Top 7 Things Pre-Physical Therapy Students Should Focus on During Their Junior Year 

In this post, you’ll find my advice for what Pre-PTs should focus on during their junior year of college. Keep in mind that not all Pre-PTs follow the “traditional” route to PT school, this list is only meant to be a guide relating to the years before applying to PT school. Shift this list to your journey as you need.

1. Beginning to complete the harder PT school prerequisites 

While freshman year was focused on taking general education classes and sophomore year was focused on tackling the easier PT school prerequisites, junior year is the time to finish up the harder ones. Take this year to complete your harder prerequisites before PT applications open. That way you can have a relatively relaxed senior year and don’t have to worry about bad grades affecting your conditional acceptance. 
Conditional acceptance is what DPT programs offer when they initially accept you. Things like poor grades, violating their moral clauses, or failing to complete your prerequisites are grounds for retracting your acceptance.
If you are unfamiliar with the various PT school prerequisites, check out my post “Top 10 Most Common Prerequisites for Physical Therapy Programs“, but also be sure to research your school’s prereqs.

2. Creating a PTCAS account and becoming familiar with it

PTCAS is the Physical Therapist Centralized Application Service. This is where the majority of PT schools filter their applications. There are aspects of PTCAS that might be difficult to navigate, so I would encourage you to become familiar with it and all of its features during your junior year. However, keep in mind that a new application season doesn’t begin until June 15th (typically) of the following year. PTCAS doesn’t carry over all information entered before this time. For example, entering observation hours in August might not be a great idea as they are not guaranteed to be saved come June. Be sure to only input personal information if you make an account ahead of time.

3. Gaining observation hours in a multitude of diverse settings

Contrary to popular belief, you shouldn’t seek out observation opportunities solely to meet your school’s minimum requirement of hours. Observation hours serve to give Pre-PTs the opportunity to get a closer look at physical therapy. This is the time for them to learn what they love about the career, and this can only be done by seeing a variety of settings. Physical therapy is diverse and comprised of multifaceted fields: orthopedics, pediatrics, inpatient, neurology, geriatric, sports, oncology, home health, and many more. It’s important that Pre-PTs try and introduce and familiarize themselves with multiple. However, some schools require that observation hours come from both outpatient and inpatient settings. Look into your schools to determine how many you need of each. 

4. Thinking about who you want to write you strong letters of recommendation

Letters of recommendation are an essential part of the PT application process. They allow the schools to gain more insight into the applicant’s abilities as a student and person, separate from their GPAs. You want these to be an accurate, positive reflection of you and this can only be done by asking professors and physical therapists that know you, respect you, and support you. You do not want a template letter, make sure they know you as a student. I also encourage you to seek out recommenders that you believe will create high-quality letters and will be sure to submit them well within your deadline.

5. Making a comprehensive list of all college accomplishments 

Once I got to my junior year, I realized I had not been keeping up with all of my observation hours, prerequisites (taken and incomplete), PT schools I was interested in, and extracurricular activities. I decided to make an Excel spreadsheet detailing all of my accomplishments from freshman year. I listed my top PT schools with specific information about them, my organizations, scholarships, volunteerism, and grades. While not everyone has to do this, I would encourage you to keep a comprehensive and detailed list of your experiences. PTCAS will ask about details such as job descriptions, duration of positions, number of hours per week, and a description of the experience itself. You don’t want to forget to add an experience, scholarship, or award because you didn’t write it down.

6. Touring and researching the schools you wish to apply 

If you’re committing to a school for the next 2-4 years, you need to know everything you can about it. Junior year is the best time for this. Find reviews of the school’s student life, tuition rates, NPTE (National Physical Therapy Examination) pass rates, morals and values, and anything else you find important. Make sure to go on tours and open house sessions, both in person and virtual. Schools typically have great student-led virtual tours on YouTube that can offer different perspectives especially if traveling is an issue.

7. Reflecting on your experiences and how they affected you as a Pre-PT

Your reflection is a culmination of your observation hours, researching the profession, and what you personally love about physical therapy. I believe this is essential for two reasons. 1) To know and understand your reasonings for becoming a physical therapist and your connection to it and 2) To be able to describe and explain your experiences to PT schools in your essays. This could be in the form of writing down everything that you loved about physical therapy. Or also by thinking about the change you wish to contribute to. It is rewarding to reflect on how much you’ve learned during this journey and when done right, it shows your dedication and passion for the profession, which is exactly what PT schools are looking for.

For more insight into how I spent my junior year of college, check out my blog post: A Pre-Physical Therapy Student’s Timeline of Undergrad

Please leave a comment! I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts about this list!