Help Choosing Schools to Apply to (FALL 2017 applicant)

[CLCD]

Hi GradCafe Community,

I'm a new user to the site (although admittedly,  I have stalked a few forums for months) and was looking for advice in regards to which schools I should look at applying to this upcoming admission cycle--fall 2017. This will be my first time applying and I am extremely nervous! I've used ASHA's EFind, looked up almost every school's program, viewed admission stats on various forums/sites, but I am still so ridiculously stressed out and overwhelmed. Not just about choosing the right school...but a school that will except me.

How did YOU choose the schools you were applying to? What stood out to you? Are there programs that you would absolutely stay away from? Are there schools that like to accept their own residents first? Based on my personal stats, do you have any recommendations for me personally? Any advice on making this process any easier I would GREATLY appreciate. 

Some stats about me:

-My first degree was in business (2008-2012): 3.12 GPA. (A in Bio1, B in Bio2, A in AP1, C in AP2--stupid bell curve, B+ in Chem1, A in Stats) 

-Worked in education for the last 4 years but wanted to continue on to SLP school.

-Will be receiving my second bachelors degree in CSD with a 3.9 GPA.

-50+hours of volunteer work at a deaf and hard of hearing school for children.

-Accepted into a UCLA sponsored clinical externship @ a hospital (will be completed in October with over 280 hours)

-Working part time a Behavior Instructor with individuals ages 2-24 with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, etc.

-Fluent in Sign Language

-GRE Scores: To be determined (using Magoosh and a Kaplan class)

Thank you in advance to anyone who responds!!!! My family, friends, and fiance really don't understand how stressful this process is so when I turn to them for advice their answer is "you're going to be fine!" or "you're crazy." I guess randomly bursting into tears over this at times only strengthens the "you're crazy" argument...but I feel like they don't understand just how competitive this field is!

As a side note, since I have looked at so many threads on here recently, my heart has literally ached for many of the members on here. So many are extremely qualified, yet have felt one too many rejections  

[kumapanda]

26 minutes ago, CLCD said:

How did YOU choose the schools you were applying to? What stood out to you? Are there programs that you would absolutely stay away from? Are there schools that like to accept their own residents first? Based on my personal stats, do you have any recommendations for me personally? Any advice on making this process any easier I would GREATLY appreciate. 

I used ASHA's edfind to get a list of all the certified graduate programs in the country and create a spreadsheet to compare them side by side.  I chose schools based on my own self interest, which in this case were schools with on-campus clinics.  My spreadsheet included information on where the schools were located, the GRE/GPA requirements, if they had an on-campus clinic or not, and etc.  I took notes on my first impression of the school's program by going on their websites and if I had any interest in what I saw.  This narrowed my search from roughly 300 programs down to 50-60.  From there, I composed a list of questions to learn more about the programs and sent them to the faculty of those programs.  The questions I sent to those schools can be found here: 

I liked programs that had some sort of emphasis on autism or at least had an autism course because I'm interested in learning more about it and I have had personal experience with people that have ASD.  Programs that are located in diverse cities/states or had courses that talk about diversity also stood out to me because I think it's important to learn how to work with clients of different backgrounds and my undergraduate program had some emphasis on that as well.  You said you had experience of working with children of deaf and hard of hearing, so maybe choose a school that also has an audiology program?  I know some schools in the D.C. area have programs that have some focus on working with the deaf and hard of hearing population.  I also had the impression that UNCO had some emphasis on working with the deaf and hard of hearing population, so maybe you can look into that and see if you like it. 

I kept the number of Cal State applications to a minimal since I graduated from a CSU myself and my impression was that they favored their undergraduate students.  I only applied to one NY school because I know New York is competitive and they get a lot of applicants every year.  I took out a map of the United States and started crossing out states I knew I wouldn't be able to bear living in for 2-3 years (For example, Arizona and Nevada because I don't do well in heat.).  If location doesn't matter to you, that's a bonus because you have more options to choose from.  I also avoided religious schools in general because I not religious, although Loyola was the exception because I liked that the structure of their on-campus clinic based on the school website.   

If you're concern which schools accept their own residents first, I recommend emailing the schools you're interested in and ask them because many schools will be straightforward in their answers.  For GRE and GPAs, I say compare your scores to the ones ASHA gives you (or you can ask the schools for their average scores) and weed out the schools with scores that are out of your range.  If your scores are off by a few points, I don't think it's too bad because you can still retake the GRE or hope that a strong personal statement/LOR will help you.   

