Attrition Rates

[NewTestament]

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What's the atrition rates in PT schools? I was talking with a PTA who said that his class started with 30, and dwindled to 12 by graduation. That's pretty high.

My response was that the pre-requisites to PT school are much harder than PTA school, and that the students in PT school are more academically qualified. The typical PT student has endured 50-60 hours of pre-requisites, has a bachelor's degree, and has several years in the work force. PTA students only need one biology course at my local CC.

I remember students at a couple schools I visited say that a few students dropped, but no school indicated that the attrition rate is high. Schools can tell who can succeed and who can't.

Kevin

 

[Azimuthal]

This is an interesting question. I would side with your assumption on academic preparation. Also, PT programs tend to have more funding to promote retention. The few people that I have heard about who dropped out of PT school did it for personal/non-academic reasons. One, eventually went back and started again with USC.

 

[goyo1010]

What's the atrition rates in PT schools? I was talking with a PTA who said that his class started with 30, and dwindled to 12 by graduation. That's pretty high.

My response was that the pre-requisites to PT school are much harder than PT school, and that the students in PT school are more academically qualified. The typical PT student has endured 50-60 hours of pre-requisites, has a bachelor's degree, and has several years in the work force. PTA students only need one biology course at my local CC.

I remember students at a couple schools I visited say that a few students dropped, but no school indicated that the attrition rate is high. Schools can tell who can succeed and who can't.

Kevin

Hey Kevin,

I don't quite understand your question. Did you mean that pre-requisites to PT school are much harder than PTA school? OR did you mean what you had typed? The attrition rates depend on the program itself. I have never heard of a PT class losing more than half of its starting class... That's a bit much, but I would not know for a PTA program. Also, not sure how you're getting several years in the work force for the "typical" PT student.

In my class, we lost 1 student due to academic reasons after our first semester. We lost 1 as she transferred to the Dallas campus for family reasons, and another for persona/family related issues. So we lost 3 before our 2nd semester was over. We did, however, take in 3 other students who were supposed to be DPTIIs already in our neuroscience class for a retake. The attrition rate is definitely not high, and if it were, there's something definitely wrong. In addition, as the other poster has said promoting retention increasing funding to the university and program, so the professors will do as much as they can to help students succeed.

For PTA students, programs are mostly at community colleges, junior colleges, or something similar, so how they deal with attrition is definitely different from how research universities do it.

 

[NewTestament]

Goyo:

I edited my quote. I meant that PT pre-requisites are more rigorous than PTA programs. The barrier to entry is higher.

The typical PT student, it seems to me, earns a bachelor's degree, works for a few years, and then enters the PT program. That's why the typical student is 25 or 26-years-old.

Kevin

 

[gymgal526]

I just wanted to point out that many PTA students attempted to get into PT school. We have large group of PTA students (including myself) that have Bachelor's degrees, have several (thousand) hours of experience in multiple fields, and did not get into PT programs. Please don't underestimate the hard work that PTA students go through. We may not have been "qualified" enough to get into PT programs, but that doesn't mean we didn't work equally hard to get to this point. Our program is rigorous as well.

 

[adh28]

I have witnessed multiple PTAs that are very qualified and work independently (for the most part) in restoring patients back to health. It seems that is actually a separate entity in the rehabilitation process and I don't see too many ways that we can compare their program to a DPT program. Though they are both physical therapy, the two tracks are slightly similar, but in many ways different with training, classes, and working objectives. Both are respectable and key in helping patients, but not similar enough in job description to compare toughness of schooling...I would be interested to hear what other folks have to say in regards to this