In my current role, one thing I participate in each month is hosting undergrad shadow students. Many have their heart set on the career but have the daunting task of applying to grad school, but aren’t sure where to apply, what to expect or what to look for. Working in the field and having met professionals from programs around the country, I find I offer them some perspective.
- Consider your broad career goals. Any grad program should provide you with a comprehensive education for peds, adults, speech, language, voice, feeding, swallowing etc. so you don’t have to have your mind made up yet about your target population. What I do recommend is reflecting on your overall goal – do you want to be a clinician, a researcher or a professor? Some programs only offer 2-3 clinical placements, but have a heavier focus on research. Others have minimal research opportunities but may give you up to 5 clinical placements.
- Do they offer specialty tracks? – again, you don’t have to have you exact plan made, but it’s great to know if there is an opportunity. Some specialty tracks may include bilingual, multiculturalism, medical, AAC. While not necessary, it could help you stand out in the field.
- Funding – grad school can be EXPENSIVE. Compare in state vs out of state tuition. Find out if they offer any scholarships, grants, or graduate assistant positions.
- Take rankings with a grain of salt – It’s always impressive to attend a top ranked program but there are things you may not know about how rankings are determined. For example – rankings look at the level of new, cutting edge research coming out of the program. If it is a smaller school without research facilities – or a PhD program – there likely won’t be as much. This doesn’t mean the clinical side of the training isn’t fantastic. Again, consider your own goals. Also, side-note, some employers have started to hide all identifying information – including university – on applications so “name recognition” may or may not even matter when you’re applying to jobs.
- Look for open houses – many programs offer tours or virtual Q & As. These situations used to intimidate me because I felt I didn’t even know what questions to ask, so here’s a few samples – how many clinical rotations will I get? Will I have the opportunity to work with pediatric and adult populations? How many different settings should I expect to experience? Does every student have the opportunity for a medical placement? How far should students expect to travel for their clinical placements? What is the first time praxis pass rate for first students? Where are some recent grads working now? How big is the cohort? Are classes primarily face to face or virtual? What does a typical class schedule look like?
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