New member-Help needed

[Nayners21]

I am a brand new member to this site and I am in high need of some advice. I really need to get my butt in gear and apply (AGAIN) for grad school. I graduated in 2009 with my BA in CD, tried 3 times to get into grad school, rejected all three times. I am hesitant because i don't want the rejection anymore. I am looking for online programs because I have 2 young children. I live in CA, and honestly, any advice for anything would be helpful. I am an average student (3.2 GPA), GRE scores are low, and I don't have any contact for reference letters from old teachers. I have been working as a SLP-A for the last 5 years, and thought that would get into school no problem with all the experience and great letters of Rec from supervisors, but it hasn't. 

Thank you for any hope you can offer! 

[thespeechblog.com]

Nayners21, 

Good for you for picking yourself up and trying again! Persistence and learning from the process are pretty important to success. 

Spend a lot of time on your personal statements - they need to be amazing. I just published a blog post on some pre-writing activities to help you get started there. LOR from supervisors are great, but graduate school is mostly an academic pursuit and you´ll need LOR´s from professors. It´s ok if you´ve been out-of-touch with your undergrad profs for several years. If you can visit, that´s your best option to ask. If not, try a phone call. When you call, be sure to remind them of who you are, a little bit of small talk (what you remember from their course, a certain project, how what they taught you helps your work now, etc) can have a big impact on the warmth of a LOR. Be sure to put together packets for your LOR writers. 

Your GPA is pretty much going to be set in stone. Have you taken your science classes? If not, maybe you can take those in order to boost it a bit. 

Finally, if your GRE score is low - study hard to bring it up! GPA and GRE scores are big predictors of potential for academic success - if you´re GPA isn´t strong but you can bring up your GRE, you´ll go a long way to show them you can handle the academic rigor of grad school. Starting with a low GRE score and raising it through hardwork will also build up your discipline and study skills. I used Magoosh because it´s online and I loved it (It helped me raise my score 15 points) - you can read a full review of it on my blog. 

Good luck!

 

Edited May 30, 2016 by mcamp
typo