Chances of acceptance with low GPA?

[deleted589222]

Hello all! So, I've been extremely down since my GPA is very low, and I know how competitive it is to get into PT school. I have been considering applying to PTA school, because I don't think my stats are even worth looking at :/ I was just wondering what y'all would suggest. Is it worth even attempting to apply this cycle?

My Stats
University: Texas A&M University
Major: Nutritional Sciences
Overall GPA: 2.96
Pre-Req GPA: 3.16 - will be retaking classes and hopefully should be around 3.5 with an average.
GRE: 152V, 157Q, 4.5AW - will be retaking this June
Extra-Curric: Social Sorority (was President), couple of multicultural organizations, Youth Leadership Council
Volunteer/ Observation Hours: 377 ATM (210.5 in outpatient, 26.5 in peds, 62 in acute, 78 in inpatient)
Letters of Rec: I currently have 2 PTs that will write me a letter of rec and my sorority advisor. Will be getting a professor rec soon.

I plan on applying to majority of schools in Texas, however, at this point, I'm feeling very reluctant due to my overall GPA. Long story short - started off as engineering and realized that life was not the life for me. Resulted in various poor grades and poor choices. My overall GPA is the GPA at Texas A&M, and does not factor in any other courses I have taken at other community colleges, which will most likely increase it a little. This summer, I plan on getting a job as an Aide or Technician (so that'll help with experience).

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[situational]

If your GPA is a 2.96 at the time you apply, I'm sorry, most schools will just toss your application out without looking at it. Many, many schools have a minimum requirement of 3.0 for both overall and prerequisite GPA. Because of the amount of applications they receive, they probably have a way to automatically filter out all the applications that have too low requirements numerically.

HOWEVER.

Prerequisite GPA will look great after retakes. GRE looks pretty good as well, hopefully you can get higher. Good amount and variety of volunteer hours. The kicker here is that you mention that after retakes you'll have a 3.5 prerequisite GPA, try to calculate what your overall would be as well. I don't know for certain, but I can only guess it'll be higher than a 2.96

What I would do in your situation is on top of retaking classes, see what your overall GPA is after getting a couple more A's in your prereqs. See if your overall is high enough. Hopefully after summer semester. See if you can take some additional easy class just to get a quick A to pad the overall GPA more. At this point the goal is to not get your application tossed out immediately; schools will at least look over your application if you meet the minimum requirements.

And don't give up hope with a lower GPA. I'll be attending school this fall with a 3.14 / 3.11, so it definitely is possible...it's just an uphill climb.

 

[wrennywren]

My undergrad GPA was 2.83. I never thought I would be going to grad school, so I didn't care. I went back to school to take pre reqs (got a 3.8 in those) and that bumped me up to a 2.98. I got interviewed and waitlisted at a very well established school and accepted at a newer school. Here I am 3 years later and my PT license showed up in the license today.

It can be done, I would just get those pre req grades up. Those are the most important!

 

[DesertPT]

I would personally say that since applying is so expensive I would wait until my GPA's were above a 3.0. That is the minimum requirement for a lot of schools, although some schools do have a 2.75 as their minimum. That doesn't mean that anyone gets in with a 2.75, but I have seen a couple that have that as their minimum. If you apply the and don't get in then you're not worse off than if you hadn't applied, other than the cost and waste of time. You'll just have to decide if it's worth the gamble.

Search the forum on this topic, how to get into PT school with bad grades has been discussed ad nauseum...

 

[deleted589222]

Hello everyone,

Thank you so much for your feedback! I actually calculated my overall GPA with ALL my classes, rather than just my main university, and my GPA is 2.99 (go figure), but after this summer, it will actually be above a 3.0!

 

[B.No]

Hello all! So, I've been extremely down since my GPA is very low, and I know how competitive it is to get into PT school. I have been considering applying to PTA school, because I don't think my stats are even worth looking at :/ I was just wondering what y'all would suggest. Is it worth even attempting to apply this cycle?

My Stats
University: Texas A&M University
Major: Nutritional Sciences
Overall GPA: 2.96
Pre-Req GPA: 3.16 - will be retaking classes and hopefully should be around 3.5 with an average.
GRE: 152V, 157Q, 4.5AW - will be retaking this June
Extra-Curric: Social Sorority (was President), couple of multicultural organizations, Youth Leadership Council
Volunteer/ Observation Hours: 377 ATM (210.5 in outpatient, 26.5 in peds, 62 in acute, 78 in inpatient)
Letters of Rec: I currently have 2 PTs that will write me a letter of rec and my sorority advisor. Will be getting a professor rec soon.

I plan on applying to majority of schools in Texas, however, at this point, I'm feeling very reluctant due to my overall GPA. Long story short - started off as engineering and realized that life was not the life for me. Resulted in various poor grades and poor choices. My overall GPA is the GPA at Texas A&M, and does not factor in any other courses I have taken at other community colleges, which will most likely increase it a little. This summer, I plan on getting a job as an Aide or Technician (so that'll help with experience).

Hi CC,

Before I give you input, here are my stats: Overall GPA of 3.53, Science GPA of 3.44, Pre-req GPA of 3.35, Experience and exposure in the field: 2175 hours working as a Licensed PTA. Here are my two cents, as I have already been rejected by a majority of the schools i've applied into. After receiving my letters of "rejection" I asked the schools what needs to be done to increase my chances or to be "more" competitive; they told me that everything will revolved around the GPA. Meaning the GPA has to be higher than the accepted average GPA. A school I looked into told me that they are only accepting applicants with GPA's of 3.7+ for both Pre-req and overall. My advice is to save you money for this cycle, do what ever it takes to improve your grades to a above a 3.5 for both pre-req and overall. I was fortunate enough to receive advice on particular parts of my application that needed improvement and the PT liaison of that school gave me the specific class and what specific grade I needed to be MORE than competitive. Of course, you have to always shoot for A's!

Hope this helps!

 

[tottenhamFan]

Applied to over 15 schools...over 150 shadowing hours...my gpa is 3.33 overall and 3.2 prereq and I only got wait listed on 3/15 schools

 

[Kuhdaytee]

Applied to over 15 schools...over 150 shadowing hours...my gpa is 3.33 overall and 3.2 prereq and I only got wait listed on 3/15 schools

Where did you apply? Did you get accepted anywhere, or just waitlisted?

 

[jimcaseaves]

yeah,my gpa is 3.33 overall and 3.2 prereq and I only got wait listed on 3/15 schools.thanks

 

[tottenhamFan]

Only wait listed, no acceptances. And the list of schools are Belmont, WKU, SW baptist, UIC, Miami, Duke, Clarke, Midwestern DG, Bradley, Indiana, U Indianapolis, Wash U, Bellarmine, Mo St., Gov. St.

 

[Kuhdaytee]

Thanks, and good luck! Looks like I'm only interested in one of them, with similar stats.

 

[ishon]

My advice is to check PTCAS. As a student currently enrolled as an undergrad at a Texas school, I have recently gone through PTCAS to check every school across the country on what type of courses are required, the average accepted GPA for the most recent accepted class, GRE scores and the number of letters of recommendation. By going through PTCAS, it will show you a projected idea of which schools you will be accepted to. PTCAS will also show you which schools will take the pre-requisite courses from such as a 4-Year University or a community college. Texas is a very competitive school to apply for PT school. There are 12 schools to apply to but all of which are extremely competitive.

I am the physical therapy coordinator for my organization at the university I attend. I have done all my research for physical therapy schools in Texas and will be applying to PT school Summer 2015.