Let me get this straight... You got accepted into an out of state school. You did not get into any Texas schools (are you on any wait lists in TX?).
You can't afford the out of state school (translation: You don't want to take out the loans), so you are betting the farm on getting a GA/TA position in your first year to offset tuition costs. School starts in the Summer, but you won't know about the GA/TA position until the fall. So you will drop out if you don't get it.
If your GPA isn't high enough to get into a Texas school, then I wouldn't bet the bank on getting a GA/TA position the first year.
If you drop out, you plan to reapply for the next cycle. By my math, that means you would be knee deep in the re-application process this summer and you haven't done anything to improve your chances yet.
You stated:
"I've found that a lot of schools in my state (Texas) are very hard, and that many of the out of state schools I have applied to are a lot more lenient and less competitive."
I have no idea why you think this. You got into one out of state school that you can't afford. Why did you even apply?
The first semester of PT school is going to kick you in the pants. Do you really think that you will have time to work on your re-application?
I am looking at your other posts. You are highly concerned about salary vs. debt. You are wishy washy about PT as a career. You might consider PA instead. Frankly, your logic and language skills are lacking.
It makes me sick to my stomach to think that you are willing to walk away from a program after one semester for any reason. There is another candidate for your seat that is 100% committed to PT school. We lost students after the first semester and it was heartbreaking, they tried so hard and couldn't make the grades.
Decide what you want and what you are willing to do to get there. Take a year off, retake classes, do more observation, study harder. Get your head back in the game.
Fantastic. 100% what I was thinking on all of the above.
@DTOWN you have started 3 threads around the topic of second-guessing PT school. You don't sound that strongly interested in the field of rehabilitation to me. PT school is a big thing to sign on for if you really are only passingly interested. Realize that a very, very small minority of PTs work with high level athletes in a sports and conditioning setting like you want to according to your other posts. The vast majority of PTs work with the elderly, the sick and average people with aches and pains. The vast majority of PTs also spend a good chunk of their early careers making large student loan payments, but none that I know have a standard of living anywhere remotely near poverty.
Please decline the school's acceptance offer and don't attend if you honestly believe their is a chance you would pay for the first semester and then drop out because you didn't want to pay for the rest of school. There is some poor student on the waitlist at that school who would kill to be accepted and would make a great PT. If you're going to attend, make up your mind and stick with it, or pick another path. Quitters are the last thing we need as we try to elevate the profession of physical therapy in the future.
And P.S., your plan doesn't even make any sense, as the above quoted post described. Let me entertain myself and elaborate:
1.)The first year of PT school is
challenging and time consuming to say the least. The knowledge you gain sets the foundation you need to be a good future clinician. It is very, very unlikely that you could work enough hours as a GA as a first year student to cover all of the out-of-state tuition relative to a TX school (some of the cheapest schools in the country) and still learn what you ought to be learning as a first-year. That's assuming you got a GA position at all, which sounds like a long-shot.
2.) You would waste thousands of dollars in tuition, moving expenses, etc and months of study time taking one semester of PT school and dropping out.
3.) Picture yourself as a member of an admissions committee at an extremely competitive in-state school. You have a candidate's application in front of you who had a ho-hum application his first go around and so could only get into one (presumably less desirable) school. He attended that school, did nothing of significance to improve his application compared to the previous cycle, and then flaked out and bailed on PT school altogether to re-apply at your school, leaving an empty seat permanently in that cohort. Now, if you were in this position with a few dozen seats to fill and hundreds upon hundreds of applicants with strong credentials to choose from, would you choose yourself? Honestly I defy you to give me a strong, logical argument for this thinking (which you will have to give if you did somehow manage to get an interview). Schools lose tens of thousands of dollars every time they lose a student in a lock-step, cohort type program like a DPT. In all seriousness, when they are admitting <10% of applicants anyway, why would they admit someone with a history of dropping out of PT school? The fact that you even have to ask if dropping out of PT school would "look bad" or affect you getting in on future applications is telling.
Personal training requires almost no formal education (read "tuition") and a high-end personal trainer can make as much money as a PT if they are the type of person who is willing to market themselves, work long hours and sell, sell, sell. Based on your other posts that seems more what your interested in. If you are envisioning physical therapy being something like that, you are going to have a very bad time in PT school, and then have to been one of the select few PTs who works exclusively with this patient population after you graduate. If you're certain that trying to make it big time in the world of personal training is not for you (also a choice with very long odds), but are willing to pursue grad school, perhaps being a PA for a sports medicine practice is more inline with what you are looking for. That is
very different than personal training or PT too though. You will be writing prescriptions, ordering imaging and writing referrals to PTs and to other medical specialists. Nothing remotely like a strength coach or trainer.
I like that you are approaching student debt with great caution. That's fantastic. I like that you are taking a very pragmatic approach to choosing your career. Note I didn't say you need to be "passionate" about physical therapy. Most people can learn to have an interest in many fields giving enough exposure, and there is nothing at all wrong with working to live rather than living to work. But before you go to PT school, you do need to know that you actually want to be a PT. Being a working class stiff is a lot more tolerable if you generally like what you do. And because of the level of training (and cost) required, it's not really something people just dip their toes in. Have you observed any inpatient PT? Any settings besides your churn and burn outpatient ortho clinic? Are you sure you actually know what PTs do. The spectrum is remarkably broad. Either way, perhaps you just haven't quite figured out what you want to be when you grow up. That's fair enough.
