New and a little overwhelmed....

Hey all! I've been creeping around the forums for a while now and I'm so glad to have found a place that has so much great information!

On that note, I'm starting to do the whole figure-out-where-I'm-going-to-apply thing and I'm beginning to freak out. I've been hearing horror stories about people not being able to get into a single program. I've been looking at the at the average GPAs that several schools list, and they seem to be in the 3.7-3.9 range, and when they only have 5, 7, 15 etc slots, it seems like it might be too competitive for me to even think about getting in.

My current cumulative GPA is only a 3.62, and it's probably not going to move very much in either direction before I start applying to schools. I'm a CMSD major at a top 50 public university. No GRE scores yet, but I'm studying. This summer, I'll be taking an independent study class with an audiologist, and another class on how to use the audiology equipment, so that should get me some decent recs. Otherwise, I'm not that impressive, except that I've held a 20 hour a week part time job since 1st semester freshmen year.

Another problem I have would be financial. There are no in-state audiology programs where I live, and out of state tuition can be sort of terrifying

So to those of you who are in school/done with school, how below the curve am I stats-wise when it comes to applying to AuD school? Should I be scared? And also, if you don't mind me asking, what options did you use to pay for school other than a part time job/loans? Are there good scholarship programs for 1st year students (a lot of scholarships I've looked at seem to be exclusively for 3rd years).

Sorry for overloading this post with questions. It just all seems so overwhelming. Or maybe that's just the feeling of finals creeping up on me