GandalfTheGrey

I used my phonology course (part of my linguistics major) to count towards the phonetics requirement for grad school. My advisor didn't want to let me count it, but I argued my way in and ended up better prepared for our speech sound disorders class than most of my classmates. If you have a solid understanding of IPA, contact the department chairs and at least try to get your phono course to count - save yourself a class! good luck!

Two problems with your assertion: Really disrespectful to autistic people/people with autism. I don't think we have enough information to make a DSM-V diagnosis: http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/diagnosis/dsm-5-diagnostic-criteria

You male SLPs might appreciate this twitter feed: https://twitter.com/MaleSLP (I'm not male and don't mean to hijack the thread. I just thought it might be relevant). I certainly hope the future holds greater gender (and racial) diversity in our field.

I did not include a title on any of my essays, and I wrote all my LOI/SOPs as essays, with no salutation or letter-like features. I did include a running head on non-CSDCAS essays in case things got separated, although my running head was shorter than CatSLP716's - I just included my name, the season and year (Fall 2012) the program, and "page X of Y".

Federal loans are through the FAFSA, and school-specific financial support depends on the school, so you should read each school's financial aid page. You should definitely start by filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) at http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ as this is the only way to qualify for Federal loans, which will most likely make up most of your financial aid package. Based on this information, your eligibility for federal loans will be determined. Filling out the FAFSA takes time and there is a lot to read, but the instructions are clear. Make sure to actually read and print everything, don't just keep clicking "next". When you fill out your FAFSA, you'll specify which schools you are applying to and those schools will have access to your information. Once you decide which school you go to, you will accept/decline loan offers and fill out paperwork through that school. Individual schools may also have grant aid available, which varies by school. Some schools announce that a certain number of students will be given a certain amount of aid, while other schools may just "surprise" you with an addendum to your admission letter offering you some amount of money. Some schools may have certain scholarships that accepted students may apply for before the decision deadline. Some schools may require a separate application for aid in the form of RA appointments, but all the schools I applied to that offered RAships just had us include our interest in RA-ing as part of our SoP.

I also included my transcripts in my LOR packets.

I'd recommend it explaining the Lyme Disease - you're right that your GPA isn't "ridiculously low", but grad school is so competitive you want every edge you can get. Frankly, I think it's quite impressive that you managed a 3.3 GPA with an untreated health condition. Rather than take up precious space in your SOP (and so you can keep your SOP focused on positive things, rather than excuses), consider attaching a separate letter. Some applications have a place for "additional information", or you can ask individual schools what the best way is to communicate this info. Good luck!

Don't bring your parents. For dress code, I'd go business casual. I've seen plenty of people at open houses in jeans, but personally don't think it's a great idea. I would also recommend against wearing a suit.

Can you do a post-bacc program, or take your pre-requisite courses online and then apply to a 2-year master's program? It could save you money, and will give you an opportunity to get LORs from SLP professors.

I agree with Lexical Gap. I think it's fine to have a letter from an out of field professor if they know you well, but most of the ad comms I spoke with when I was applying didn't want more than one letter from an employer.

Emerson College is one that comes to mind. However, keep in mind that craniofacial anomalies (at least the ones affecting speech) are rare enough that if you are working in a school, you will probably not see more than one child every few years with a craniofacial difference, if it is even that frequent. Children with craniofacial anomalies and children with autism are also more likely to have feeding disorders, and once you take a feeding/swallowing course you may find that you like it more than you thought. What is it about the school setting that makes you certain you want to work there? Many children's hospitals have entire staff teams dedicated to autism and to cleft palate, so if those are really the populations that interest you most then I wouldn't close the door on a hospital career just yet. You will certainly see lots of children with autism in a school, but if you want to work with children with craniofacial anomalies your best bet may be a private clinic or a hospital.

