GandalfTheGrey

The short answer to your question, "Do I have a chance?", is yes. I think with your background, your personal statement is going to be very important and it sounds like you have an excellent personal statement. Remember, though, that the field is very competitive and nothing is guaranteed. That said, I think you could save yourself some money by narrowing down your list a bit before applying. If any of the schools you are applying to are in your area, definitely visit them before applying to make sure the school would be a good fit. I noticed you didn't say anything about the prereqs in your post - did you do those during your time at Temple? If you haven't done your prereqs yet, I would consider taking a year off to get them done. It will save you money by shortening the master's program, and also give you a chance to raise your GPA, especially since grad schools tend to weigh grades in Communication Disorders classes heavily. Let me know if you have any specific questions, and best of luck with the application season!

Different schools have different requirements, so consider getting in touch with professors at different programs to explain your situation. A hearing impairment might prevent you from attending certain programs, but it shouldn't prevent you from becoming a speech pathologist. I know a student with a voice disorder and a student with a speech disorder who got accepted to various programs, so I don't see why a hearing impairment should be any different. You should also check out the ASHA website (www.asha.org) - I think they actually have scholarships that are specifically for speech students with disabilities.

A good source of information about SLP schools in the US is ASHA Edfind: www.asha.org/edfind It tells you the accreditation information for each school, which is really important because you need to go to an accredited school if you want to be able to find a job after you graduate. The website also gives some admissions stats about each school, including the average GRE scores and GPA of accepted applicants, so you can get a sense of how you compare to their average accepted student. Some of that data is a few years old, but overall it is a good starting point. I think that your experience volunteering in the Speech clinic will help you, so mention that in your personal statement and see if the supervising SLP can write you a letter of recommendation. The best thing you can do for yourself now is get good grades in the post-bacc. Schools sometimes weigh science and communication disorders classes more heavily, so this is really your chance to show grad schools how successful you will be in their program. I wouldn't worry about schools throwing out your application without reading it, but you should definitely add a number of schools to your list that are less competitive than the ones you listed.

I applied to eight schools and wrote nine different essays. I started by writing a generic essay that I then tweaked for each school. For example, when applying to a school that offered scholarships to bilingual SLPs, I would mention that I speak Spanish early in the essay and then go back to it at the end to write specifically about the scholarship. The biggest changes from essay to essay were the final paragraphs of each essay which focused specifically on the school, but I would make alterations throughout so that it didn't look like I had just added on an ending to a generic essay. You also want to make sure that your essay highlights how you will fit into the particular program you are applying to, so make sure you've really done your research and attended info sessions (online or in person) before writing your final essay for each school. Before beginning my generic essay, I found it helpful to do some prewriting so I had a sense of what I wanted to write about and how I wanted to structure my personal statement. I wrote one very rough draft that was basically a laundry list of things in my life relating to being an SLP. I then moved things around, cut things, and expanded sections that seemed the most relevant. Since I intended for that rough draft to be messy, I didn't feel the pressure I normally feel when writing and I was able to get my thoughts down. Since I'm a huge nerd, I then wrote a second very rough draft that pretty much focused on relating my nerdy (and not SLP-related) interests to SLP. I knew that I wouldn't use either of those rough drafts in my final essays, but doing that preparation made it easier to start and finish my actual personal statement since I knew what I wanted to include and how I wanted to portray myself. If you are having trouble starting your essay, I highly recommend doing something like this so you can at least have something written down as a starting point. Good luck with everything!

My understanding is that "letter of intent" is synonymous with "personal statement" or "Statement of purpose", so you wouldn't need to address it to anyone. None of the schools I applied to used that phrasing, but you can check here for more info: https://career.berkeley.edu/grad/gradstatement.stm

Usually, surveys like that promise not to link your email address (or other identifying info) with your responses and they view the responses in aggregate which would make it difficult for someone to put your responses together and identify you. If you are concerned, I would reread the intro page of the survey or the email containing the survey to see what they say about privacy. I'm sure they appreciate your honesty, and I wouldn't worry about it jeopardizing your career as long as you didn't write anything offensive or obscene - they are looking for ways to improve their program or make it more attractive, so constructive criticism might actually be what they are looking for. Regardless of what you wrote in the survey, I can guarantee that they will not be posting your comments alongside your name for all alumni to see before interviewing potential employees =)

I would try posting your question in "The Bank" section. There are many active threads there discussing questions similar to your finance question. I wish I could help you, but I don't have any experience that is relevant. I do think that you will get the best answers about teaching and research assistant jobs from the individual schools, since it varies quite a bit. Some schools guarantee all their PhD students in good standing tuition reimbursement, health insurance, and a stipend in exchange for the student working in a lab and teaching a certain number of semesters during their time in school. Other schools pay hourly wages for assistant positions instead of a stipend. Good luck with your applications!

Ionictoaster: Linguists represent! I also did my undergrad degree in Linguistics, and realized during my senior year that I was interested in SLP. Since my school did not have a communication disorders department, I waited until after I graduated to do a post-bacc in communication disorders. I wouldn't recommend taking the courses in person like I did, especially if you already have a strong background in something related, so I would suggest at least considering an online option for your pre-reqs. I really like the perspective that linguistics has offered me in the pre-req courses and I'm excited to start grad school in the fall. I applied while taking the pre-reqs, and I definitely think it is doable. I held off on writing my personal statement until I was well into my first semester of pre-reqs so I could know more about the field and let that show through in my SOP. It never hurts to try and speak with individual programs, but many of them (especially the large, well-known ones that you are applying to) may not have the time to spend too much time with an individual applicant. I'll be starting the master's program in the fall at one of the schools you are applying to, so feel free to PM me if you want to talk about specifics of the school, or ask more specific questions about the transition from Ling to ComDis. Good luck!

