prospective grad student for speech therapy

[bkjo21]

Hi everyone! I just recently came across this site/forum and have been reading a few posts and deciding to join. Hopefully I'll be able to receive some help and support here along with providing others (fellow students mainly) with some too! 

Well let me tell you about myself. I am currently a junior in undergrad pursuing a CSD major, a human development minor along with a biology minor. I actually was a Biology major my first two years and switched over to CSD last fall. With only a couple classes left to complete the bio minor, I decided why not. I plan to apply to grad school this fall. I go to a very large school, so it's really difficult to find someone who can guide or mentor me through this whole process. Therefore I have been doing a lot of research online.

I was wondering if you have any suggestions as to what I should be doing now in regards to getting into grad school. My GPA is currently around 3.3 or 3.4. (My chemistry grades from the biology program were not that great). However, last semester I got all As in my CSD classes and made Dean's. And obviously I am aiming for higher grades this semester as well. I plan to contact a speech therapist over the summer to see if I can shadow her. (She said to contact her closer to the summer to see if I can get in). I am in the NSSLHA student club at my school. I also was involved in a volunteer literacy tutoring program last semester, helping ESL students. I am still signed up for that this semester, however they need to find a student for me. I feel like my resume isn't strong and I was wondering what more I could add onto there. On a side note, I do a lot of yoga during my free time and was thinking to perhaps get a certification for teaching kids yoga, because I have read on a lot of research with the link of yoga and SLP practices.

 

I have also contacted a couple SLPs from my area who I can possibly observe or shadow over the summer and am in the process of contacting more.

Any suggestions? What are fellow prospective grad students doing? And those of you in grad school or passed grad school, what did you do and what do you suggest? Any ideas would help and I would greatly appreciate it!! Thank you!!!

[queenleblanc]

Come on over to the SLP forum -- Speech-Language Pathology

 

i am out-of-field and have had to do a lot of research online about getting into SLP.   You are already a step ahead by being in CSD courses in undergrad (I wish I had thought to branch out more during undergrad 7 yrs ago...).  

 

As far as strengthening your resume, get some experience volunteering or even working as a reception in the field around populations that you'll encounter as an SLP.  Definitely look for opportunities around your desired population as well.  Build up your observation hours, and the shadowing opportunity sounds great!  

 

CSD programs look at GPA's relative to the difficulty of the classes, etc.  As long as you are above a 3.0, you qualify -- just keep in mind that admissions for SLP is VERY competitive, so apply to schools with all kinds of ranges of test scores for previous cohorts (you can see this on ASHA's EdFind site, although most of us are convinced the numbers are probably two or more years old).  

 

You can find a lot more on the SLP threads, so come on over!!! :-)