PTCAS vs. NONPTCAS, Retakes, Low CUM GPA

[MVPT]

Hello everyone. I'm just curious how you guys feel about PTCAS schools vs. NON-PTCAS school with regard to academic forgiveness. I have spoke to PTCAS and they don't give any academic forgiveness meaning every class taken repeat or not, gets factored into your GPA. With that said I had many things going on during my freshman and sophomore years in undergrad. I received pretty low grades in my science pre-reqs. Now I have taken all of my pre-requisite courses over and gotten a 3.9 pre-req GPA. This doesn't bring my cum GPA up enough to pass a 3.0 cum GPA. PTCAS calculates every class so my PTCAS GPA altogether is relatively low. Since most of my classes are retakes I was looking heavily into NON-PTCAS schools because they usually just take the higher grade. I heard most PTCAS school take the PTCAS calculated GPA, and discard any application that can't break 3.0 respectively. I wonder if my chances with PTCAS schools are over, and I should just try NON-PTCAS schools only. Also please let me know if there are school that look at taking the higher grades or more recent credit trends. Any NON-PTCAs schools you guys recommend? MY STATS ARE BELOW

Undergrad CUM GPA: 2.534

Re-take school CUM GPA: 3.9

Together CUM GPA: 2.729

Together Pre-req GPA: 3.75

I'm worried my cumulative will never break 3.0, and that PTCAS and NON-PTCAS schools will not overlook this even though my pre-req GPA is so high. My grade trends up to the last 90+ credits is CUM GPA. >3.0

-I have over 2500 hours spread across two outpatients clinics, and one sub-acute hospital.
-148 VERBAL GRE
-148 QUAN GRE
-3.5 WRITING
-Multiple recommendations.

I'm so passionate about physical therapy and am not giving up. Any suggestions on PTCAS, NON-PTCAS, or any general advice. Thank you !!

I am currently taking Physics II[Retake], Chem II[Retake], Medical Terminology, and English Composition II
-I tried to take a heavier course load than the two prereqs.

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[ekm]

I would call the programs that you're really interested in and speak with them about your situation. Let them know what you've done to improve your stats. I would also retake the GRE for scores that are in a higher percentile range.

Good luck!


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[georgia2009]

I think you should call the programs because some schools do calculate the highest attempt & look at grade trends. I was in a similar situation last year. However, this year I applied to a new DPT program that doesn't use PTCAS. They said they were impressed with my stats. My PTCAS gpa was significantly different than the gpa they calculated for me. You have a substantial amount of hours, so I think if you retake the GRE you would be in a much better position.

I was recently accepted into Brenau University. Stats aren't outstanding, but I had great letters, essays, and an interview!

GRE: 151Q, 149V, 3.5AW
PTCAS GPA: 3.27
Pre-Req GPA: 3.38
Observation Hours: 630 (outpation, nursing home, acute care hospital, occupational health)

Good luck!!

 

[okramango]

Each program will look at your GPAs differently, whether or not they use PTCAS. You should research individual programs to see how they look at your GPAs. I think you'd benefit most from programs that only look at your last 60 units taken, rather than total cumulative, as well as programs that let you replace grades. There's a bunch of programs like that out there, both PTCAS and non-PTCAS programs, so you just need to do the work to find out how each program does it. Many of them state this on their website, but you might need to call some programs, too.

 

[DesertPT]

As others have said, it doesn't really matter what PTCAS's method is if the program itself uses a different method. You just need to contact each program you are interested in applying to and find out how they do it. Obviously target programs where their method will leave you with the highest GPA. Avoid the temptation to waste money applying to schools where you either do not meet the minimum requirement or where you are far below the average for accepted students.

 

[MVPT]

Does anyone know of any PTCAS schools that use their own GPA calculations? Thanks