Fall 2015 Applications

[doulalizzie]

I live in Ventura County, California and am currently attending CSUCI and will graduate in Spring 2015. I want to a distance program as I have three small children. My interest is in Medical Social Work and Individuals with Disabilities as my first daughter was born with a chromosome abnormality and severe health problems and spent a lot of time at Children's Hospital L.A. My dream schools would be USC or UCLA but due to finances I'm looking at CSUSB, CSULB and CSU Chico as they each have distance MSW programs. Any thoughts on these programs in connection with my interests? Also when do you start applying for Fall 2015? In Fall 2014? I was thinking of taking the GREAT this coming summer and also getting my letter of recommendation and personal statement.

[Dassine]

I'll be graduating December 2014, myself, so I've just started looking into a loot of this sort of stuff. The deadline dates depend heavily on if you're looking at advanced standing or not; if you are, most programs start in the Summer, and so deadlines tend to be November/December/January-ish. Regular standing programs starting in the Fall seem to be February/March/April-ish. Either which way you have plenty of time, so just look into the specific schools once it gets closer. If you need to take the GRE, I would probably plan for it sometime around October/November, so that way you have time to retake it if necessary before the deadlines As for the other stuff - references, personal statement, and so forth - as long as you have it ready to go by the fall, you should be solid.

 

If a distance program is most ideal and budget is a heavy consideration, I would definitely give University of North Dakota a consideration. It's super cheap (instate tuition for the online program, regardless of where you live), has an advanced standing option (which is less common for distance programs), and is, of course, accredited and all that jazz. 

[doulalizzie]

Thank you for reply Dassine. I will look into the University of North Dakota online program as well.