Apply or take a year off physical therapy

[yellowturtles]

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I will be a senior this upcoming fall, however i didn't really figure out what i wanted to do until around the middle of my junior year. In terms of my pre reqs, i still have to take a semester of bio and chem. my gpa and pre req gpa is around 3.5. I currently only have 50 observation hours and many programs require at least 50 more. I was planning to take the GRE at the end of august. so my question is should i try and apply or take a year off?

 

[NewTestament]

Why would you wait? You can have outstanding pre-reqs when you apply. Do well in biology and chemistry (second level I'm assuming) and get more observation hours and I think you'll have a real shot!

 

[Watson27]

If you think you can comfortably get the additional observation hours completed and you hit the minimum scores on the GRE, you'll be set to apply!

I was in a similar situation last year and decided to take a year off. My application wasn't outstanding in terms of variety of hours and mediocre GRE scores, and I didn't want to stress out about trying to improve those things in a short period of time. I'm glad I waited. Fortunately I already had a job lined up 6 months in advance of graduation. I get a year to relax and make some money. Although I do miss school already. And I'm jealous that all my undergrad classmates are in PT school now. But I'm much happier than I would have been if I had applied last year.

My advice: Go ahead and start working on your application. If you decide to apply, you will want to have most of it done now. But if the end of August rolls around and you don't do so hot on your GRE, or if you can't seem to get those last few observation hours, you can decide to not apply. You won't lose any money on the application process if you don't e-submit. And it will give you practice for next year.

 

[scrawnyguy]

M

I will be a senior this upcoming fall, however i didn't really figure out what i wanted to do until around the middle of my junior year. In terms of my pre reqs, i still have to take a semester of bio and chem. my gpa and pre req gpa is around 3.5. I currently only have 50 observation hours and many programs require at least 50 more. I was planning to take the GRE at the end of august. so my question is should i try and apply or take a year off?

In my situation I decided to take a year off. I already had my undergrad from a few years back but it didn't include any prereqs. I was in the Army and taking classes with labs wasn't feasible between deployments, training, etc. I got out to specifically take prereqs and obtain observation hours. Originally I planned on doing everything in a year and applying to the 2015 DPT entrance class, but after an insanely intense summer semester I changed my mind. I got married then moved to Denver as soon as I got out of the Army last spring. I was spending every waking moment working of school stuff or at the hospital getting hours. I really didn't have any time to spend with my wife. I knew I would be taking classes through next spring then hopefully heading to PT school the following August. That sounded like a recipe for burnout. I also felt like my application would have been rushed. I'm still going to have my classes done at the end of the spring but I am holding off to the next class to apply for PT school. If I start to get overwhelmed I can always spread the classes out. I need some decompression time. It was a tough decision to make, especially since I am already a lot older than most applicants at 32. In the long run the break will help keep me sane and also probably save my marriage. I also think I will have a much stronger application which is important because I am going all in to get into a very competitive program (Army-Baylor). My situation is obviously a little different but I just wanted to show that ALL situations are different. Sit back, take a deep breath, and weigh the consequences of both options. Good luck!!!

 

[DesertPT]

I don't see why you shouldn't apply. At a minimum apply to some programs that don't have a hard requirement of 100 observation hours. Some require less and some have no requirement, only a "suggested" number.

 

[wanderpt]

Greetings.

I originally came into this thread to advocate taking a year off and taking a break. I did a similar thing and travelled to over 9 countries and met some amazing people.

Despite this, I did notice you have a 3.5 GPA, and with the current competitive climate of DPT school I would recommend applying as soon as possible. This way, if you don't get accepted this year, you have a shot next year.

Good luck!