Hello everyone! Well just the other day I received my last rejection letter, this is my first year applying after taking a year off after undergrad. I will be turning 26 this summer and I could not be more bummed out! I have a horrible GPA, and I don't even know if it is going to be worth it to reapply. I am extremely scared that I will not get in the second round. I would like to hear from people who have reapplied and what they did to better themselves. I need help and advice pleaseeeeeeeee!!!!
General Admissions & OTCAS Let's be real
- Thread starter AM89
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If you have a horrible GPA, (like under a 3.0 or 2.7 or something like that) I have several suggestions:
1) retake many of the classes you made your lowest grades in, especially if they are common prerequisites. Getting a master's degree in something else might help demonstrate ability to complete graduate level work, but more likely would just put you in debt. I've also talked to OT admission departments that ignored all of my 3.8 GPA graduate work when calculating my "total" GPA.
2) get a huge number of OT observation hours plus some volunteer hours in areas related to the populations served by OT.
3) take several years and get a career in some other field. When you are older, some admission committees don't look at your undergraduate GPA as closely.
4) Become an occupational therapy assistant instead. If you could live with your parents, and take classes at a local community college, you could be out in 1.5 years while paying under $10,000. As opposed to $50-100,000 for many OT schools over the course of 2.5 years. You graduate sooner with less debt, and you would only make maybe $10,000 a year less ($6,000 less when you take taxes into account)
1) retake many of the classes you made your lowest grades in, especially if they are common prerequisites. Getting a master's degree in something else might help demonstrate ability to complete graduate level work, but more likely would just put you in debt. I've also talked to OT admission departments that ignored all of my 3.8 GPA graduate work when calculating my "total" GPA.
2) get a huge number of OT observation hours plus some volunteer hours in areas related to the populations served by OT.
3) take several years and get a career in some other field. When you are older, some admission committees don't look at your undergraduate GPA as closely.
4) Become an occupational therapy assistant instead. If you could live with your parents, and take classes at a local community college, you could be out in 1.5 years while paying under $10,000. As opposed to $50-100,000 for many OT schools over the course of 2.5 years. You graduate sooner with less debt, and you would only make maybe $10,000 a year less ($6,000 less when you take taxes into account)
My second time around I worked REALLY hard to get better GRE scores, I finished and did well in all my prereqs, and had better interviews. I know a lot of people would say.that they did more shadowing, but I didn't... I don't think the schools I looked at cared that much about hours (meaning I don't think I would have been better off having like 300hrs vs someone who had 100). My advice when it comes to shadowing hours is just do more than the requirement and in as many settings as possible. I had like four settings.
My GPA is 3.2 and I have around 120 hours, my GRE score this time was 289 and 4 in writing. Thank you for some of the suggestions that you all have already given me!! I am definitely going to look into OTA or maybe retaking some core classes. I am looking to get into ADU with the Florida Hospital, but I'll probably apply to most of the schools in Florida and one in Arizona.
If you are planning to retake any classes, I would definitely suggest you look at the schools' ploicies on that... I know that when I was looking into schools some said they would only take two classes that were "redos"... And also remember that OTCAS will calculate your old and new grade for a class when determining your GPA, unfortunately.
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Your stats are okay. Apply in August or so (for real, I applied in January and ATSU was full by then), make sure you have four or so shadow settings, and do both clinical and non-clinical volunteering to show that you're a service-minded individual. Or get a clinical job if that's possible (I didn't). Then work your improvements into your personal statement.
If you are really not feeling confident about it, apply to new programs that are admitting their first or second class -- most students with really good stats aren't going to want to take a chance on a school that's pending accreditation. If the program is pending, they've met certain standards already. Call AOTA with any concerns about this, as it is a calculated risk. My personal rule of thumb was if the school has other well-established health professions programs like medicine, PT, or nursing, it's probably safe.
I ended up choosing a well-established program, but seriously considered offers from two different inaugural classes. IMHO, just get in anywhere you can.
If you are really not feeling confident about it, apply to new programs that are admitting their first or second class -- most students with really good stats aren't going to want to take a chance on a school that's pending accreditation. If the program is pending, they've met certain standards already. Call AOTA with any concerns about this, as it is a calculated risk. My personal rule of thumb was if the school has other well-established health professions programs like medicine, PT, or nursing, it's probably safe.
I ended up choosing a well-established program, but seriously considered offers from two different inaugural classes. IMHO, just get in anywhere you can.
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