Sticky situation...PT school out of the question?

[amartin]

Hey everyone,
I'm new to this site but I'm looking for advice from people who actually know what they're talking about.

I'm currently half way through my sophomore year of college. I'm a transfer student. I used to have a 3.5 GPA and then I transferred to a new school with an actual Pre-Physical Therapy program (and GPA's start over when you transfer to a new school). Last semester at my new school I ended up with a GPA of 2.985. This really makes me nervous because since my GPA from my old school does not actually factor in with the new GPA like I thought it would- I'm starting to feel really nervous/anxious. I'm a Biology major with a concentration in Pre-Physical Therapy. Does anyone have any suggestions to what I could possibly do? I know that I could raise my GPA within those couple of years, but I'm afraid that I might not be able to raise it as much as I'd like to considering my courses as a Biology major only get more advanced.

Also, do graduate schools tend to look at how hard some of the courses are? I have a friend who is a psychology major who made it into PT school but she also didn't have to take courses such an Organic Chem I & II and a lot of other courses that are much harder in comparison to some of the other courses in other majors.

Anyone have any thoughts, or ideas, or positivity that can help me feel better about the situation?

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[amartin]

Hey everyone,

I'm currently half way through my sophomore year of college. I'm a transfer student. I used to have a 3.5 GPA and then I transferred to a new school with an actual Pre-Physical Therapy program (and GPA's start over when you transfer to a new school). Last semester at my new school I ended up with a GPA of 2.985. This really makes me nervous because since my GPA from my old school does not actually factor in with the new GPA like I thought it would- I'm starting to feel like I'll be in trouble. I'm a Biology major with a concentration in Pre-Physical Therapy. Does anyone have any suggestions to what I could possibly do? I know that I could raise my GPA within those couple of years, but I'm afraid that I might not be able to raise it as much as I'd like to considering my courses as a Biology major only get more advanced.

Also, do graduate schools tend to look at how hard some of the courses are? I have a friend who is a psychology major who made it into PT school but she also didn't have to take courses such an Organic Chem I & II and a lot of other courses that are much harder in comparison to some of the other courses in other majors.

Anyone have any thoughts, or ideas, or positivity that can help me feel better about the situation? Realistically I know that obtaining a 3.8 now is not going to happen but I am looking to *hopefully* make my way back to at least a 3.3. Do you think that's possible in two and a half years?

 

[GMA2013]

My only advice really is to study harder and pull the gpa up. You definitely still have time. While they technically will look at your courses, the "hardness" of the classes doesn't come into play as much. Make sure to get a lot of volunteer hours in a variety of settings. Good luck

 

[NeophyteParkour]

In terms of the bachelors degree you are going to receive from your new university, yes your GPA starts over. In terms of any further education, your GPA does not start over. Grad schools do not factor in how your school customizes your GPA. They count all courses taken in undergrad and want to know the grade earned in each.

If you apply through PTCAS you will be entering courses from both schools and PTCAS will calculate everything based on that (an upper-level course GPA is also calculated).

As for science requirements (organic chem) some schools have different requirements.

 

[amartin]

That's actually really good to know. If I were to be applying to graduate schools, would my GPA just from my new university not be a big deal then? Right now it's under a 3.0 but if I were to factor in my other grades from previous schools, it would probably be around a 3.3 at least. A lot of graduate schools say they won't even look at your transcript if you're under a 3.0, would that not count for me or would that still be a big deal?

I do think my GPA is going to get up higher but granted the classes I'm going to be taking (such as organic chem and other classes that are much harder) I don't think it's going to get up to where I'd like to be. I have two and a half years, and I'm aiming for a 3.2 at least.

