Graduate Applications & Admissions

Please complete all the sections of the online application, even if doing so duplicates information from your resume or transcripts. Only complete applications will be reviewed by the admissions committees for all programs. 

Letters of Recommendation

Letters of Recommendation can only be submitted online via the CU Boulder online application. Please do not tell recommenders to mail letters to the department. An email address is required for each recommender to submit a letter. Make sure to complete each field in the online application when adding a recommender. When your recommenders log into the online recommendation form, they will be asked to complete a rating list and provide a narrative. We prefer that they upload a letter using their own letterhead. You will receive an automatic confirmation email for each letter submitted. You can send a request for recommendation before submitting your application, and letters can be received before your application is submitted. The admissions committee prefers 2 letters from academic faculty whenever possible, especially from students who graduated within the last 2 years. The third letter can also be from an academic faculty, or it may be from someone with knowledge of your performance in a work, clinical, research, leadership, or teaching context. For applicants who have been out of school for several years or more, two letters do not need to be from academic faculty but please know that we do prefer to see at least 1-2 letters from faculty, if possible. You may tell your recommenders we are most interested in their comments about your academic promise, interpersonal skills, communication skills, respect for others, work ethic, responsiveness to critique/feedback, and maturity.

Personal Statement(s)

Each program has a separate personal statement that applicants should be prepared to answer. The prompts are included in the application. Students should leave plenty of time to review the prompts and begin the application before the deadline.

Resume

A one or two-page resume is required. A standard submission will contain sections with headings similar to those listed below, but you may have additional sections.

• Education: institution names, dates of attendance, GPA, etc.
• Employment or volunteer experience(s)
• Clinical experiences (if any)
• Skills or certifications, including technological skills
• Language skills in languages other than English

MA-SLP applicants should indicate on their resume which experiences fall into the following categories:

• Work related to SLHS
• Other work (including teaching)
• Research Volunteer/community service
• Leadership
• Other skills (e.g. language)

Detailed descriptions of experiences are welcome. The page limit for resumes is 3 pages.

Transcripts

For review and decision purposes, you are required to upload an unofficial copy of your transcript(s) in the online application. Official transcripts are not required for admissions purposes. We require one unofficial transcript from each undergraduate and graduate institution that you attended. This includes community colleges, summer sessions, and extension programs. While credits from one institution may appear on the transcript of a second institution, unofficial transcripts must be submitted from each institution, regardless of the length of attendance, and whether or not courses were completed. Failure to list and submit transcripts from all institutions previously attended is considered to be a violation of academic ethics and may result in the cancellation of your admission or dismissal from the university.

Applicants should have the necessary prerequisite coursework and content knowledge prior to the start of the program. Admitted students will be asked to submit a prerequisite form.

Required Coursework

• University-level statistics course

Required Content Knowledge

The AuD curriculum does not address the following content knowledge. Students must have this content knowledge in order to meet ASHA 2020 Standards for Certification in Audiology.

• Language and speech characteristics and their development for individuals with normal and impaired hearing across the lifespan
• Identifying persons at risk for speech-language and/or cognitive disorders that may interfere with communication, health, education, and/or psychosocial function
• Screening for comprehension and production of language, including the cognitive and social aspects of communication
• Screening for speech production skills (e.g., articulation, fluency, resonance, and voice characteristics)

Strongly Recommended Content Knowledge

AuD courses are taught based on the assumption that students have background content knowledge described below. Therefore, students are strongly encouraged to acquire this knowledge before taking related AuD coursework.

