I have a Masters in Kinesiology, will that play to my advantage to get into a DPT program?

[BannBann]

Hey everyone.

I need help and some feedback!

I am applying to many PT programs in the fall and I want some expertise.
My stats are:

Overall GPA- 3.42
Science GPA- 3.15
Master's Degree GPA- 3.7

I graduated with my Master's in Health and Human Performance December of 2014. I pretty much pursued the Masters because I wanted to be a strength coach. It wasn't until 3/4 way of my program that i wanted to pursue PT. I applied to PT schools on a whim to see what could happen. I didn't get into any of the schools in which I applied for.I was also lacking many prereqs! I then started on my prerequisites. Some classes I had to take over. I ended up taking 26 hours total in the Spring and Summer with 18 of those hours being in the summer time. I was able to boost my science gpa to a little over qualifying. I am taking classes this fall as well to continue to boost my gpa. Does my graduate degree have ANY pull? Its frustrating because I felt like I wasted a year and a semester on a field i no longer wanted to pursue. Please give me some advice. I have over 100 hours in PT from TIRR, outpatient therapy and water rehab PT. I am also a Master Personal Trainer at Lifetime. What do yall think? Thank you!

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[PTMattI]

Your experience definitely doesn`t hurt, and depending on the school it may look very favorably and help push you over the top. Also, I would try to play up your personal trainer experience...it shows that you have experience at teaching and prescribing exercise (which is obviously a big part of PT) and perhaps you also performed a lot of fitness assessments? I came from a personal training background and in my school interviews I talked about my desire of "bridging the gap" between fitness and rehab and that was received very well in all of the interviews I had.

But also definitely try to boost your pre req GAP and do well on the GRE. But your background is helpful as far as admission IMO and your work experience as a trainer I also think is invaluable because you had to create your own programs / prescribe exercises on your own for fitness goals. Where as a tech only follows whatever is written on the exercise sheet for the most part

 

[callmecrazy]

What should help is that although your science and overall GPA are mediocre, you've proven to perform better in your graduate level coursework. I'd play that up to direct attention to the higher GPA.