That's great that you're interested in SLP. My two cents: Grad school admissions are very competitive, so the most important thing is to focus on doing as well you as can in college. Take the electives that interest you, and study hard and learn as much as you can. If you do poorly on a test, meet with the professor or TA to figure out how you can bring up your grade. The average GPA for accepted students will be different in four years, so rather than focusing on a specific number my advice is to make the most of your time in college (as in, learn as much as you can, not party as much as you can =) ). Make sure you take a math class, a stats class, a physics class, and a biology class, but I'll recommend that you take more than one of each of those - challenge yourself! Learn a language, take some psych, neuro, linguistics, or public health/policy courses - SLP is a very multidisciplinary field, so anything you learn in the related fields will make you more attractive to grad schools and probably help you in grad school as well. Find a club or two that you're genuinely passionate about, and be involved. You're right to be concerned about your GPA, but if you spend your four years in college focused solely on that, then congratulations, you just spent four years of your life worrying about a number. You should certainly strive for high grades in all of your classes, but keep in mind that you'll enjoy it and learn much more if you focus on learning, exploring, questioning, and discovering, too. Also, check out asha.org for lots of information about becoming an SLP. Good luck!

There's some good advice in this previous thread:

PKCD - Each school has its own system for approaching GPAs, so there's no hard-and-fast rule I can offer you. I can say that most schools take a holistic approach to reading an application, so if you have a high post-bacc GPA, good GRE scores, and significant work experience since undergrad, you'll certainly have a shot at acceptance to grad school. TerapistaRae and NCAR - The concept of language influencing thought is pretty controversial in linguistics circles (just google "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis"), so definitely be prepared to cite your sources if you plan to present on how language shapes one's view of the world! It's definitely important to understand the phonological system of a language if you are evaluating a bilingual child - "l" and "r" are in fact allophones in Korean, while /l/ is it's own phoneme in Chinese and what's written as /r/ in English spelling of Chinese words is actually two separate phonemes, depending on whether it occurs at the beginning or end of a word. I think a good piece of wisdom for evaluating bilingual children is that evaluations should take place in their native language. It's certainly possible that the child's difficulties with English are due to not having learned it, but if the difficulties are due to a language impairment that affects both languages, you want to make sure the child receives assessment and intervention in the native language. Like TerapistaRae said, asha.org has TONS of great resources on bilingual and culturally diverse populations. Many speech and language textbooks contain chapters on bilingualism, so if you have access to a university library I'd recommend taking a look at some of those. Here's a good starting point: http://www.asha.org/practice/multicultural/

Questions about whether it's worth the risk and what the job hunt might look like with a degree from a school that is not yet accredited are probably best directed to current SLPs with experience evaluating CFY candidates. Do you know any experienced SLPs you can talk to?

My understanding is that the program does require "admission" because there is only so much room in a classroom, but admission is non-competitive. I did the program a few years ago, and I just called the phone number listed on their postbac program website to speak to the office manager, Joy. She answered all my questions and sent me a registration packet. As of May 2011, they had filled all the post-bac spots for the following two years due to high interest. I think it's first-come, first-served, so I would definitely call and find out what the deal is as soon as possible. Good luck!

Congratulations on your acceptance to UW Madison! I think it's perfectly understandable to want to switch. And it might mean that a student on the Milwaukee waitlist will be very happy to take your spot! It is difficult to turn down an offer once you have built a relationship with advisors, but you need to do what's best for you. Once you have made your decision and if you decide to attend UW, you should contact your adviser at Milwaukee (I think phone or in person might be more appropriate than email) and explain your situation. He or she will tell you the next steps, and if you feel guilty reneging you can always cite geographic location as a reason - not wanting to move is always fair. Good luck with your decision!

You can absolutely work while you are in grad school, but it may be at the expense of other things, such as time spent watching tv, time spent reading your favorite websites or going out with friends, getting to know people in your program, etc. Even during your internship, you will have your weekends to work at a job if you choose to arrange your schedule for that. Like everything in life, it is a trade-off, so if working and going to school becomes too stressful, you can make the decision to cut back on your hours after your first semester.

