Advice on school selections

[Moon08]

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Hello everyone I am new to these boards and was wondering if I could get your opinions. I snooped around and found a bunch of threads regarding public school vs private school and loan debt.

I just turned 29 this year and have applied to 12 different schools. I have an interview with a school that starts this February and is lasts for a duration 2 and a half years. To me this is appealing because I do feel a little old and would love to expedite the process of starting my career. However, tuition is 90k for the program as it is a private institution and does disqualify for a couple scholarship and grant programs because of its start date. I also applied to other programs, 3 of which are a lot cheaper and do qualify for various scholarship and grant programs that I would be targeting but have the traditional fall start date that lasts for 3 years. My question is, at my age, do you all think that time is more important or keeping debt to a minimal? I feel that the longer I wait the more time I am wasting.

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance.

 

[SeaPT]

Hello everyone I am new to these boards and was wondering if I could get your opinions. I snooped around and found a bunch of threads regarding public school vs private school and loan debt.

I just turned 29 this year and have applied to 12 different schools. I have an interview with a school that starts this February and is lasts for a duration 2 and a half years. To me this is appealing because I do feel a little old and would love to expedite the process of starting my career. However, tuition is 90k for the program as it is a private institution and does disqualify for a couple scholarship and grant programs because of its start date. I also applied to other programs, 3 of which are a lot cheaper and do qualify for various scholarship and grant programs that I would be targeting but have the traditional fall start date that lasts for 3 years. My question is, at my age, do you all think that time is more important or keeping debt to a minimal? I feel that the longer I wait the more time I am wasting.

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance.

I am currently applying to DPT school as well, but I would say this sounds more of a personal choice. As for me I would go for the cheaper school. An extra year in class (most likely to help gain more field experience) and lessen my debt by a good chunk sounds like the better of the two. Good luck 🙂

 

[AlanWattsBlues]

I just turned 29 this year and have applied to 12 different schools. I have an interview with a school that starts this February and is lasts for a duration 2 and a half years.

Cheaper is much better. If it's close, then an extra year's worth of earning potential and paying off debts might make it worthwhile if you're not doing anything productive in the meantime. It might be worth opening up excel and comparing at what age you'll be done with debt if you made the same monthly loan payments but under different school scenarios. Getting out of school earlier might not help you get out of debt earlier.

On a different note: I wonder if accelerating the program causes some of the didactic portion to be more difficult than it would be if you had 6 more months to spread things out. Maybe try to talk with current students to get their take. Or ask the faculty about the rates at which students fail/have to repeat a year-- limit the time frame to since they became a doctoral program....try to disentangle this from whatever happened back in the '90s when I suspect things were different. Compare that with the other schools, and it might be more stress than it's worth.

 

[AlanWattsBlues]

Also - if you start PT school at 30, you'll be pretty close to the average age of your fellow classmates. When you get out you will have a few decades to develop as a professional/clinician/instructor/whatever. A year here, a year there....in the grand scheme of things it's pocket change

My .02

 

[NewTestament]

Keep debt to a minimum if you can. There's no guarantee that the less expensive (I wouldn't say "cheaper") schools will accept you. You can try to reapply to get the better tuition, but how many cycles are you willing to apply to avoid private-school tuition?

Another factor is how well you manage your finances after you graduate. If you graduate with $100k in debt, you could work in an underserved area and make significantly more. I don't think it's a big deal to be in debt for a few years, as long as you're doing what you want to do.

BTW, what school starts in February? I've never heard of that.

Kevin

 

[Berzerkernuts]

Also - if you start PT school at 30, you'll be pretty close to the average age of your fellow classmates. When you get out you will have a few decades to develop as a professional/clinician/instructor/whatever. A year here, a year there....in the grand scheme of things it's pocket change

My .02

I disagree with the first half of this statement, I started at 30 and most of my classmates were under 25. I completely agree with the second half though. In the grand scheme of your career those few extra months are nothing. Minimize your debt.
I graduated this year and if I had it to do over again I would have made cost my number one priority in choosing a school. Any accredited program is going to give you what you need academically and the rest is up to you no matter where you go. If you have some money socked away or some sort of sponsor, go ahead, choose your favorite program. If you are borrowing the money for school, minimize. that. debt. Your future self will thank you.

 

[dcscott325]

@Moon08:

I am basically in the same boat so I completely understand your situation. I'm applying for next year's program and will be 28 when I start. I looked into the accelerated programs as well, mainly because my husband and I we're not too fond of the idea of putting off starting a family for another 4 years (we've already been married for 5 years and I think our families are starting to wonder if they'll EVER see grand kids!) But, at the end of the day, we simply couldn't justify spending so much extra in tuition... Especially since, like you said, it also rules out several options for scholarships and financial aid. All of that extra money we'll save on tuition will be a huge help when our future kids finally do come along : )

Bottom line is that the decision has to be what you feel is best for YOU. But if you take the longer (and least expensive) road, just know there are others like me out there going through the same thing. An extra 6 months is really nothing in the grand scheme of things anyway.

 

[jesspt]

I disagree with the first half of this statement, I started at 30 and most of my classmates were under 25. I completely agree with the second half though. In the grand scheme of your career those few extra months are nothing. Minimize your debt.
I graduated this year and if I had it to do over again I would have made cost my number one priority in choosing a school. Any accredited program is going to give you what you need academically and the rest is up to you no matter where you go. If you have some money socked away or some sort of sponsor, go ahead, choose your favorite program. If you are borrowing the money for school, minimize. that. debt. Your future self will thank you.

👍👍👍👍

 

[markelmarcel]

On a different note: I wonder if accelerating the program causes some of the didactic portion to be more difficult than it would be if you had 6 more months to spread things out.

Just wanted to comment on this, for what it is worth... I am about to graduate a program that is 2.5 years in duration and I have felt more than prepared for all of my clinicals and also feel I have a solid base to start studying for the boards. My school did a problem based learning + traditional blend, so we had biomechanics, kinesio, pharm, etc all built into our "main" courses instead of having them separately. On top of that, we got very few breaks (which did stink!) from classes.

So, I think another very important question is- what type of program is it? If you are not an active learner or like to spend a lot of time out of class learning on your own, then problem-based is not for you! I think that finding out the curriculum of the schools is most important- see how they make all the material fit, how much clinical time you get, etc. Then, you can begin to make a worthwhile decision that is best for YOU. (PS- I started school when I was 27... will be 29 when I graduate in about 8 weeks!)

 

[PTinCA]

Hello everyone I am new to these boards and was wondering if I could get your opinions. I snooped around and found a bunch of threads regarding public school vs private school and loan debt.

I just turned 29 this year and have applied to 12 different schools. I have an interview with a school that starts this February and is lasts for a duration 2 and a half years. To me this is appealing because I do feel a little old and would love to expedite the process of starting my career. However, tuition is 90k for the program as it is a private institution and does disqualify for a couple scholarship and grant programs because of its start date. I also applied to other programs, 3 of which are a lot cheaper and do qualify for various scholarship and grant programs that I would be targeting but have the traditional fall start date that lasts for 3 years. My question is, at my age, do you all think that time is more important or keeping debt to a minimal? I feel that the longer I wait the more time I am wasting.

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance.

Agree with above, the goal would be to keep debt to a minimum. Regardless of the the school selected you will not be the oldest or youngest in the class. Good Luck!