Concerned about my Pre-reqs

[Vobs56]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hi everyone,

I am an undergraduate student at UIC in Kinesiology and over the past year or so I have been developing an interest for the career of OT. My inspiration was growing up with an older brother with autism and his development has had an immeasurable impact on my life so it has become my dream to help children and families in similar situations. I have already taken quite a few courses that qualify as general pre-requisites for OT schools but I a few notable courses to complete. I am going into my senior year so I will have to look into numerous things, such as letters of recommendation, observation hours, take the GRE, draft a personal statement and apply to multiple schools.

Right now my academic history for general pre-reqs looks like this:

Biology with lab: A (5 credits)
Human Anatomy & Physiology I with lab: B (5 credits)
Human Anatomy & Physiology II with lab: C (5 credits)
Statistics: B (3 credits)
Medical Terminology: Trying to find a spot to take this.
Sociology/Anthropology: Taking Sociology this coming fall.
Abnormal Psychology: B (3 credits)
Developmental Psychology: Taking this coming fall.

Pre-requisite GPA: 3.0

Overall GPA: 3.31

Should I be overly concerned about my pre-requisite GPA? With a few classes remaining I feel like I can certainly improve it but I am unsure of how much. It seems like a common trend on here that many have pre-requisite GPAs higher than their overall GPA but mine is quite the opposite. I feel like my personal experiences with my brother, work experience as a supervisor at my university's rec center and my participation in the UIC pre-OT club are strong pluses. Does being a male applicant present me any advantage to getting accepted? From where my grades stand is there a certain tier of schools I should be looking at. Currently, I have looked at UIC, IUPUI, Western Michigan, Rush, St. Ambrose, Midwestern-Downers Grove, Concordia, and Chicago State. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[CurlyHairedGirl]

The B and C in A&P I and II are likely to hurt your chances for admission to OT school. I think some schools are less likely to favor applicants who haven't finished all the prerequisites and don't know their grades.

I don't know if there are top tier and second-tier schools. My suspicion is that schools rated in the top 10 or 20 by US News & World Report, schools who use OTCAS, and schools that are in nice places to live are more likely to get a lot of applicants.

You may want to consider working for a year after graduation and retaking some of your prerequisites to raise your grades.

Then again, I'm applying for the first time this year so I may not know everything to tell you.

 

[jewel11786]

I would consider retaking A&P II. The C will definitely hurt your GPA, and many school require at least a B or B- to accept the pre-req.

 

[PNWgirl]

Hello,
I am in the same boat...of worrying.
I have A's in all of my pre-req's except I happened to get a C+ in A/P 1 and am taking 2 currently. Will this one class really ruin my chances of getting into schools? I also have GREs scores of 158 verbal and 150 quantitative.
Any thoughts, advice, experience would be appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[Sunny324]

A&P I and II seem to be the classes OT schools look at the most because it is closer to the level of difficulty you will encounter in OT school. If you have the opportunity to take it again and get a better grade, do it.