A Pre-PT’s Guide to PTCAS: Academic History Section
The Physical Therapist Centralized Application Service or PTCAS can be hard to navigate for anyone, but it is an incredibly important component of the application process. In this post, we’ll discuss what you need to know about the Academic History 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 Academic History Section is second. This is where you’ll list your colleges attended, transcripts, and standardized tests.
Note that my section says it has been completed and has turned green. This is because I have already completed my application. New applicants’ sections will not be green.
Colleges Attended
This section is where you will enter ALL of the colleges you have ever attended. This means even if you dropped out after a year, or only attended a school because of Dual Credit in high school you need to list them if it in any way contribute to your application. You will be asked for your university information and degree information so make sure you have all of this information. This is also where you can order your transcripts. PTCAS requires you to send your official transcripts, but keep in mind, some schools also want them as well. This is something to be aware of when ordering transcripts.
Transcript Entry
For this section, you will need to manually input your transcript information into PTCAS. Yes, even though you’ve sent your transcripts in, you will also need to enter them again.
There is an option to have PTCAS do this for you through the professional Transcript Entry Service (PTE). It is not free though, for 1-3 transcripts it’s $75, and $100 for 4-6. I personally did not purchase this as applications were expensive enough, but I can understand how this would make the process a lot easier.
For those of you who will be entering your data yourself, my biggest piece of advice is to request a personal copy of your official transcripts. Your unofficial and official transcripts might be different (they were for me). Seeing as PTCAS receives your official ones, it’s in your best interest to also use an official copy. If you do not input your transcripts exactly as they are, your application will not pass verification and could be held back for as long as a few weeks. It is very important that you get this right on the first try.
Here’s what you’ll need to do…
First, you will be asked to choose which college(s) you want to enter transcripts for, choose a specific term (Fall 2022), and your status (Freshman or Junior) and whether or not it is “In Progress” or “Completed”. In-progress classes are a good way to include the classes you are currently registered for and appear on your transcript but have yet to finish.
Second, you will enter your course information exactly how it appears on your transcripts. Course code and number, the course title, subject, credits, and grade (CAS grade is done by PTCAS, you do not need to enter anything).
Here are two classes from my transcript entry and how they were entered.
Note, the “subject” is the only thing that might not appear on your transcripts. What you input is completely up to you. You should choose the subject that best describes the course or what was abbreviated in the course code.
After you’ve inputted all of the classes listed on your transcript, you then need to move to the Transcript Review. The Transcript Review is for you to assign your PT school’s prerequisites, labs, AP credit, IB credit, or any other course types to the classes on your transcript. You’ll need to match your required prerequisites to the classes that satisfy those prereqs.
This section might be a bit difficult to understand so please use the help PTCAS provides for this section.
Standardized Tests
In this section, you can self-report your standardized test scores. These tests include the GRE, TOEFL, AP, CLEP, and IB. Self-reporting your scores is not the same as having them sent from the testing institution. If your school accepts credits from these test scores, it would be best to officially send them to both PTCAS and your PT schools of interest. Again, make sure you check with your schools to ensure you are sending the scores to the correct location.
I hope you’ve learned something from this and feel better about tackling the Academic History Section of PTCAS! If you missed the previous post in this series, check out: A Pre-PT’s Guide to PTCAS: Personal Information Section.
For the next post in this series, check out A Pre-PTs Guide to PTCAS: Program Materials Section.
Please let me know your thoughts or any questions you might have in the comments!
