Out of field applicants out there?

[mmcat]

I have a BS but not in communication disorders. I studied music therapy.

I am still working on narrowing down graduate schools that will accept my application for a MA in SLP without taking pre-reqs or getting a second bachelors. If you were out of field when you applied, how did you narrow down schools? How did you find those that would accept you? I am feeling overwhelmed even with months of searching. Let me know if you have tips!

[Rezzy S.]

I did a post-bacc program to get all my pre-reqs, but I know the University of Redlands and Penn State accept applications from any applicant with a bachelor's degree. I attached a couple older topics from here and Reddit that my have some good info. I would say my post-bacc has been extremely valuable though. It's also lead me to find areas that interest me and volunteer opportunities that have allowed me to sound knowledgeable in my SOPs. Regardless you'll have to take those courses as part of your masters which will probably add on another year. Its a matter of preference/strategy how you want to do it. Good luck to you!  

 

 

Edited March 17, 2019 by Rezzy S.
corrected for clarity

[psychslp]

Hi! I'm out of field also and applied for Fall 2019. I found a bunch of schools near me that allow you to apply before finishing the prereqs - I know you're from Michigan, so I don't know if you'd be interested in them. NYU and UCONN have 3 year programs, and I believe so does Temple. I also applied to Teachers College Columba and Emerson that have summer online prerequisites (so the summer before you start in the fall). BU and Northeastern also allow you to take the prerequisites over the summer prior to starting, but you have to find them yourself (which can be good, because you can find cheaper options). Most of these schools specifically look for out of field applicants, and they often try to admit half of their class as out of field applicants. When searching for schools, I found all of this out by going to their websites and looking at at their prereqs and FAQs, and usually those mentioned whether you can apply before having the prereqs complete.  

[jchen25]

I'm also out of field and applied for Fall 2019. I applied to 3 graduate programs that include prerequisites: Penn State, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, GWU. I was rejected from UIUC and accepted to the other two. I started my research from the US News Ranking and kind of went down the list to see which schools would accept out of fielders and of those, which I'd be interested in attending if I was accepted. Also, ASHA EdFind was pretty helpful in terms of stats for GPA and acceptance percentages.

[ifslp]

Out of fielder here! It honestly took some heavy research.

I applied to Vanderbilt, UTD, University of Memphis, Howard University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and University of Tennessee Knoxville; I’m originally from Tennessee. All of these schools accept students from different majors.

Georgia State University and LSU Baron Rouge are accept us for sure, maybe Ohio State and Indiana University. These are schools I was also looking at.

Vanderbilt, Memphis, and UTD implement the prerequisites of out-of-fielders so that we can finish in two years! This is awesome if you are not planning on taking out a lot of loans.

I know these are mostly in the south but I hope this was helpful!

Edited March 18, 2019 by ifslp