 

[DancerFutureDPT]

Don't freak out just yet...here are some of your answers:

GPA CALCULATION:
When you apply via PTCAS (the app service for PT school), they will calculate your GPA in a number of ways - total GPA, prerequisite GPA, etc. When you input all your courses from your transcript, you can designate what kind of course each was (was it a bio lab? was it a prerequisite requirement? was it something else? etc.). Therefore when calculating your prereq GPA, it may be much higher than your regular GPA. For example, if you got A's in Bio I and II, Gen Chem I & II, but a C- in orgo, that C- won't be factored into your prereq GPA...so you and your psych major friend who also got A's in bio and gen chem will have similar GPAs. Additionally, since I'm assuming you took some prereqs at your previous school with a 3.5 GPA, those courses WILL get factored into your overall GPA and prereq GPA in PTCAS, even though they aren't included in your current college's transcript GPA listing. Does that make sense? For example, my undergrad total GPA from my university was 3.45. But my PTCAS total GPA was 3.52 because it factored in the summer courses I took elsewhere, and the courses I took after graduating when I decided to go the PT route (I was a comm major and took very little science in undergrad).

COURSE DIFFICULTY:
Do they consider difficulty? Yes and no. Taking prerequisites at a traditionally rigorous university (the Harvards of the world) may unofficially be worth a few bonus GPA points (e.g. a 3.5 prereq GPA at Harvard would likely be equivalent a 3.7 at other schools, just because the PT schools know that Harvard is hard). But at the same time, just because you're a bio major doesn't mean that you'll get bonus points over your psych major friend for taking advanced classes...in some schools it might, but what really matters is your prereq grades, and in that case everyone is on the same playing field, regardless of major. But would an overall GPA of 3.7 with a bio major look better than a 3.7 with a dance major? Perhaps unofficially (no offense to dance majors - I was one), but at the same time the dance major may have diversity of interest points, or be looked at more favorably in other ways. Moral of the story: keep your prereq GPA as high as you can.

If you fail orgo, though, then that won't look great to PT schools - even though it isn't in your prereq GPA, it's still on your transcript and may raise a red flag to the PT school.

HOW TO RAISE YOUR GPA:
In some cases, if you had a fluke and did poorly in a prereq course (e.g. bio II) but then did well in higher level bio classes, you may be able to substitute that as a prereq course. This depends on the individual PT school, though. Another way to generally raise your GPA is to take classes you know you'll do well in - but, keep them in the sciences when possible. Don't take intro to music and photography and English 101 just because you know you can get A's (unless you need those for gen ed requirements at your school) because admissions committees will notice that you're doing it to inflate your GPA. I believe PTCAS also calculates a jr/sr GPA (so your last 2 years of undergrad classes), so if you did poorly in intro classes but do well in high level science classes, that GPA will be higher. But if you suddenly take a bunch of cake classes your last two years, then Adcoms may not like that because you're losing your rigorous course load.

I hope that helps!

 

[amartin]

Thank you so much! This was a huge help.. seriously. But what defines "prereq" courses? Are those your general ed classes or the classes that the grad schools require you to take? Sorry that may sound stupid, but I'm a little new to this.

Also, is there anyway I could find out this GPA before I applied? Is there someway I can calculate it out? I just don't know what would be considered a prereq for me.

 

[okramango]

Thank you so much! This was a huge help.. seriously. But what defines "prereq" courses? Are those your general ed classes or the classes that the grad schools require you to take? Sorry that may sound stupid, but I'm a little new to this.

Also, is there anyway I could find out this GPA before I applied? Is there someway I can calculate it out? I just don't know what would be considered a prereq for me.

Each PT school has their own required prereq courses. You can look at PT school websites to find out what they are, but most PT schools follow this rough pattern:

Human Anatomy - 1 semester
Human Physiology - 1 semester
General Bio - 1 year (2 semesters)
General Chem - 1 year (2 semesters)
General Physics - 1 year (2 semesters)
Statistics - 1 semester
Psychology - 2 semesters (General + Abnormal or Developmental)
Some schools are a bit different so make sure to find out the prereq courses for the individual schools that you are interested in.

To calculate your prereq GPA, just look at your grades in these classes and figure out the GPA.