Don't know where to go from here...

[charlotter]

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[dropping101]

Get as many observations hours as you can and have them varied. That way, if you do get an interview, you have plenty of things to talk about. Plus, narrow down the schools you want to apply to and start reading the faculty publications. This will give you a better sense of the school as well as open your eyes to current research.

 

[agpt]

Yes, take dropping101's advice and also I would get involved with as much community service as you can, especially health related. That helped me a ton. I know a lot of applicants play sports too, So maybe that's a suggestion if you are interested, but you don't need to. I think it helps to just have a lot and prove that you can balance extracurrics that you are proud of

 

[DesertPT]

I'm not really worried about grades, more worried about being a well-rounded applicant. What else should I do?

You should be more worried about your grades than your extras. A 3.24 is by no means a strong GPA. Volunteer activities and the like do not make up for a sub-par GPA. A great GRE score, strong references, a good interview, and maybe some extracurriculars to boot do a lot better job.

Diverse PT observation hours is the most important non-academic factor. How to find a PT to observe and all other things related to observation hours have been covered ad nauseum in many threads, you can find them by searching the PT forums.

 

[engmedpt]

You're fine. Get your grades up. Seriously. Then hit 3-4 clinics

 

[engmedpt]

^Read my acceptance post.........look at my ECs and youll see that relevance doesnt matter. Seriously.

 

[DesertPT]

I just got into UF. The value they place on all extracurriculars completely unrelated to pt is HUGE. They deny 3.9s who follow a pre-PT track without doing anything else.

In general, as long as both applicants had equally diverse and thorough observation hours, if it's an applicant with a 3.9 vs and applicant with a 3.24 + good extras, the 3.9 will get accepted over the 3.2 9 times out of 10. Obviously things vary school by school, but generally speaking extracurricular activities do a relatively poor job making up for bad grades.

With that being said people with 3.2's get in all the time if the rest of their application is solid. As long as you have a couple of interesting non-PT extracurriculars that, you'll usually be fine, especially if they were long term things.

 

[engmedpt]

^This advice is better. My case and school is specific.

 

[engmedpt]

My point was that you shouldnt orient your ECs to some kind of physical therapy checklist. Thats what prerecs, gpa, and obs hours are for generally. Sorry for my first post. Was not thought through

 

[DesertPT]

My point was that you shouldnt orient your ECs to some kind of physical therapy checklist. Thats what prerecs, gpa, and obs hours are for generally.

Totally agree.

 

[DesertPT]

^This advice is better. My case and school is specific.

This is a good example though of why I always advocate talking to admissions at each school you want to apply to about what they emphasize the most when deciding who to admit, and then tailoring your application to the schools you want to go to.

 

[engmedpt]

Yes, you have to accept the fact that specific committees value different parts of the application. They operate on point systems and score applicants. At first it sounds bad, but in retrospect they're quantifying experiences and work ethic that they deem valuable for people who will be carrying their school's name in their careers. I don't want to say play the game, but rather learn the art of applying and conforming to what you need (it will also show where you need to improve and you'll learn about yourself).

 

[charlotter]

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