Prospect for this year's application cycle

[andacl]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hi all,

Just wanted an opinion on what my prospect is for applying this year. I'm a bit late in the game as I am switching from pre-med to PT so I am lacking in observation hours; everything else I feel pretty confident about. So I'm wondering how big of an impact my shortage in hours will play considering that I am currently getting outpatient hours and will soon start getting inpatient at my local research hospital.

University: University of Portland
Major: Biochemistry, Spanish
Overall GPA: 3.75
Pre-Req GPA: 3.70
GRE: V 162, Q 164; still awaiting AW

Extra-Curric: 600+ hours working as an emergency room transcriptionist, academic research in ortho and rehab, 2 years working as a personal trainer, Fulbright scholarship alumnus, Honor's program w/ Dean's list honors and graduated cum laude.

Volunteer: 16 hours outpatient in various settings, will soon start getting 4 hours/week outpatient and 4 hours/week inpatient.

Looking to apply to: George Fox, Chapman U, U of Washington, Columbia, Duke, Boston U, MGH Institute.

Any thoughts on how my observation hours will affect my chances? I plan to have 100+ by December or so and can update my apps as such.

Thanks!

 

[Watson27]

As long as you meet the minimum required by each program, you'll be fine. Your GPA and GRE scores are great. You'll have no trouble gaining acceptance to any of those schools, unless you have horrible essays or interviewing skills.

 

[davidtheusername]

Your numbers look really great for getting in most anywhere. The only problem is your observation hours. Some schools won't even look at you if you don't have 50/100/whatever. So it depends on if your schools are like that. If there was a way you could have like 50 when you sent your apps in it would probably help a lot.

 

[andacl]

Thanks for your input. I suppose, then, my question is whether it is more advantageous to esubmit my application earlier with fewer hours for programs that operate on a rolling-admissions system and update later or to wait until a little later when I have more hours accumulated? I figure this is largely program-specific but wondering if there is any general advice or rule of thumb to abide by. Unfortunately I work FT and can't dedicate myself to an extensive short-term accumulation of hours; plus, all the hoops you have to jump through nowadays to do observation (at least in a hospital setting) takes at least a few weeks to process.

 

[Watson27]

As soon as you have the minimum requirement of hours complete and verified, submit your application! Waiting a month to add a few more hours won't be helpful. To me, having a higher number of hours on your app doesn't matter as much as what you got out of your experiences and how you can talk about them in an essay or interview. With your GRE scores, you have nothing to worry about. Just make sure if they say they want 100 hours, you do 100 hours before you submit. Most schools do not count "in progress/planned" hours.

 

[DesertPT]

You can submit now, put hours you have set up as "planned/in progress", and then change them to complete and have the PT verify them later. It's not essential to have minimum number of hours required by your schools completed at the time you submit, but it will be essential at a lot of schools to have them all completed and verified by the application due date. This more applies to schools with hard deadlines and non-rolling admissions.

For rolling admissions its kinda six of one and half a dozen of the other, because submitting your application earlier in the cycle gets you a better chance of admittance, but your application may not be considered until you have submitted the required number of hours as complete.

I would take the time to call each school you want to apply to and clarify things for yourself before you waste a lot of time and money trying to get into schools that you won't have a chance at.

If you have schools that have the NOV. 3 deadline and have a 100 hours requirement that is going to be tight to get done. But I don't know the requirements or deadlines of your schools.