NJ,PA Grad School in SLP

[SMB1229]

Hello! I just graduated undergrad with a 3.70 and am taking a year off to work and study for the GRE. Has anyone been accepted to NJ or PA schools with a GPA similar to mine? What advice can you give me? I am hopefully getting a job at a rehab assistant and have a decent amount of volunteer work. Please help a fellow speechie out! 

[royffle]

Hey! My GPA while applying to grad schools was a 3.75 and I was accepted to a couple PA/NJ schools! I will be attending La Salle but I also got in to Temple (this is my undergrad so I believe that played a factor) , West Chester, Stockton, Kean, and Seton Hall. If you are looking into beyond PA/NJ then I'd suggest Loyola MD because they definitely have a holistic approach. I was accepted there & I feel like you'd be a good candidate for them. The only school I was rejected from was East Stroudsburg...so it's honestly tough to tell exactly what they want. 

My advice would be to get your GRE scores into at least the 50th percentile for each section. 

I worked in a research lab and worked at a nursing home during undergrad. I think what set me apart was my personal statement & LOR. For each of these schools I talked about how my experiences showed me what I love about SLP (I was specific - for me, dysphagia, aphasia, etc.) and then related it back to what the school offers. So I mentioned certain professors & their research/labs in my PS. (Note: If you apply to Kean, your personal statement will be a video & you'll be answering a totally different question).

Also my 3 LOR came from professors who really knew me! Be professional and ask in person! Make a nice folder for each of them with a table of the schools you're applying to & due dates. Also include all your grades, your personal statement, etc. 

If you have any other questions, lmk! Good luck!

[rachieann]

Hi! I didn't apply in NJ or PA, but I did apply in NY which I feel has about the same competitiveness. I also had a 3.7 cum GPA and I was accepted to every school on Long Island (Hofstra, Adelphi, LIU) and I was also accepted to a number of upstate schools, Northeastern in Boston, and Loyola in Maryland. I did not get accepted to Queens or Brooklyn College - those school's are extremely competitive though.

Throughout my undergrad, I worked as a teacher's assistant at a special needs school where I was able to work one-on-one with young children who have autism and I feel that this experience is really what made me stand out from others. I made a large part of my SOP about this and talked about it a lot in my interviews with school's - I think that admission's committee's like to see that you're really committed to working in the field. My advice would be to definitely get a job where you're getting hands-on experience with relevant populations. Trying working in EI or other special needs populations where you'll be able to do speech activities hands-on with students. Then, explain how those experiences prepared you for SLP work in your SOP and in interviews. Also, study for the GRE! I focused a lot on the verbal portion of the test because I knew that was my strength and what school's look most heavily on. There are so many apps on your phone that you can get to drill yourself on vocab words - it's so convenient.

And finally, apply early! So many people I went to school with waited till the last minute to send their materials out to school's or CSDCAS and they ended up getting lost and their application was incomplete. Transcripts take SO long to get to CSDCAS, it's ridiculous - make sure you're checking your application profiles frequently and staying on top of what school's need what by when.

[Paslp]

This was a very informative post since I also applied to schools in Nj/Pa. If anyone has info to share on schools in this area please comment! 

[MeganEliza]

Paslp, I applied to some PA/NJ schools as well! Edinboro, West Chester, Stockton, William Paterson and Buffalo State in NY. I've heard people say PA/NJ schools are notoriously late in making decisions - anybody have a clue as to why that might be?