<p>Hi everyone! I am obtaining a B.S. of psychology at a state liberal arts school.</p>
<p>Some info about me - I am interested in the clinical track, because I want to be a licensed therapist after I graduate. I have a 3.9 GPA (may go down a bit). I am currently involved in in my school's chapter of the nonprofit leadership alliance to prepare me for a future potentially in the nonprofit field. I plan to join the AmeriCorps after graduation for a year to get some real volunteer work done and human services experience. I am in my school's Honors Program, but I honestly doubt grad schools care about that very much.</p>
<p>I have looked into NYU and Columbia, but I know they are extremely competitive programs. I also probably won't be able to pay for them. </p>
<p>Some questions: How can I prepare myself adequately for an MSW? What are some things I should be doing to pad my resume? What are my chances for some of the bigger name schools? If I can't get into any of those, what are some other reputable schools in the NYC area I should be looking into? Also, how important are GRE scores?</p>
<p>Social work is not my field. However, I do have a few friends who are social workers, and as far as I know…it’s not a field that highly values prestige or anything like that. Moreover, median salaries for social workers are pretty low- in the mid-$40,000 range. So consider attending a public university. If you are in-state for New York, look at Hunter’s MSW - it’s a well-respected program and way cheaper than NYU or Columbia. Lehman College also offers an MSW. Stony Brook also has an MSW program. If you don’t mind leaving the NYC area, other less expensive options are SUNY-Albany, and Binghamton.</p>
<p>You don’t want to just pad your resume; you want to do some real work that’s going to shape your outlook as a social worker and expose you to the kinds of work that you would do as a social worker. So basically, follow your interests. Clearly you want to be a social worker for a reason - why is that? Who do you want to work with?</p>
<p>Volunteering is of course highly valued; you could volunteer at a hospital, a social service agency, a school, or anywhere that will get you doing some work with community members. You should try to volunteer somewhere like where you’d want to work - i.e., if you want to be a hospital social worker volunteer at a hospital. Since you want to do therapy you might try to volunteer in the psychiatric ward at a hospital, or you could work as a rape crisis counselor and/or on a night-time hotline to help those in crisis.</p>
<p>Being a resident assistant might be some good experience - they do a lot of one-on-one peer counseling with their residents and also work to defuse crisis situations. So there’s that!</p>
<p>AmeriCorps is a really good idea; that will look very good but also give you a lot of exposure to the kinds of things you want to do.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to tell your chances for the bigger name schools at this point. You’re on the right track, though.</p>
<p>Thanks, I really appreciate all your help!! I’ve heard about Hunter before, I should definitely look into that. I really want to make the world a different place, even if its just helping a few individuals. I want to be a therapist with all my heart, and I am really interested in urban issues as well as family and children. Thanks for your suggestions! I’m REALLY excited to do AmeriCorps because I do volunteer, I really feel like I haven’t done nearly enough in my life so far. It sounds like an amazing and fulfilling experience. Thanks for your insight!</p>