I will be applying next year becasue I will be graduating in January. I currently have a 3.8 GPA and a 1260 GRE and analytical writing is a 5.0, so I think I have an OK chance at most schools. I am near Philadelphia, and while I don't have a problem moving far away, I would like to stay somewhat close. Basically, I would like some advice on schools that offer a good education, good clinical placements, and good funding and/or low tuition. Does such a school exist? I am most interested in cochlear implants or other medical based audiology, as opposed to private practice. Any sugestions?
I think that all schools have their + and -, what you may want to do is consider what city/town you want to live in, how much you want to pay for tuition, what specific are you want to research/study, how important the ranking of the school is to you verse getting a scholarship towards another.
You want to be in the city that you want to spend the next 3-4 years of you life in. Also, your academic adviser you get can make or break your experience in any program I found and the teachers there, so its good to meet the teachers first. (for example if you don't' like to be in classes with teachers who have foreign accents because its hard for you to concentrate- make sure you don't apply to a school with all Asian/Middle East/ or European teachers)
There are only ~75 programs in the US, so unless you plan to study abroad in canada or elsewhere, its pretty easy to know out which cities you do or do not want to live in.
Apply to some long shots and easier schools because you never know which one will offer you more funding and you may want to keep your options open.
For undergrad, I had transfered colleges a few times and realized the environment of the campus as a whole (the town, libraries, weather...etc) REALLY REALLY really makes a difference in your education.
USA AuD school Rankings
Here is a click map of all the programs
http://audiology.advanceweb.com/Article/AANation.aspx?RPID=56
One more good link of the schools that you can click on.
http://www.audiologist.org/prospective-students/aud-programs.html
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This website is a WEALTH of knowledge, after you find which school you want to look up, enter it in here and it tells you price, how many applications the school gets, areas of research for each school...I wish I knew about this before I had applied to schools
http://hes.asha.org:8080/EdFind/Doctoral/DoctSearch.aspx
I would like to point one one more thing that I REALLY wish I knew before applying to schools, it would have changed my decision of where to apply. Each school requires different recommendation letters and different requirements from the teachers, so your teachers will most likely limit how many you apply to...make sure to ASK in advanced the teachers how many letters they will write for you BEFORE you start sending out letters.
Also, if you plan is to apply to a few schools, then if you do not get into any apply to more later in the year...this does not work at a graduate level like it did for undergrad because grad schools take a very long time to respond even if its a rolling admissions and you submit your paper work months before you want to apply. You want to apply to all the schools you may want to possibly attend all at once. Make good, responsible choices.