• Pre-calculus including algebra and trigonometry
• Audiological Evaluation - basic principles and techniques of hearing evaluation, including pure-tone, speech, immittance, and advanced audiometry; hearing conservation in hospital, school, and industrial settings; and identification and evaluation of auditory pathologies. Hands on experience in hearing screening and pure-tone audiometry.
• Hearing Science - basic understanding of the three main aspects of the hearing process: sounds in the environment (physical acoustics), sounds encoded within the auditory system (anatomy of the auditory system; physiological acoustics) and perception of sound (psychological acoustics).
• Phonetics - basic understanding of the production of speech sounds, transcribing speech using the International Phonetic Alphabet, analyzing the acoustic properties of speech sounds, understanding how speech sounds vary depending on the context.
• Audiological Rehabilitation - basic principles and techniques related to the habilitation and rehabilitation of individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing: amplification, speech, language, auditory, speech reading, and educational issues.
• Speech Science - basic understanding of the structural organization (anatomy), function (physiology), and the neural controls of the structures used to produce speech, swallowing, respiration, and related behaviors in humans.

Applicants to the two-year program should have the necessary prerequisite coursework and clinic observation hours prior to the start of the program. Prerequisite coursework and clinic observation hours do not need to be completed before applying. Admitted students will be asked to submit a prerequisite coursework form and submit their observation hours. Students with any gaps in these requirements should work with the MA-SLP advisor and/or the MA-SLP Director of Clinic to ensure these gaps in requirements are completed in a timely manner. Applicants to the three-year program will complete these requirements in their first year of the program. 

Prerequisite Coursework

AHSA Prerequisite Coursework
Students must have this content knowledge in order to meet ASHA 2020 Standards for Certification in Speech-Language Pathology. Descriptions of acceptable courses for each requirement can be found on the ASHA website.

• Biological Science
• Physics or Chemistry
• Statistics
• Social Science

Coursework must be completed at the undergraduate or graduate level at an accredited institution. AP coursework is accepted. Coursework from massive open online courses (MOOCs) are not accepted. Examples of MOOCs include, but are not limited to: Educause, MOOC.org, edX, Coursera, and Khan Academy. Coursework in the areas of biological sciences, physical sciences, social/behavioral sciences, and statistics cannot be related to speech-language pathology, audiology, communication sciences, hearing sciences, or logopedia.

Speech, Language, and Hearing Prerequisite Coursework
Students must have coursework that covered the following fundamental content. These six requirements do not necessarily need to be met by separate courses. For example, a student may meet requirements 2 and 3 by taking a Speech and Hearing Sciences course and a course covering Anatomy and Physiology of Speech and Hearing Mechanism.

• Phonetics - a course that focuses on production of speech sounds, transcribing speech using the International Phonetic Alphabet, analyzing the acoustic properties of speech sounds, and understanding how speech sounds vary depending upon the context.
• Speech Science - a course that provides a basic understanding of the structural organization (anatomy), function (physiology), and neural controls of the structures used to produce speech, swallowing, respiration, and related behaviors in humans.
• Hearing Science - a course that focuses on the three main aspects of the hearing process: sounds in the environment (physical acoustics), sounds encoded within the auditory system (physiological acoustics), and perception of sound (psychological acoustics).
• Language Development - a course that covers the development of language in childhood and into adult life, emphasizing the role of environment and biological endowment in learning to communicate with words, sentences, and narratives.
• Audiological Evaluation - a course that covers studies basic principles and techniques of hearing evaluation, including pure-tone, speech, immittance, and advanced audiometry; hearing conservation in hospital, school, and industrial settings; and identification and evaluation of auditory pathologies. Required projects in screening and pure-tone audiometry.
• Audiological Rehabilitation - a course that covers basic principles and techniques related to the habilitation and rehabilitation of individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing: amplification, speech, language, auditory, speech reading, and educational issues.

Observation Hours

Admitted studnets will be required to provide proof of 25 guided observation hours signed by an ASHA-certified SLP. Since the beginning of 2020, the ASHA requirement is that observation hours from any source be “guided,” meaning that there must be some discussion with the supervising SLP(s) about the cases/sessions that were observed. You can obtain observation hours over the summer in community settings, such as schools, hospitals, and private practices. Additionally, the SLHS clinic will allow student observations over the summer, if you are in Colorado.

Supplemental Questionaire

In addition to the above materials, all MA-SLP (two-year and three-year) applicants will be asked to fill in a supplemental questionaire.