My Application and Some News
What is it like to apply for physical therapy school and what kind of degree is it anyway?
It’s a lot of work. I only applied for one program because I love the area I’m settled in right now but it still took a lot of time and money to put together. I had to order transcripts (plenty ahead of time so I could follow up and make sure they got to the school!), rack up a lot of observation hours, check several websites multiple times to make sure I didn’t miss anything, take a personality test (this is new due to Covid, since a lot of in-person interviews were nixed), take the GRE (expensive for someone who lives paycheck to paycheck), take more classes after my bachelor’s degree, and fill out the actual application. When I was done and the application site gave a review with most of the components all together, it was 30 pages long. Oh, and the essay! How could I forget the essay? With all the other responsibilities and challenges life has thrown my way, it took me several years to get all of this together. You probably get the idea. You have to really want this to put in all the effort just to apply.
As for the type of degree, it is officially called a Doctor of Physical Therapy. The doctorate level education for physical therapy program accreditation only became a requirement in 2016, a very recent development! So, if you see a PT one time that uses the title “Dr.” and a different PT another time that doesn’t, this could be why.
What were your weak and strong points?
My dang GPA was probably my weakest part of the application. At a 3.05 upon graduating from my bachelor’s program, it was barely above the minimum requirement of 3.0. I did have a lot going on during undergrad, simultaneously trying to figure out how to be an independent adult, college student with little guidance, partner, and parent. And also working one job or another most of the time. *Sigh* But I took some extra classes to help boost that number and everything seems to be turning out okay!
The strongest part of my application, if I had to guess, would be my essay. I put a lot of thought into it and it went through several peer reviews before it felt finished. However, the problem with this is that no one looks at your essay unless you score enough points in the school’s scoring system to get your application past the second round of cuts.
Image courtesy of Creative Commons
Scoring system? What is this?
Many schools assign each part of the application a certain number of points and the better you do in each part, the more points you get. For example, you might get 0 points for 0 – 29 observation hours, 1 point for 30 – 59, 2 for 60 – 89, 3 for 90 – 119, and 4 for 120+. Your point total for your application needs to be above a certain number for it to go through to an actual person. These are not actual numbers for any program that I know of, by the way! I just pulled some numbers from the air to demonstrate what I mean.
Okay lady, you promised me some news. What is it?
I received an offer for a… *drumroll please* …graduate assistantship! Before you ask what that is, I’ll just tell you. The graduate assistantship is kind of like a special job for your department. The exciting part is definitely not the pay but every bit helps. The real exciting part is that this position offers a more in-depth experience. I will get to do things like help professors with research, help with organizing and coordinating for our pro-bono clinic, promote my program to constituents, support other students with labs and studying, and the catch-all “other duties as assigned.” I was already super pumped for school but now I’m ultra pumped!
If you have any questions about my application or undergrad experience, ask away in the comments below!