[Crimson Wife]

Are you looking to work with DHH clients? If so, Gallaudet and Fresno State have a "Total Communication" approach. Nazareth has a DHH track that is officially neutral wrt communication modalities (they have classes on Cued Speech, for example) but is closely affilated with the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at RIT and NTID is heavily pro-ASL.

I want to say that San Diego State has a DHH track that is TC but I'm not 100% sure so you'd need to check.

I want to become an auditory-verbal therapist so my target list looks rather different.

[thespeechblog.com]

On 4/21/2016 at 4:59 PM, CLCD said:

Hi GradCafe Community,

I'm a new user to the site (although admittedly,  I have stalked a few forums for months) and was looking for advice in regards to which schools I should look at applying to this upcoming admission cycle--fall 2017. This will be my first time applying and I am extremely nervous! I've used ASHA's EFind, looked up almost every school's program, viewed admission stats on various forums/sites, but I am still so ridiculously stressed out and overwhelmed. Not just about choosing the right school...but a school that will except me.

How did YOU choose the schools you were applying to? What stood out to you? This was simple for me - I'm an out of field candidate who didn't want to do a post-bacc so I only applied to programs with three year masters. On top of that, I'm bilingual and wanted a program with bilingual training. Those two criteria narrowed down the list from 300+ to about 20 options. From there, I just looked at locations I wouldn't be willing to go to or schools I didn't want to attend (religious or most private schools).

I really recommend two things for this process. First one: some serious introspection - find out what you absolutely cannot give up in order to go to grad school. The more flexible you are, the better. Grad school is a national market, so try not to limit yourself geographically. Another tip: If I was going to apply again, I'd look for (on EdFind) which school usually include interviews in the process and add more of those to my list (unless of course you're a bad interviewer). 

Second Thing: Use an excel document to keep track of all the programs (I wrote a blog post on the process I used) because it really makes it easier to move things around and sort by categories. I started with a list of 100+ programs and went about researching them and adding columns with notes. Every time I reduced the list, I kept the info for the old schools in another sheet. That way if I wanted to backtrack, I didn't have to do all the research over again. 

Are there programs that you would absolutely stay away from? Any program without accreditation Are there schools that like to accept their own residents first? Based on my personal stats, do you have any recommendations for me personally? Any advice on making this process any easier I would GREATLY appreciate. 

Some stats about me:

-My first degree was in business (2008-2012): 3.12 GPA. (A in Bio1, B in Bio2, A in AP1, C in AP2--stupid bell curve, B+ in Chem1, A in Stats) 

-Worked in education for the last 4 years but wanted to continue on to SLP school.

I'm sure this will give you some great experiences to shape your SOP. Look out for programs that have an education focus (if that is indeed the side you want to work with). 

-Will be receiving my second bachelors degree in CSD with a 3.9 GPA.

Good GPA should definitely get your application noticed. 

-50+hours of volunteer work at a deaf and hard of hearing school for children.

Just listing this on your resume / application won't be significant - you need to include in your SOP what you gained from these experiences and how they shaped you. If you can't do this in your SOP for whatever reason, make sure your resume is really results rather than responsibilities oriented. 

-Accepted into a UCLA sponsored clinical externship @ a hospital (will be completed in October with over 280 hours)

Again, this will be a great source of experience to shape your SOP. 

-Working part time a Behavior Instructor with individuals ages 2-24 with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, etc.

Again, this will be a great source of experience to shape your SOP. 

-Fluent in Sign Language

Again, this will be a great source of experience to shape your SOP. 

-GRE Scores: To be determined (using Magoosh and a Kaplan class)

I love Magoosh! 

Thank you in advance to anyone who responds!!!! My family, friends, and fiance really don't understand how stressful this process is so when I turn to them for advice their answer is "you're going to be fine!" or "you're crazy." I guess randomly bursting into tears over this at times only strengthens the "you're crazy" argument...but I feel like they don't understand just how competitive this field is! I can totally relate - my family and friends are used to me succeeding and they don't understand 1 the effort I put into it and 2 how very competitive this field. I don't have any good advice for this other than to seek refuge with those who do understand.  

As a side note, since I have looked at so many threads on here recently, my heart has literally ached for many of the members on here. So many are extremely qualified, yet have felt one too many rejections  I know what you mean! :/ I tell myself that when I make it and become an SLP, I'll be sure to take on as many CFY's and students doing observations hours (etc) as I can to help ease the bottleneck in the training process so more people can get in. 

Best of luck!