a social worker is hard. I can't stand hearing the tragic stories of people." I'm not really sure what this means, but when I was an AmeriCorps member, I worked directly with people who were being evicted from their homes, going homeless, and even dying from a terminal disease. Some were abused by their spouses and were secretly coming to us for help. In spite of this, I never felt "haunted" by these experiences nor did I ever break down and sob at home, but I always felt a genuine concern for them. Is this the main "stress" from being a social worker? 5) How is the pay and benefits? Money isn't my driving factor, but it's still important. I've done some research, but I've gotten a lot of different responses. Some sites say being a social worker is one of the most miserable jobs out there and that you'll only make 30k for the rest of your life. At the same time, I've googled some jobs and some places, particularly Los Angeles County's Department and Child and Family Services, and they pay entry level social workers at around 40 ish a year and can potentially go as high as 60k - 70k within 10 years. That's actually not bad IMO. Would I be able to afford things like a home in a non-ghetto/low income neighborhood, a decent new car (i.e. Toyota Camry, Nissan Sentra), etc. or will I basically be living in an apartment my whole life and eating beans from a can? 6) Lastly, can someone tell me more about Title IV? I was doing some research and according to CSUF's website, if I apply for the CalSWEC program, the government will give me a maximum of 18k in grants to finance my education. However, I would have to a concentration in child welfare and work for child services for the county for 2 years after I graduate. Do you think this is something I should consider? Do many people get these grants? Thanks for your responses in advance.