A Pre-PT’s Guide to PTCAS: Supporting Information Section

The Physical Therapist Centralized Application Service or PTCAS can be hard to navigate for anyone, but it is a critical component of the application process. In this post, we’ll discuss what you need to know about the Supporting Information Section of PTCAS. 

Important note, my knowledge of PTCAS is based solely on the 2021-2022 application seasons. I hope to update my blog accordingly as PTCAS changes throughout the years, but please keep in mind that some things do change from year to year. 

There are 4 main sections in PTCAS, and the Supporting Information Section is the third. This is where you’ll list and describe your observation hours, experiences, achievements, licenses and certifications, and your PTCAS essay. This section is arguably one of the most important. This is where you will show schools who you are. What are your interests, what’s important to you, how you have spent your time during undergrad, and how have you immersed yourself in the world of physical therapy?

Observation Hours

This section is where you will input all of your observation hours. This includes working at a PT clinic/facility, volunteering, or just going to observe. This step is incredibly important as most schools require a certain number of observation hours. They might also dictate where you received them (inpatient vs. outpatient). Here are the things you need to ensure you have ready when entering this information.

The facility name and address 

The timeline of your experience, start and end dates

Experience details

Were you paid for this experience, or did you volunteer? What setting did you observe in? If inpatient, were you in a nursing home, rehabilitation facility, or an acute care hospital? If outpatient, were you in a PT clinic, home health setting, occupational health setting, school, or fitness facility?

Number of hours completed and in-progress

Patient Diagnoses/Patients Observe

What kind of diagnoses did you observe? Musculoskeletal, neuromuscular, cardiopulmonary, wound management, geriatrics, pediatrics, sports, aquatics, or women’s health/pelvic floor are the options available to you. You can choose more than one of these at each facility so choose all that apply.

Method of verifying hours 

Verifying your observation hours ensures that you actually did them and have proof. You can do this by submitting a form that contains a detailed log of your hours and is signed by a licensed PT. 
You can also send the verification to your observing supervisor for them to verify them.

I would recommend uploading your form so that you do not have to worry about your supervisor submitting everything on time and you will have the logs yourself. 

Now, you can choose to leave your hours unverified as some schools might not require it, but most do. You don’t want to put all of your efforts into gaining meaningful observation experiences, only for it to not be considered because you failed to verify them. 

Physical Therapist Supervisor

You will need to enter your supervisor’s name. However, it is optional to add their contact information PT license number, and state. Even though it was optional, I included this as well just to be safe. Just ask your PT supervisor to include their license number at the top of the sign-in log when they sign it.

Upload your signed form 

Ensure your form is in an acceptable format (MSWord (.doc, .docx), JPEG (.jpeg, .jpg), PNG (.png), Rich Text Format (.rtf), Portable Document Format (.pdf), and ASCII Text file (.txt)).

Repeat for each facility 

Experiences

This section is where you will input all of your experiences. This includes your employment, extracurricular activities, research, and volunteer experiences. This section is your time to shine. You can show your interest and dedication to those things by describing your experiences. Here are the things you need to make sure you have ready when entering this information.

Experience type

For each experience, you’ll need to clarify what category it falls in.

• Employment: Paid work done outside of the physical therapy field

• Extracurricular Activities: Activities you would like your programs to review such as organization membership or leadership, sports teams, academic clubs, and volunteer work within the health care field. 

• Research: Any experience working on a research project.

• Volunteer: Not to be confused with extracurricular activities, volunteer work must be done outside of the healthcare field. This could include community service, volunteering within an organization, working fundraisers, or much more.

Organization

You’ll need to provide the organization’s name and address.

Supervisor

It is optional for you to include a supervisor and their contact information, but not required as sometimes it might not be applicable.

Experience dates and status

You need to enter the timeline of your experience and start and end dates. You also must include if the position was full-time, part-time, temporary, or per diem (on a day-to-day basis when needed). 

Experience Details

Here you’ll list your position title. You will put whether or not you were paid or earned academic credit for your work. Also, include average weekly hours and the number of weeks worked, PTCAS will calculate this for you so if it doesn’t add up to the hours you know you have, adjust the weeks or hours.

Experience Summary

In this section, you will be asked to briefly detail your experience in 600 characters or less (including spaces). I would treat these as mini-essays and make sure they are proofread. I would encourage you all to use the 30-50-20 method. This is done by making 30% of your summary about the experience overall, what was it and what were its goals, 50% focused on your specific role within the organization, and 20% focused on what you learned and/or gained from the experience. 

