A survey of first year speech-language pathology and audiology graduate students on the graduate school application process

Abstract

Limited information is available on how students interested in pursuing a career in the Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) field feel about the graduate school application process. A shortage of professionals within both audiology and speech-language pathology has become an issue of concern for CSD graduate programs, who are responsible for the training of these individuals, as well as the American Speech- Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) who accredits CSD graduate programs, due to several known barriers that are preventing a widespread growth of professionals in these fields. A pilot survey was administered to 100 first year CSD graduate students to obtain information regarding their recent rationale for selecting their respective career path and their experience with the graduate school application process. Results from this study confirmed the need for academic programs to do the following: improve recruitment efforts, evaluate the students' criteria for selecting a graduate program, and clarify the importance of certain application materials used by graduate admission committees to students interested in applying to CSD graduate programs.