Relationship Between Traditional Graduate Admission Criteria and Student Academic/Clinical Outcomes for Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Students

Speech-language pathology graduate admission committees frequently try to identify candidates who will succeed academically and clinically in graduate school while ensuring career readiness. This retrospective study focused on graduate admission criteria and student academic and clinical outcomes for eighty students who completed a graduate program in speech-language pathology from 2016 to 2020. Statistical analysis was used to determine if relationships existed between traditional admission criteria and students’ academic and clinical outcomes. This study found the objective admission variables (i.e., undergraduate GPA and GRE scores) significantly correlated with academic outcomes. Specifically, undergraduate GPA (uGPA) correlated to graduate GPA (gGPA), and the GRE scores correlated to Praxis speech-language score. No correlation was found between non-cognitive (objective) admission criteria and student academic or clinical outcomes.