General Admissions & OTCAS Fixing and Calculating GPA

[bmh1993]

Hey everyone, this is my first post; I'm very new to this forum. I've been looking into attending a master's program for OT but I am well aware that I do not have the competitive GPA for it. I graduated only this past May with a 2.9 GPA. I have no doubt that I have what it takes to participate in a graduate program, my last three semesters were all honor roll semesters. I simply suffered the typical case of young, unfocused college student during the first 2.5 years of school. My degree is in Neuroscience, and I do believe I have all the pre-req's for a program besides a sociology course and maybe a philanthropy course.

I am very eager to improve my GPA to allow myself a competitive application, but I'm really not sure of the best way to go about it. I would like to just take one or two semesters of coursework to ensure completion of all pre-req's as well as improve my GPA. I guess my biggest question is if I take these random courses outside of a declared program without attaining a degree or certificate, how will this look to a prospective school? Will they recalculate my GPA with all courses and grades, will they look at the two separate transcripts? Should I attend a certificate program for an assistant position to help my application?
Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!!

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[AZscrambler]

Yes. I did it. But I also gave it time. I recently got into Physician Assistant program at a competitive program in California with an undergraduate 2.94 GPA and like a 2.7ish science GPA. While I was gaining my clinical hours as an EMT, I went back to school part time. I took and re-took about 40 science units at a community college and got a 4.00. They did not recalculate my GPA, but they did look at the whole person... So it worked for me. You might not want to hear this, but I also let ten years and a military tour happen in between which is better than any extra curricular (not necessarily the military, but the meaningful life experience). Finally, there IS a website that will let you calculate your multiple institution cumulative GPA fairly well at Afouro.com, which you could mention in an interview. I did this, but I don't necessarily recommend it. I had a whole speech planned out around it...

 

[thebiggestsky]

Will they recalculate my GPA with all courses and grades, will they look at the two separate transcripts?

Yes. OTCAS looks at your GPAs from all institutions and combines them. You really need to get to more than a 3.0 because that seems to be the cutoff for a majority of programs (although there are a few out there that take 2.75). How did you do in your prereq classes? If you did really well and do really well on your GRE, you could be okay. My overall GPA was low (3.09 bachelor's, up to 3.26 once I took prereqs), but I graduated a few years ago. I have ~life experience~ plus more years of separation between being a clueless student and being a somewhat official adult who has more to lose by going back to school. So although I don't have a lot of healthcare experience, I can still speak to the experiences I have had that would make me a good OT, and feel confident in my decision to seek the OT route for my career.

Everyone is different. You might benefit greatly from taking a year to take classes and learn more about OT and gain OT experience. I am still in the process of applying to programs, but have been accepted to one and offered interviews to three others so far.

I think you should go for it. Take classes like physics/kinesiology or art or medical terminology--classes that some programs will require but maybe you haven't taken for your degree yet. If you know you're smart and capable, then you can do it. But, of course, research programs and how they handle admissions. For example, I did not apply to UIC because I knew they would throw my application out because of my low GPA. So although I love Chicago and know they have a great program, it would be a waste of money and time to apply. Know your strengths and know your weaknesses and be realistic about which schools to apply to. Test scores and experience and interviews can go a long way for some programs.

I would only apply for an OTA program if I specifically preferred the idea of being an OTA (which is valid, of course. I shadowed an OTA who was incredible and super knowledgeable). You have a bachelor's degree already, so I think going for the master's is worthwhile.