How difficult is acceptance?

[MissAllycat]

I'm trying to determine how difficult it is to get into different PT programs. I've been able to find stats on number of spots vs number of applicants to the program (see below - spots/applicants). Should I just using straight math to determine how difficult it is to get into a program (more applicants = more rejections), or are some programs more strict in who they let in?

I've seen mention on the forum that some schools are extremely difficult to get into (UNC, USC) - how do these schools rate?

University of CO - Denver (60/557)
Regis (80/950)
University of MN (50/217)
Puget Sound (?)
Duke (65/500)
Pacific (42/900)
St. Kate's (35/200)
Rocky Mountain (46/400)
Loma Linda (70/542)
Mayo (28/650)

Thanks!

------------------------------
Iowa State University (2003)
GPA: 3.33
Prereq GPA: 3.94
GRE: 157 V, 161 Q, 4.0 AW
Observation hours: 145 outpatient, 40 inpatient, 15 TCU

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[Myosin]

Do some searches in the sticky and you'll find people who applied to all of those schools and what their average credentials were.

Believe it or not, the total number of people applying to the school doesn't necessarily mean anything. A professor at one of the schools I am applying to said they get hundreds of applications that don't even meet the minimum GPA and GRE to apply. Others on this forum have said that other schools get the same thing.

Some might get 900 applicants, but maybe half of them are not even competitive and some won't even qualify at all.

 

[Outdoors]

Myosin is right on, most of the applications get tossed out because they are incomplete/don't make the cutoff. But of the applicant pool who "meet" the GPA might be quite a bit higher than the minimum, say a school sets the min at a 3.0 but their actual accepted class has a ~3.6 whereas a similar school might have a class with a ~3.4, every school weighs different portions of the application differently, such as the GRE, interviews, GPA, observation, essays, ect.

Applying to grad school is different from Undergrad where comparing acceptance averages doesnt get you very far. For example the program that I am attending only took 5 students making the acceptance average statistics a bit silly.

 

[Jzoo]

getting into most schools will be quite selective, but looking at each school's numbers for pre-reqs is the best way to go. I'm currently at the end of my first year in PT school, but when applying I applied to 17 schools and was only accepted into two (TWU and GWU). As you will see below my numbers weren't so high, but my extracurriculars are what got me into TWU (they don't have an interview process). I taught tennis for 6 years while on winter/summer breaks during high school/undergrad, played 4 years of D1 tennis, and marketed myself as having done lots of PT related things outside of a PT clinic. I also worked as a tech in an outpatient setting and volunteered at an inpatient setting, which most schools will like.

All in all, I say just do the best you can on standardized tests, classes, etc., be yourself, and try to tie any extracurricular activities you do to PT.

Again, I'm an exception, so i think my point of view is valuable. Your numbers don't have to be TOO hot, but you need to make up for it in other areas.

I hope this helps,

Justin, SPT
Texas Woman's University - Houston
----------------------------------------
Undergrad: Dartmouth College
Undergrad GPA: 2.45
Math/Science GPA: 3.7
GRE: 1350

 

[NewTestament]

I wouldn't spend too much time calculating your odds. Like Myosin said, just because a school receives 1,000 applicants, doesn't mean all 1,000 are qualified. But even if 300 were qualified and met the cutoff, and that school only took 36, you can see how your odds are still not good. I interviewed at Marymount in 2012. They interviewed about 180 applicants and selected 36. It's getting more and more competitive. The higher your numbers, the more variety of hours you have, and the more activities you have participated in, the better.

Find 8-10 schools that really attract you, do your best, and apply. Like March Madness, you never know what can happen.

Kevin

 

[bnwj89]

In addition, remember that many people who are offered acceptance will turn it down to go to another school.

So for example school A has a class size of 26, with an average of 500 applicants. Maybe half of those dont meet the minimum standards, so are cut out right away. ( I remember hearing directly from a admissions counselor that it is amazing how many people apply without meeting the minimums...their apps get thrown straight in the trash.) So now, we are down to 26/250. From my experience, roughly the number of students in the class is the amount that turned down acceptance. So for School A that accepts 26 students, they will be down to #26 on the waitlist before they fill their class.

 

[AlexFLA]

So they accept 26 students and make a wait list 26 deep?

 

[bnwj89]

So they accept 26 students and make a wait list 26 deep?

From what I have seen, waitlists are roughly about twice as long as the # of students that are accepted to the program.

For example, if a school has 26 spots and 500 applicants: 26 are initially accepted and roughly 52 put on the waitlist. The 26 that are originally accepted have (usually) between 1-3 weeks to accept the offer (by paying a deposit, usually from 200-500 dollars). If they reject the offer to go to a different school, the school will call person #1 on the waitlist, and work their way down.

Schools never know how many people they will need to take off the waitlist, as competitiveness varies from year to year

Hope that makes sense

 

[AlexFLA]

Yep got it thanks

 

[DesertPT]

Many schools will list on some sort of stats page total applicants vs. qualified applicants. Then from the amount of qualified applicants you have to figure that quite a few of them are only just above the cutoff and don't meet the schools average numbers for acceptance, so even though they are technically "qualified" they aren't ever going to be accepted. Schools have their official admissions requirements and then the unpublished ones that actually get used to select students.

 

[IndianaDPT]

@knj27:

I wanted to reply to your note about "unpublished" requirements. I would say that the myth of unpublished requirements is just that, mostly a myth. Why would this be?

PT programs want to attract applicants that are a good fit for the program and will succeed. The way to communicate this is to publish the actual requirements on the web and in printed materials so that all potential applicants can be aware of what is under consideration in an admission decision.

Because programs must uphold their standards, and because the programs must be fair to each applicant, we really cannot have some set of unpublished standards. Not only this, but in the quite legalistic culture we live in, using unpublished standards or criteria invite undue scrutiny and potential lawsuits.

I know that Indiana University does not have a "secret" unpublished set of criteria, and I sincerely doubt that other programs have them. It's not fair to candidates and it invites a subjectivity that is unhealthy for students and allows in unnecessary bias.

Best wishes to all for a very successful admission season!

Josh Morrison
Director, Student Enrollment Services
IU School of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, IUPUI
www.shrs.iupui.edu
[email protected]

 

[DesertPT]

Thank you IndianaDPT for your thoughtful and helpful reply. I am of course aware that universities do not use a formalized, secret or otherwise established, yet unpublished, set of admissions requirements. My statement was intended to be more to the effect that despite the official admission requirements published by schools of physical therapy (eg. 3.0 GPA, 130 Verbal GRE, or whatever it may be), students who apply with their stats at or just above these admission requirement marks stand almost no chance of getting in. Thus I feel that the average stats for students offered acceptance to a particular program is a better reflection of what is realistically "required" to get in to that program. Perhaps rather than calling these "unpublished admission requirements" I should have called them "the stats you're going to need in reality" or something like that.

 

[Azimuthal]

Dunno, faculty who have posted here in the past have stated that depending on their applicant pool stats, another cutoff is determined from their min. In other words, a 3.2 became an interview cutoff for a published 3.0 min requirement. Although transcripts were screened [only], I feel that by adding the unreported criteria, that some schools do have unpublished requirements. This can be detrimental to an applicant, especially if the school relies on PTCAS GPAs only.