It's definitely important to show that becoming an SLP is a pull ("I want to be an SLP") rather than a push ("I'm sick of this career and need a new one and SLPs make good money"). I also think that having a strong sense of what an SLP does and what is required is hugely helpful in the application process and in grad school. GRE scores: 800 quant, 620 verbal, 5.0 AW Undergrad gpa: 3.7 postbacc GPA: 4.0 volunteer experience: not much, I ran a small mentoring program in college for kids in special ed. I also had a paid job coordinating and leading volunteer trips for high school kids, but that had very little to do with ComDis. I was a linguistics major in college and eat, sleep, and breathe that stuff, so I wrote a lot about that in my SOP. I was accepted to 8/8 top 50 schools based on BS US News & World Report rankings.

This advice isn't specific to the SOP posted above, but it was a common theme in the SOPs of my friends who did not get accepted so I thought I'd share: Another way to conceptualize the "Why I want to be an SLP" question is "Why I want to be an SLP instead of a doctor/dentist/teacher/teaching assistant/special ed teacher/social worker/counselor/occupational therapist/physical therapist/nurse/school psychologist/disability policy advocate/special housing coordinator/etc". Obviously, you don't want to mention these alternative career paths and explain why it's not for you. But when explaining why you want to be an SLP, you want to make sure that the career goals you are discussing are specific to speech-language pathology. So if you want to help preschoolers with communication disorders, you could also do that as an EI case manager, OT, PT, preschool teacher, etc. So you need to explain why the approach taken by an SLP is what you want, why the coursework of an SLP (as opposed to that of a PT) is what interests you. If you want to work in a NICU, why do you want to work as an SLP instead of a nurse? Much of the SLP coursework won't apply directly to a NICU, so the schools will want to make sure that you will be an active and engaged participant in all courses, not just those applying to a narrow field of interest.

To put it concisely, if they don't have time to meet with you now, they won't have time to meet with you next year. Schools generally dote on accepted students more than on current students.

As a linguist turned SLP grad student, I can say that a linguistics background has been very helpful for me in the classroom, and much of what you learn in SLP grad school makes a ton of sense when you look at it through the lens of linguistics. However, if your sole purpose in getting a master's degree in ling is to look more competitive for SLP grad school, a better use of your time (and money) could be getting a couple years of work experience, and taking some related coursework (psych, neuro, linguistics, slp grad level courses) to demonstrate your interest and skills. And any volunteer work you can do with individuals with communication disorders will be helpful too. If you want a master's in ling because you have a specific research interest, then by all means go for it. But linguistics is much more than liking languages, so before you make that commitment I'd suggest reading some books on the topic to make sure it's interesting to you! Feel free to PM me if you want some reading suggestions, or ask around on the Linguistics forum.

Another way to prep for the GRE is with a tutor - for the cost of a $500 prep course, you could probably find a starving grad student to tutor you for 20 hours at $25/hour. I know there are postings all over the bulletin boards where I go to school by community members looking for tutors, and many students charge pretty low rates. Just make sure they have test prep teaching/tutoring experience. With the one-on-one help you get from tutoring, you won't even need that many hours to get you on track. The nice thing about tutoring is that it's tailored to you, and if you pay as you go you can stop at any time if you don't feel like it's helping or if you think it's time for you to resume studying on your own. There are also companies, like Varsity Tutors, that offer tutoring at more affordable rates than other companies.

I wouldn't worry about the course name. Quantitative methods basically means statistics, and it's not at all uncommon for schools to name their intro stats courses that way. Like someone else suggested, it's always a good idea to save ALL your syllabi, but I'd be really surprised if schools had a problem with this course name.

Have you seen the UMass off-campus housing website? That's how I found my roommates when I was there for the post-bacc. You can search for roommates here: http://www.umocss.org/searchHousemates.php?sec=search&males=1&females=1 and get general info about housing in the region here: http://www.umocss.org/index.php Congrats on your acceptance and good luck with the housing search!