grades in PT school

[jesse14]

Simply put, would one reason that higher grades in PT school translate into one being a better therapist??

Yes, i'm asking for me lol... i consistenty do worse than the class average on almost all exams (written exams that is). But, I still feel that i am a better therapist than a lot of my classmates. I'm not saying i'm great (i know i have TONS to learn), but i find it disheartening when students that can't seem to "get" what's going on in lab do better than me on exams..time and time again...

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[DPTErudition]

I definitely would not equate good grades with being the best therapist. Being a good therapist involves much more than that including characteristics that you just cannot test in a course. I do believe that shooting for good grades is definitely what you should do, but do not be disheartened if you are not on track to becoming valedictorian. Instead, focus on what appears to be your weak points and try to study with the people that are making better grades than you are. I drill this stuff everyday and I know how you can get frustrated by others having better performances than yourself. Just keep working on it and know that there will be material that clicks fairly quickly and others that you will have to put more effort into. Good luck, let me know if I can help with anything.

 

[MinnDasota]

Jess, I was in the same boat as you. I always found myself below the class average on many written exams. I am a visual/practical person and did very well in my practicals (aced quite a few of them) but didn't fare so well on writtens. This made me feel dumb compared to my peers and wondering the same thing you are. In the end, though, I worked hard and was known by my peers to be one of the top "lab" students in the class.

Grades may mean the others are better at answering questions on paper, but doesn't ever mean they are/will be a better therapist. It's the application of the knowledge that separates a smart person from a good therapist. If you can do that, then you will be fine!

 

[PTtoBe]

I wouldn't get too distracted by your grades, unless you're concerned about academic probation. I've heard a few times that it's just different in grad school from college/high school, etc.

There's even been some talk of grad schools simply going to a pass/fail system and throwing out the normal grades process in order to try to shift focus on the material and not on what grade you have...I heard something or other about this on the news a couple of months ago. I don't really know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I have definitely heard from professors that "it's not about grades" once you're in grad school (that's not always the case, since for example a law firm is likely to be more interested in your performance, but I don't think that's the case for health care and PT).

 

[Cronos]

Do grad school grades have an influence on anything? I'd imagine they'd be important if someone plans on applying for a Ph.D later in life. Is there anything else or are they just kinda there?

 

[jesse14]

Thanks to all that replied! I appreciate it..
Today I just got my course grade breakdowns. I did very well on all my practicals... aced all of them in fact. However, my final exam grades (which are worth a huge chunk of the final grades) sucked. I basically aced everything in all my classes except final exams where i often do quite poorly. It's soo frustrating to me when this happens.. which is all too much in grad school. I guess i just suck at writing cummulative exams. Maybe I should just live with it

 

[darkangel77]

Eh, I'm in the same boat as you are. We recently got our first kinesiology exam back, and on the written...I ended up with lower than the class average (not by much, but still lower), while on the practical I came out with a 95, significantly higher than most people in the class, or so our professor says.

But no, better grades doesn't mean better therapist...our Gross Anatomy professor drilled that into our head during the first half of summer. In fact, she said at both the PT schools she taught at, for 4 years in a row, the students voted "best clinician" during graduation were the ones that barely passed Anatomy.

So now I'm trying to change my study habits, as well as seeing what it is I got wrong on the exam, and focus on those for the final, which is cumulative. I don't like studying so much with study groups...I seem to do better when I study by myself, and then try to teach the material to my family/boyfriend.

 

[xMerryx]

I've nerver thought that better grades= better students, I believe there is more to learning than grades. HOWEVER, In the school I'm starting this fall they require fro students to maintain a 3.00 9or above) GPA This worries me a lot! I've never been below 3.00 but first that was in undergrad and second, I believe the added pressure could affect me =S

 

[Lude]

Hey no worries. Everybody has a various abilities and strengths in certain things. Your strength is in the practicals and that's going to keep you a float. For the classes that don't have labs, just do your best. Alot of the times, the grade does not equate to the study time put into it. Mostly during the first semester or two it's alot of raw science classes that need to be passed, and some people are just better test takers than others and apply what they learned on paper very well. When it comes to action, they would not perform to well. So don't worry, it will all balance out.

 

[PT Dad]

My daughter just completed her first semester and is also concerned with maintaining a 3.0. She tells me that the amount of information you need to know is overwhelming within such a short period of time to study. I have a son in law who just finished up his residency as an MD and he tells me that when he was in medical school, everything was pretty much pass/fail and if you had a 2.0 GPA you would still graduate. I wonder why PT schools require a 3.0 to graduate.