Scholarship at less Prestigious school vs Acceptance at Prestigious school

[eerichh]

Hi future SLPs,

 

I was offered a full ride at a school with a 'good' reputation. I was also accepted at a very reputable program, but without funding.

 

Is anybody else in the same predicament? 

 

My thoughts on this are as follows:

The prestige is useful if you want to ever go into research. There are obviously no guarantees. The prestige also has a higher price tag.

 

If the goal is 'just' to be an SLP, maybe it doesn't really matter. A friend of mine is doctor from a top medical school. Now that he's working, nobody asks where he went to school.

 

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks,
Ee.

 

 

 

 

 

[SLPtoBEweee]

I am leaning towards "good" with funding, because I look at some of my friends now with $60-70K+ in loans, and it just seems awful.  Any way you cut it up, you are either paying loans for YEARSSSSS or you are paying a bunch of your new salary each month to pay it down.  This is a huge dilemma for me, too, and is weighing heavily on my mind, though.  What to do, what to do!

[queenleblanc]

If I have the choice, I am leaning towards any kind of funding or assistantship. Rank or program prestige would only come into play if i have some kind of extra incentive to go such as funding or the research area I desire. Yes, I eventually want to get a PhD, but as long as the program I choose has great classes and perhaps a thesis option, and maybe a specific area of research, I am okay with a lesser known program.

[GandalfTheGrey]

Going on to do research is more about what you do with where you are than it is about where you are. I would suggest taking the funding. Congrats on both acceptances!

[TalkItOut_9]

I'm in the same boat and completely torn.  I'm still waiting to hear about funding from multiple programs and praying that one of my top choice schools gives me a financial cushion.

 

Blah!

[Tuck]

I haven't heard back from any of my schools yet, but I would be happy at any of them, I think. I'm hoping to visit places I get accepted to confirm this.

 

It will almost certainly come down to funding for me. In retrospect, I wish I had applied to 1 or 2 more programs where I would be quite likely to get accepted based on stats from past years. I would be feeling less anxious right now, and in theory, being at the higher end of the applicant pool based on GPA and GRE would increase my odds of getting good funding.

[GandalfTheGrey]

Any time you are thinking about rankings, it's also worth considering where the rankings come from: http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/2012/03/12/methodology-graduate-health-rankings

Basically, departments are sent surveys that consist of a list of SLP grad programs, and they rate each grad program on a scale of 1 to 5. These ratings are averaged, and voila, rankings!

[CassieKay]

I had a similar question! I got into Iowa, the number one school, but I also interviewed at ASU and LOVED it (however its ranked 25). To further complicate things, since I live in Iowa currently I would have less moving costs, in state tuition, more money all around. However, I still just can't get all the awesome ASU clinic opportunities, bilingual and pediatric tracts, etc out of my head. I do plan on one day apply for an Phd. Thoughts??

[midnight]

Good reputation and full funding?! I say go for it.

[deleria]

I had a similar question! I got into Iowa, the number one school, but I also interviewed at ASU and LOVED it (however its ranked 25). To further complicate things, since I live in Iowa currently I would have less moving costs, in state tuition, more money all around. However, I still just can't get all the awesome ASU clinic opportunities, bilingual and pediatric tracts, etc out of my head. I do plan on one day apply for an Phd. Thoughts??

 

ASU is a great school. If you look at the bios of their PhD students, a few of them did their master's there and stayed for a PhD. Go for it, especially if there is faculty there you'd like to do research with (and they do have some pretty big names - Ingram, Yost). After a certain cutoff point, the rankings are affected by a lot of factors that don't necessarily have any practical significance.

[MagentaMacaron]

I had a similar question! I got into Iowa, the number one school, but I also interviewed at ASU and LOVED it (however its ranked 25). To further complicate things, since I live in Iowa currently I would have less moving costs, in state tuition, more money all around. However, I still just can't get all the awesome ASU clinic opportunities, bilingual and pediatric tracts, etc out of my head. I do plan on one day apply for an Phd. Thoughts??

 

IMO, you should pick the program that is the best fit for you, and where you are certain you will recieve the best training possible.

 

That being said, If you do choose the higher tuition, I encourage you to go through the motions of financing your education. Calculate how much money you will need to live (rent, transportation, living expenses) and any loans you will need to take out etc. AND how much you'll end up having to pay back. Do you have any "safety nets" in case something unexpected happens? (i.e. parental support)

 

I say this because I always treated tuition as an "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it"-type of thing, but now that I have the option of going to school and have been speaking to banks regarding loans, the reality of actually being in huge amounts of debt is really weighing on me. Your dream school could look very different once reality sets in!

Edited March 7, 2013 by MagentaMacaron

[katieliz456]

ASU is a great school. If you look at the bios of their PhD students, a few of them did their master's there and stayed for a PhD. Go for it, especially if there is faculty there you'd like to do research with (and they do have some pretty big names - Ingram, Yost). After a certain cutoff point, the rankings are affected by a lot of factors that don't necessarily have any practical significance.

Also, the ASU professors all seem to be EXTREMELY enthusiastic about students (undergrad and grad) doing research with them, whether or not you are actually doing a thesis.