Could I Get in This Year?

[Puffer Fish]

I hate to add to the infinite list of "what are my chances" threads...but here I am.

I'm an out of field applicant who graduated a semester early in December, 2014; my undergrad was a special major in psycholinguistics and developmental psychology. My overall GPA was 3.07. My best GRE scores are 162V, 152Q, 3.5AW
I took a year to take leveling courses online (and discovered I am NEVER taking online courses again if I can help it). My GPA in those was a 3.34. Not good enough for schools with a hard 3.5 minimum, but still drastically better if you compare.
I applied last year before I'd finished my online courses. 5/6 rejections outright, 1/6 apps was late (thanks to my letter writers who missed the deadline) and then put on a waitlist for a month and a half only to be denied later. Though I haven't done much academically since then, I can feel that i've achieved a lot of personal growth and I am working on figuring out how to word that in my personal statements.

 

I have 2 tangible experiences in the field: an internship at an elementary school in my last semester of undergrad, and a few undocumented hours of shadowing at a hospital which made me decide I want to focus on adult, acute care. After graduating, while taking the online courses, I worked part-time at a restaurant. Now I work as the front desk person in a real estate office. I have several examples of people I have interacted with in all of these places (plus some examples from my personal life) that can be made relevant to SLP and my interests therein. I have tried to get a second internship or shadowing experience where I live now, but no one will return my calls/emails so it hasn't worked out yet.

I'm worried that my lack of experience with the field will make admissions think I'm barely invested in this. I want this more than anything else in my life right now, but I have just had poor opportunities for experience since I didn't know the profession existed until nearly my junior year of college while attending an institution which barely has a linguistics department let alone having a CSD facility.

 

Any advice? Suggestions? Concerns? etc.? Thanks in advance.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Puffer Fish
additional info

[theominousfuture]

Hey! I was really worried about not having enough experience too. I looked up some speech clinics/hospitals near me and sent them a really polite email asking about any available opportunities and a small elevator speech about myself. I think I ended up reaching out to four places. I didn't think I'd hear back from any but I did hear from one! I don't know if you've tried cold-contacting places but I don't think it could hurt as long as you're super polite, humble, and eager. Maybe try to find a place that mentions volunteers on their website? September is coming up and the school year is starting so lots of places will soon be swamped and needing help. Worth a shot! 

Oh also, the psychology/language development research team at my school has accepted students from outside the school as volunteers or research assistants. Maybe reach out to some schools near you to see if they need an extra set of hands at a lab. Again, super polite and eager! Either people will appreciate you taking the initiative or totally ignore you but I think it's worth putting yourself out there. 

[Puffer Fish]

7 minutes ago, theominousfuture said:

Hey! I was really worried about not having enough experience too. I looked up some speech clinics/hospitals near me and sent them a really polite email asking about any available opportunities and a small elevator speech about myself. I think I ended up reaching out to four places. I didn't think I'd hear back from any but I did hear from one! I don't know if you've tried cold-contacting places but I don't think it could hurt as long as you're super polite, humble, and eager. Maybe try to find a place that mentions volunteers on their website? September is coming up and the school year is starting so lots of places will soon be swamped and needing help. Worth a shot! 

Oh also, the psychology/language development research team at my school has accepted students from outside the school as volunteers or research assistants. Maybe reach out to some schools near you to see if they need an extra set of hands at a lab. Again, super polite and eager! Either people will appreciate you taking the initiative or totally ignore you but I think it's worth putting yourself out there. 

Unfortunately, I have moved back to my undergrad's town, and all there is around here regarding speech is autism clinics and the hospital. I am almost considering reaching otu to the autism clinics, but I am not terribly interested in that population. The hospital is the one that is not returning my calls; all I've done is cold call lol.

[Crimson Wife]

The "red flag" I see is your low GPA compared to your decent GRE scores. If you're smart enough to score in the 90th percentile for verbal GRE, you should really have a much better GPA than 3.07 UG and 3.34 for post-bacc. I don't know you but if you don't have any extenuating circumstances to explain the mediocre grades, my immediate thought is lack of maturity. My recommendation would be to work in a related field for a few years while continuing to take leveling classes (in-person if that is a better fit for your personality) and then trying again.

[Puffer Fish]

25 minutes ago, Crimson Wife said:

The "red flag" I see is your low GPA compared to your decent GRE scores. If you're smart enough to score in the 90th percentile for verbal GRE, you should really have a much better GPA than 3.07 UG and 3.34 for post-bacc. I don't know you but if you don't have any extenuating circumstances to explain the mediocre grades, my immediate thought is lack of maturity. My recommendation would be to work in a related field for a few years while continuing to take leveling classes (in-person if that is a better fit for your personality) and then trying again.

I agree. I did not really gain much maturity while in undergrad, and I am not 100% sure why . I realize now that I never gave myself the opportunity to mature. Uncontrolled anxiety (see below) combined with my unstable family life led to me not being allowed to learn how to function as an independent adult for a lot longer than most people. Despite that, when I graduated and took my leveling courses, I moved home with my parents to save money. That is the only reason I took them online. Now that I have moved out (for the moment, hopefully forever) I am finding myself growing by leaps and bounds since I have the freedom to learn how to be functional and independent. My previous academic record doesn't reflect the work I know I could do now if given the opportunity.

I also have an anxiety disorder which affected me throughout college and still affects me now, though I am attempting to work on getting it to affect me less. My undergrad GPA would be better except for extenuating circumstances regarding the disorder in one semester, which took me until I graduated to recover from academically (and even then it was not enough to significantly raise my GPA by that point). In my leveling courses, I had another extenuating circumstance where a friend died and I was overwhelmed during one semester, so I got my one and only C+ in one of the two courses in that semester. Since I only took 8 courses, it was a significant damper.

