Hey guys, I was accepted into University of St. Augustine - San Marcos campus for Fall 2016. This forum helped me a lot since it was my first time applying and I had pretty low undergrad GPA, so I figured I'll help out and try to answer your guys' questions! Let me know if you guys have any other questions and I'll try to get to them when I can
Anyone else planning on applying for Spring 2017 at USA? The app deadline is June 15 of next year. Yes I'm getting started early with this haha!
Also, I have a couple questions for anyone who is familiar with applying to USA.
- Where on the application can we designate that we will be willing to attend any of the campuses?
- Is there any campus(es) that is/are significantly more competitive to get into than the others?
- For those that have received any acceptances to USA, what did your observation hours breakdown look like?
- The observation hours form has the spot where we enter contact info for the person who is to be verifying the hours, but it has no place for us to enter the # of hours -- does this mean the supervisor filling out the form will have to enter the number of hours for us, on their end?
Thanks in advance to anyone who helps me with these questions!!
1. This one was a gray area for me. I was in a tough spot so I figured I'd attend any campus that accepted me; however, I could not find out where to do so? Many advisors told me to indicate it on my "Statement of Purpose", but that was the only answer I could obtain. The advisors are all on different campuses and it does not seem like they communicate with one another often.
2. I believe the St. Augustine campus is the most competitive since it is the original. Also, Spring is the least competitive cycle from what I was told by advisors.
3. I had a total of 1200 hours. I worked in a hospital chain in Las Vegas that allowed me to work per diem at three different hospitals, so I had hours equally split into: hospital-attached outpatient, inpatient acute, and inpatient rehab. I also shadowed outside of work at an inpatient rehab hospital (HealthSouth).
4. Yes, you're absolutely right! If you shadowed a physical therapist, most likely he/she will just ask if you've kept track of your hours or if the facility has a log of your hours and they'd happily sign off on it. If you've worked a tech, then your hours will be logged by clock-in/clock-out, so that's self explanatory.
One more thing- I remember the past couple months the USA DPT app page has consistently read that we need 4 references. The page now says we need only 2, am I reading correctly?
Yes, you're correct! You'll need 1 PT, 1 faculty reference or 2 PT references. I had 2 PTs for mine and it was fine
Can anyone recommend a school that has physics which isn't calculus based? Will USA accept algebra-based physics, does anyone know? I'm in the OC area. Thanks
If you're like me and not a huge fan of physics, you'll be happy to know that St. Augustine allows 1 semester of biomechanics as a substitution for 1 semester of physics. Also, you do not need calculus-based physics (engineering physics). I only took pre-med physics (PHYS 152 at UNLV) and it was purely algebra based.
Hi there,
I will be applying as well. I applied to 9 PTCAS schools (Rejected from 5, Interviewed at 1 with no word yet, Waitlisted for an interview at 1, and am waiting to hear back from 2 more this month). My fear is that I will be rejected from all the PTCAS schools. I talked to someone I worked with who is applying to USA-Austin for MOT and she has an interview so I thought I should look into the school for PT.
Campus Designation: Her feedback regarding the campus designation, is that admissions said you can only choose one. However, from looking at previous posts about USA, it seems that others have stated that they applied to all 3 campuses. That being said, reading several threads on here say that admissions are not very helpful.
Competitiveness: Her feedback regarding cohort competitiveness is that the spring tends to be less competitive based on information on the website (which makes sense given the timeline of undergraduates), but when inquired with admissions they said all cohorts are competitive.
Sorry to not provide solid information just hearsay, but its what I have to offer.
If you did not apply to U of St. Augustine this cycle, I would strongly recommend you to do so for the next! I was rejected for all of my PTCAS school applications
I did not like how PTCAS averaged all of my grades and did not have academic forgiveness. Obviously it was my fault, but I lacked focus in my initial years and fell way below a 2.5GPA at one point. I made it up with nearly 4.0 GPA for my last 60 credits. Thankfully, U of St Augustine allowed academic forgiveness and calculated GPA with highest grades.
Hi I am also applying to Spring 2017! but I have just one question. On previous forums it states we have to have a autobiography and personal statement. But on the actual application I do not see anything about the autobiography. Can you clarify this please? Thank you so much.
Also I submitted my observation hours in January and I cannot see if my Observers submitted it. How will I know it is completed on their end?
You'll only need to do the personal statement. They no longer require an autobiography for the application. Also, if your submissions are not shown as "submitted" or "accepted", definitely reach out to your campus's advisors constantly until they accept it on their end. If there is a blank next to the item, it means that they have not accepted it and that your application may not move forward until it's done!
Hey all, I'll be applying to the Spring 2017 DPT program in San Marcos, good luck to all of you! From what I'm aware of, they assess your: cumulative GPA, pre-req GPA, science GPA and trend GPA when reviewing your application. Does anyone know how they calculate GPA in general and what their definition of cumulative and trend GPA are?
For my application, they only looked at trend GPA and pre-req GPA. For the trend, it was either last 45 or last 60 credits taken, I cannot recall. For the pre-req, it was very similar classes to most other schools, BUT St Augustine allows for a few substitutions as I mentioned above. Also, they'll take the highest grade out that you received in your pre-reqs rather than averaging them. In my case, it made a dramatic difference in GPA calculations. PTCAS calculated my pGPA as 2.68 while St. Augustine calculated my pGPA at around 3.80. The reason was because I have retaken every single one of my pre-reqs for PT school.
To those applying to the San Marcos campus, who are you guys contacting with to address any questions/make sure documents are being received? I've been dealing with Carolynn Perryman, but there have been times where she wasn't able to answer some of my questions - which makes me a bit weary of the answers she's provided for the questions that she could answer...
For my application to San Marcos, I primarily kept in contact with Carolyn Perryman through phone call. I rarely emailed anyone and preferred a direct answer. She did seem the same way about certain questions that I had as well, perhaps she's newer? I noticed that they had a bit of a high turnover rate for advisors before by looking at previous year's student handbooks. However, she was pretty good at either answering right away or returning my call. I always called around 9:00AM to 12:00PM Pacific time.
Hi all! Was wondering if anyone knows if 1) USA is rolling admission based and 2) if there is an application fee
Hello, USA is NOT rolling admissions. Although there are 3 different cycles, the school will not review applications until after the deadline passes (and trust me, it's a lot longer than after the deadline passes because they will still be reviewing the previous cycle's stuff). I believe that there was no application fee because I cannot remember paying anything after I submitted all my materials, but there's definitely a $500.00 deposit to confirm your acceptance if you receive admission!