Achievements

This section is where you will include all of your achievements that you feel would be relevant to the PT programs you are applying to. The kinds of achievements that can be added are awards, honors, and scholarships. Here are the things you need to make sure you have ready when entering this information.

Achievement Type

For each achievement, you’ll need to provide what category it falls in. 

• Awards: Things received as a prize, such as medals or trophies

• Honors: Recognition received as a special distinction for work done, such as Dean’s List and memberships to honor societies. 

• Scholarships: Awards received on academic, athletic, or other merits. 

Achievement Name

You’ll need to provide the title of the achievement earned. 

Organization

You’ll need to provide the organization’s name

Date Issued

You need to enter the years you were awarded the achievement. This might need to be shown using academic years. (ex: 2019-2021)

Achievement Summary

In this section, you will be asked to briefly detail your achievement in 600 characters or less (including spaces). I would treat these as mini-essays and make sure they are proofread. I would encourage you all to use the 30-50-20 method. This is done by making 30% of your summary about the awarding organization, what is it, and what are its goals, 30% focused on the terms of the award, what type of distinction was it, and what was required, and 40% focused on why you received this recognition. 

Licenses and Certifications

In this section, you’ll list all licenses and certifications that you currently possess and may be of interest to your PT programs. This section is optional and you can choose to opt-out. This could be anything from CPR certifications to personal training certifications. Here is what to expect from this section:

Indicate if entering a License or Certification

While your Licenses or Certification should indicate which one it is, here are the definitions of each.

• A certification is a document that states you’ve met certain criteria or skills to perform a task
  • CPR Certification
• A license is received when an individual can do a specific job or work in a specific location, usually issued by a governmental agency
  • Physical Therapist Assistant License

List the type/name of the License or Certification

You’ll need to provide the name of the license or certification earned. I would suggest you use the title listed on the copy you’ll be uploading.

Issuing Organization Name

You’ll need to provide the organization’s name.

Date Issued

You need to enter the years you received the license or certification.

Validity date

Indicate the date the license or certification expires. You will not be allowed to add one that has already expired.

State issued

You’ll need to provide the state that issued the license or certification.

Upload a Copy of the License or Certification

Ensure your form is in an acceptable format (MSWord (.doc, .docx), JPEG (.jpeg, .jpg), PNG (.png), Rich Text Format (.rtf), Portable Document Format (.pdf), and ASCII Text file (.txt)).

Essay

In this section, you’ll write your personal statement that shows your programs of interest why you are interested in physical therapy, and why you believe it is a good fit for you. While conveying this, you will also need to follow a prompt. PTCAS gives you a prompt to follow that everyone receives, and it changes every few years. 

Here are the prompts from the past few years:

• 2023-2024 “Every person has a background, an identity, interests, or talents which they feel their application would be incomplete without having mentioned. Describe the traits or experiences that make you unique and explain how they will help you be a successful physical therapist.”

• 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 “Every person has a story that has led them to a career. Since there are a variety of health professions that “help” others, please go beyond your initial interaction or experience with physical therapy, and share the deeper story that has confirmed your decision to specifically pursue physical therapy as your career.”

• 2018-2019 and 2019-2020: “Describe a meaningful experience in your life. Reflect on how that experience influenced your personal growth, such as your attitudes or perceptions.”

• 2016-2017 and 2017-2018: “What is professionalism in the context of being a student in a doctor of physical therapy program?”

Some things to keep in mind:

You have a 4500 character limit for this essay and I learned the hard way that this does include spaces, so write wisely.

Make sure you write your essays in another word processor such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word. This will ensure you can see all of your mistakes and make corrections.

Follow the prompt! I know this might seem obvious, but you want to ensure that you completely answer the prompt and all of its questions. I would break the questions apart and figure out how you’ll answer each one.

Don’t begin writing your essay until you receive your prompt for the application cycle (PTCAS usually releases this prompt around mid-June). You don’t want to spend hours perfecting your essay, only to have to start over because the prompt changed that year.

I hope you’ve learned something from this and feel better about tackling the PTCAS Supporting Information section of PTCAS! If you missed the previous post in this series, check out: A Pre-PT’s Guide to PTCAS: Program Materials Section.

Please let me know your thoughts or any questions you might have in the comments!