I would love to move again and retake courses in person somewhere, but I know right now I could not handle a full time job AND classes. I need to focus on one or the other in order to be successful. My parents are gracious and wonderful and willing to help me pay for school, but I know they would see it as wasteful to take the classes again. Many schools I am applying to also have the 3 year pre-req track, and I am considering applying to those instead of the regular 2 year track. I could use the extra background knowledge.

EDIT: I also do not know how I could work in a related field. There are no SLPAs in my state, I have no medical certifications, etc.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Puffer Fish
additional questions

[wcslp]

Others have given you good advice so far. One thing I'd like to touch on if you don't mind.. you talk about many difficult circumstances you had that impacted your academic record. I actually see you listed at least 4 different situations. I would advise against making these the focus of your personal statements. At the time I applied, I was quite close to one of the faculty members who had served on an admissions committee for many, many years. I, too, went through some tough situations that I believe influenced my grades in one way or another. I asked my professor if she thought I should refer to this in my personal statement as a way to explain why I didn't have higher scores. She told me that personally, she really wouldn't because for many students, it often comes off sounding like a myriad of excuses. She said it was much more important to focus on keeping a positive tone as opposed to a negative one. Take this as you will, but I do think her advice helped me get into several of the programs I applied to. 

Do you have any plans to retake the GRE? Your AW score is just a bit low; I've always been told you want a 4.0 at the very least.

Some other thoughts now that I've reread your comments a bit more thoroughly. You say there are autism clinics around you but you haven't reached out to contact them because you aren't interested in this population. This is perfectly fine, but I highly recommend you reach out regardless. During your time in grad school, you will have the opportunity to work with a plethora of different populations and clients, and pretty much every school has an autism clinic on campus. Working in one of these will provide MUCH more relevant experience than what you currently have. Just because you volunteer in one for a year or so doesn't mean you'll only have to work with this population for the rest of your life. It seems a bit strange that you say you are worried grad schools won't think you're invested and that you want this more than anything, but you haven't reached out to these clinics yet. You say  you feel as if you can do better academically, but you haven't shown it yet, and this is what admissions committees need to see.

Your biggest detriment is your low GPA. You can offset this by getting great GRE scores, stacking your resume with relevant experiences and extra curriculars, and/or doing extremely well in any other leveling/post bacc COMD courses. So far, you haven't really done any of these. I recommend you take some time to accomplish these things and show the schools that you have what it takes. You already have a very competitive GRE V score so you can definitely do it. Just keep moving

[Puffer Fish]

6 hours ago, wcslp said:

Others have given you good advice so far. One thing I'd like to touch on if you don't mind.. you talk about many difficult circumstances you had that impacted your academic record. I actually see you listed at least 4 different situations. I would advise against making these the focus of your personal statements. At the time I applied, I was quite close to one of the faculty members who had served on an admissions committee for many, many years. I, too, went through some tough situations that I believe influenced my grades in one way or another. I asked my professor if she thought I should refer to this in my personal statement as a way to explain why I didn't have higher scores. She told me that personally, she really wouldn't because for many students, it often comes off sounding like a myriad of excuses. She said it was much more important to focus on keeping a positive tone as opposed to a negative one. Take this as you will, but I do think her advice helped me get into several of the programs I applied to. 

Do you have any plans to retake the GRE? Your AW score is just a bit low; I've always been told you want a 4.0 at the very least.

Some other thoughts now that I've reread your comments a bit more thoroughly. You say there are autism clinics around you but you haven't reached out to contact them because you aren't interested in this population. This is perfectly fine, but I highly recommend you reach out regardless. During your time in grad school, you will have the opportunity to work with a plethora of different populations and clients, and pretty much every school has an autism clinic on campus. Working in one of these will provide MUCH more relevant experience than what you currently have. Just because you volunteer in one for a year or so doesn't mean you'll only have to work with this population for the rest of your life. It seems a bit strange that you say you are worried grad schools won't think you're invested and that you want this more than anything, but you haven't reached out to these clinics yet. You say  you feel as if you can do better academically, but you haven't shown it yet, and this is what admissions committees need to see.

Your biggest detriment is your low GPA. You can offset this by getting great GRE scores, stacking your resume with relevant experiences and extra curriculars, and/or doing extremely well in any other leveling/post bacc COMD courses. So far, you haven't really done any of these. I recommend you take some time to accomplish these things and show the schools that you have what it takes. You already have a very competitive GRE V score so you can definitely do it. Just keep moving

You have totally valid points. I have received input from one of my professors about a personal statement draft and she said the same thing you did. I am going to generically mention it and will provide more detail in the interview if asked.

I am debating retaking the GRE. The only score I need to improve is the writing one. I could do better in math, I guess, but it's not quite as vital to my apps I don't thinkl.

Mostly I haven't reached out to the autism clinics because I work during their business hours and cannot take time off to go shadow someone. Though I have just found one that is open for 1 hour after I get off of work, so I could get almost an hour of observation if they took me.

I don't have any more post-bacc courses to complete, unfortunately, unless I retake them. I am planning on applying to several 3-year, "post-bacc-into-grad-program' schools along with regular 2 year programs.

I'm just worried I don't have enough time to get a good record with anybody. One of my profs for my LORs is ill and may not be able to write for me. I have no backup plan for if he can't do it.