Senior in undergrad still, but from reading on the forums this is my answer for you. It's your first post and your are an incoming freshman so I'll let you know now: Read. These. Forums. Don't ask every question that pops into your head, do research on it first because I can almost guarantee it has been answered before. If you don't there is a 99.999% chance someone will answer with: "This has been asked tons of times before. Do a search on the forums before asking a question." followed by no one else answering your question.
1.) Do you like Biopsychology or are you just doing it because it sounds nice and is challenging? The challenge of that major will help you in the long run but it might not help you as much knowledge-wise, meaning you won't be focusing on the body as much, from what I can tell; from a quick google search that major is psychology based and not body based. From my experience, there's a reason a TON of people going into PT school are KINES or AT majors during undergrad (at least at my school). KINES and AT teach you more about how the body works with movement, IE what you will be doing in PT. What does it mean when an Achilles is torn, what other tendons, ligaments, and muscles are affected, and how do you build it back up? AT's work directly with injuries during their undergrad which is fantastic, just time consuming. One of the few reasons I didn't do it is because you have to work for free for 40 hours/week and pay for the credit hours during you junior or senior year. If biopsychology is your thing then by all means go for it. It'll give you more options if DPT doesn't work out as opposed to KINES. Do what you feel passionate about and combine that with things that will help you prepare for PT school.
2) Maybe, maybe not. ROTC can take up ALOT of time. Time you could be spending doing observation hours. Email/Call the CO of the ROTC at your school and ask him what he thinks. Your recruiter for the DPT program is
CPT Michael Plotkowski, MPAS, PA-C and his email is
[email protected] this would be a good question to ask him. As it says on their site and many people have said above, make sure you get hours in a Military setting.
3) Now. The sooner the better. You might do it for a month and think "Man this sucks. I don't want to do this" and not want to do DPT. The more hours the better.
4) Certifications (PT, CSCS, etc), GPA. Do a search on SDN for Army-Baylor DPT and read, read, read. You'll find TONS of other information on there.
5) If DPT is what you want to do, make sure you research other schools as well. DPT is very competitive and even more so for Army-Baylor. Always have a back up plan so your eggs aren't all in one basket. I have a spread sheet with a list of like 10-20 schools with all their admissions requirements, cost, GRE scores, and pre-reqs.
