Competitiveness of programs

[ashny]

I just called a graduate school to find out what their requirements are and they said that if you have scored on average between the 55th and 65th percentile on the GRE, you have a good chance of admission. In my case my last  GPA is 3.4 which they thought was good. In other words you don't need a crazy high GRE score, you just  need to be above average.

A lot of people here have said that it is extremely competitive to get in and lots of students have no choice but to find alternate careers. Is it that these  students are not getting these kind of scores OR they are getting these kind of scores but still NOT getting in?

 

Edited January 18, 2017 by ashny
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[kayyyyy_]

Getting these scores and NOT getting in. 

[Paslp]

It is more so where those people are applying to schools. From my experience each grad school cares about something different.

For example, one undergrad school I was talking to someone about cared A LOT about GPA so only accepted people with near perfect gpas. Test scores and other things were less important. 

Some schools I've been interested in I've contacted. They let me know that admittance decisions aren't based off GPA alone. They consider the entire application as a whole.

So it's good you asked the school you're interested in how competitive you are, because each school is sooooo different.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Paslp

[slpmayb2123]

Getting the scores and NOT getting in... while competitiveness of GPA/GRE is valued on a case by case basis at schools, applicants on this forum speak of how competitive it is generally speaking overall within the field. I don't mean to deter you in any way, but understand that being told your stats are good/you have a good chance of getting in is not the same as getting in. (I have classmates that have learned this the hard way, eeek.) 

Like many applicants and yourself, I too have spent a lot of time speculating about whether my stats were good enough. The reality is that "good enough" is relative to where you apply, and while some schools are less competitive than others, a rule of thumb is that the higher your stats are, the more competitive of an applicant you are.

We just have to apply and see the results to truly gauge where we are at! 

[Kangamom]

Well, here's an example.

My daughter (who is currently in grad school in speech path) had these stats:

GRE qualitative 90%tile,  quantitative 55%tile, and a good writing score (5)

GPA: 3.94

strong recs, good experience and observation of SLP's. Strong extra-curriculars (so wasn't just sitting in school studying) including leadership roles and graduated from undergrad in 3 years. We believe she had a good statement of purpose as well.

Applied to 9 schools (accepted at 4, declined at 4 and withdrew from one that gives acceptances in late April, when she accepted an offer from a school).

Your mileage may vary!

Kanga

 

[wcslp]

The way I've seen a lot of schools do it is that they'll receive all the applications, and then toss out those that don't meet the requirements, are missing critical components, or are just way off base. That only comprises a tiny percentage of all applications received. The vast majority would then be filtered for whatever the committee is searching for in an applicant. In my experience, if a school tells you your scores are acceptable, that just means you're in the running, not that you have a guaranteed (or even likely) chance of admission. For instance, my program had hundreds of applicants AFTER they already tossed out the applications they deemed unfit. Most of the ones remaining all had similar "good" scores, but you still had to compete with the remaining 600 or so. I think it's more helpful to really research a school and ask what THEY are looking for in a student, what they want to see, instead of asking if your scores fit within their range. 

 

So to answer your question, getting the scores but not getting in. Honestly, at this point, I assume most applicants to SLP grad programs have at least 50th percentile GREs and mid 3.0 GPAs.

[Quickmick]

@ashny getting in to what? Fully funded PhD programs or self funded masters programs?

[slpmayb2123]

@Quickmick This was posted in the Speech-language Pathology graduate program board. For SLP masters program, funding is not common and entrance is highly competitive. She isn't referring to the difficulty of funding, but getting into a MS SLP program. 

[Quickmick]

@slpmayb2123 Oh! My mistake, I just saw the "competitiveness" bit.