What to do for the next year and 1/2? Help

[betacortex]

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Hey guys! Due to needing to stay in the Austin area my only option for DPT is the St. Augustine program there. I am wrapping up my Bachelors in May from Texas A&M in Psychology and Philosophy and will probably end up with ~3.47 cum GPA. I have basically all my pre-reqs left to take over the next year and am currently in Bio 1 looking at a B. I have 40+ hours observing in an inpatient OT setting, but I doubt that helps much. I'm lined up to volunteer in inpatient PT this summer and hopefully different places during fall and spring. I'll probably only have around ~120 observation hours in 3 different places. I haven't really been involved in many extra-curriculars and hopefully can get in some. I will be at Austin Community College to finish up my pre-reqs. Hope to apply next June for the Spring semester at USA. Any ideas how to strengthen my application in the remaining year?

 

[533880]

Overall you look pretty good. Nothing that really hurts your application. Make sure to focus on your pre-reqs. Schools look at those a lot and especially being your last year in school they can make or break you. Also your GRE...if you haven't taken it, study and do well on it

 

[GatorGrad87]

Just focus on doing well on the rest of your pre-reqs and you'll have a pretty strong application. How does your GRE look? I attended the USA Florida open house and the director of admissions told me they see cumGPA, prereqGPA, and GRE all as 30% each. And LoR, Essay, Hours, etc as 10%. Not sure how true that is for the Austin campus but I would guess they'd be similar.

 

[Azimuthal]

A's on your prerequisites, diversity your observation hours and study hard for the GREs.. PT programs are getting more competitive.

 

[bnwj89]

Rock. Your. Prerequisite. Classes. Seriously, GPA, prereq GPA and GRE are what's going to get your foot in the door. This stuff is the meat and potatoes. Get A's in them

Sent from my DROID3 using SDN Mobile

 

[schnell8]

Do any of your University/Community Colleges have a research group? There should be one most likely at your University...I would suggest volunteering a bit for a research group with a goal in mind of getting a LoR from one of those professors. It doesn't exactly matter what kind of research group but something in the Kinesiology/movement sciences would be ideal. Research is a HUGE plus that a surprising amount of people don't realize. Even if all you did was collect data for a day, being able to say that you participated in research which will put you over even more! It will look awesome on your application and will impress anyone you interview with.

This is kinda how my interview went for a school I got into.

Interviewer - "Tell me about some of the extra-curricular activities you participated in?"

Me - "...I also volunteered for the Human Energy Research Lab."

Interviewer - "Oh wow, you participated in research huh? Tell me about your experiences!"

He was pretty impressed just by me saying that.

Also, this is for anyone really who wants interview advice...if you get asked the question "What would you do different in graduate school than in undergrad?" answer something along the lines of "I would improve my study habits by learning the material rather than memorizing it." Elaborate on that in your own way but I shocked the crap out of the professor by saying that because apparently no student had said that to him before which kinda surprised me. He told me that with a response like that, he knows I'll succeed in grad school...lol