If you were to wait another year, do you know what you would do to improve your chances? Grad school admissions are not going to get any less competitive (unfortunately), so if you don't have a solid plan in place for strengthening your application, it's probably not worth applying again just to get similar results. If what you really want to do is research, would you consider getting a research job or volunteer position in a lab to show graduate schools that you are serious about research? Before you make your final decision, though, I wouldn't lose hope on the waitlists especially if CSUN doesn't require a deposit. Good luck!

Hi Underachiever, First of all, stop beating yourself up! It sounds like you've made some mistakes, but I'm glad you've found a field you are passionate about and I think it's really admirable that you are volunteering as a tutor. My $0.02 on retaking courses - Retaking a course for a higher grade sends the message "I have to take a course twice to get an A", not exactly what you want to tell grad schools. Instead of retaking those courses, try taking an upper level course and do well the first time around, which says "I made some mistakes as an undergrad but I pulled myself together and I can do well in upper level courses! accept me!", a much better message to send potential grad schools. It sounds like you are doing this as well, with the advanced bio and geo courses. In my opinion, doing well in those is more important than retaking the other courses, and not retaking the other courses will free up time to do research or work. Good luck with everything!

You're not doomed, and you're certainly not a loser - many students struggle with ochem, but that doesn't mean that you shall not pass! I would suggest finding a tutor to help you bring up your chemistry grade this semester and for any future chemistry classes. While your GPA won't necessarily prevent you from being accepted to the programs you want, it can only help your application in a competitive applicant pool if you have the best GPA you can. With a decent tutor, you probably wouldn't even need to hire them for too many hours - when I took OChem in college, I also struggled because things wouldn't click. But after a few hours with a tutor, things suddenly clicked and I didn't need the tutor anymore, and I got a B in the class instead of the D I had before the tutor. Everyone is different, of course, but you're obviously good at science since you do well in your labs and bio courses, so I would think that getting a tutor is probably a worthwhile investment so that you don't have to worry about chem grades holding you back. Having a tutor can also make your studying more efficient, leaving you with more time to do research or get a job, both of which would further boost the strength of your application. In terms of taking classes at the Community College, I think that what matters most is that you learn the material, and if that will happen best at the CC, the go for it. However, some Biology grad programs will require you to take an upper-level chem course as part of the degree, so one could also argue that taking the undergrad courses at a 4-year university will be good practice/preparation for taking them in grad school, when you won't have the CC option. Good luck with your courses and with grad school!

Hi NorcalSLP, that's a bummer that NEU won't recognize your anatomy of hearing prereq. Will they let you take an undergrad class as a grad student? The only other thing I can think of would be to ask your Hearing Science professor to email Dr. O'Neil so he can hear directly from your professor about the anatomy covered in the course. I'm in a similar situation waiting to hear back from Northwestern about whether my Introduction to Audiology class will fulfill their "Aural Rehabilitation" requirement. Good luck and I hope NEU works out!

Congrats on all your acceptances! It must feel good to have commited to a school already. I think the polite thing to do, unfortunately, is withdraw your application from Central so that another applicant can take your spot. You could probably call the graduate secretary and ask her how to go about doing that. Also, a $95 application fee? That does seem kind of ridiculous... I can understand why you'd want to wait for a decision =)

If I were you, I would call UT Dallas to find out for sure about the deadline/deposit issue. You wouldn't have to tell them they are a second choice, you could just say something like, "I was thrilled to be accepted, and I didn't see anything about a deadline to respond and I was wondering if that means there is no deadline. I'm not quite ready to accept yet but when I do, will I need to pay a deposit and how much will it be?" That way you can verify that you can wait until May to give your decision but not have to tell them why you want to wait that long. Good luck with St. Xavier University! I hope it works out.

Hi! I'm in a post-bacc right now, and still deciding between multiple grad school acceptances. Speech-Language Pathology is a great field, and it sounds like you have some great experience in that aphasia center! I would recommend applying for/registering for the prerequisite courses before you apply so that you can have some higher grades on your transcript to show that you have grown since your first undergrad degree. If you take them online, you can save money and have the flexibility to work while taking classes. And don't be afraid of the GRE! Get yourself a good test prep book or two (different companies have different strengths - I like Barron's because of the material review and Kaplan for test-taking tips and methods) and work through it a little bit every day. Many test prep books even come with study schedules to help you pace yourself. Schedule your GRE test early enough that you can retake it if you are not happy with your score, and knowing you have that option will also help you relax as you take the test since you'll know you can do it again. Taking timed practice tests at home will also be helpful so you can become familiar with the format of the test and the types of questions to expect. To be a competitive candidate, you probably want to aim for at least 500 on each section - it's one of the parts of your application you have the most control over, so you mights well make it as strong as possible. If you're struggling in specific areas of the GRE, you could consider hiring a tutor (either a local college student which would be cheaper or a professional tutor). Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more about applications. My situation is a little different from yours, since I went straight to my post-bacc after getting my undergrad in linguistics (I actually knew as an undergrad that I wanted to do speech but my school didn't offer it), but I'd still be happy to share what I've learned from the application process or what my fellow post-baccs have learned!

I would suggest applying to MA programs first, and then use your success in the MA program to get into the PhD program you are interested in. Do you know if you will have strong letters of recommendation? I would also suggest using your personal statement to explain why your grades were so low your first two semesters and what you have learned from that experience/why you will do better during your first semester of grad school. You could also contact individual programs to get more specific admission advice. Work experience is another great way to make up for a lower GPA, so you might also consider taking a year off after college to research full time while applying to grad school. Good luck! I hope everything works out.