Preparing for Sept 2020 entry

[rehabgal]

Hi there!

I have recently graduated from a Kin program in Ontario this past June, but was rejected from Queens PT as the only school I applied to. I’m looking to prepare myself for next application cycle (and hopefully apply to more than one PT school). I am looking for some guidance on the following, and anything would be much appreciated!! 

1. Can anyone clarify which PT schools in Ontario / CA use SUB GPA as a decider if your application goes any further? And which use Overall/cumulative? 

2. With my winter grades, I think I calculated my SUB GPA to be around 3.71 and Overall to be 3.38. The cutoff for Queens 2019 was sub 3.73 and overall 2.89. So, I think it would be smart for me to take 2 or 3 undergraduate courses at a University in Canada, to replace the 3 spots that ORPAS used (as they needed to average one of my years as it fell in between. Ex: they had 17 and needed to fill the 3 spots using the average of my 2nd year). Essentially if I do the 2 or 3 courses and obtain a 4.0, I could make my sub GPA more competitive. I’m just trying to make sure I’m semi-accurate in calculating my SUB GPA as I’m under the impression they don’t really consider semesters, more so duration / periods of study (Fall 2018/Winter2019). Just curious if anyone can confirm I’m on the right page. 

3. With respect to question 2, has anyone had experience with Athabasca online courses? They are on ORPAS’ conversion list so I think they would offer undergraduate courses that fall under the criteria and are included in the GPA calculations. If so, does anyone have any thoughts/course recommendations? I would continue to register at the school I did my undergrad with, but I feel I would subjected to late fees now. 

4. Finally, I understand the schools themselves consider ORPAS’ calculates GPAs, but do any do their own? How would I find out what they calculated for my application - just by calling? Do they take the higher of the two? Rounding rules? 

5. Anyone apply to UK schools, such as Ireland or Scotland? What is your opinion/recommendations?

Any other suggestions for improving my application / statements for next years Sept 2020 entry for PT would be awesome! I appreciate the feedback  

I understand I have lots of questions but any help would be very appreciated. Thanks for your time!!  

[NewAtThis]

On 8/28/2019 at 12:44 PM, rehabgal said:

Hi there!

I have recently graduated from a Kin program in Ontario this past June, but was rejected from Queens PT as the only school I applied to. I’m looking to prepare myself for next application cycle (and hopefully apply to more than one PT school). I am looking for some guidance on the following, and anything would be much appreciated!! 

1. Can anyone clarify which PT schools in Ontario / CA use SUB GPA as a decider if your application goes any further? And which use Overall/cumulative? 

2. With my winter grades, I think I calculated my SUB GPA to be around 3.71 and Overall to be 3.38. The cutoff for Queens 2019 was sub 3.73 and overall 2.89. So, I think it would be smart for me to take 2 or 3 undergraduate courses at a University in Canada, to replace the 3 spots that ORPAS used (as they needed to average one of my years as it fell in between. Ex: they had 17 and needed to fill the 3 spots using the average of my 2nd year). Essentially if I do the 2 or 3 courses and obtain a 4.0, I could make my sub GPA more competitive. I’m just trying to make sure I’m semi-accurate in calculating my SUB GPA as I’m under the impression they don’t really consider semesters, more so duration / periods of study (Fall 2018/Winter2019). Just curious if anyone can confirm I’m on the right page. 

3. With respect to question 2, has anyone had experience with Athabasca online courses? They are on ORPAS’ conversion list so I think they would offer undergraduate courses that fall under the criteria and are included in the GPA calculations. If so, does anyone have any thoughts/course recommendations? I would continue to register at the school I did my undergrad with, but I feel I would subjected to late fees now. 

4. Finally, I understand the schools themselves consider ORPAS’ calculates GPAs, but do any do their own? How would I find out what they calculated for my application - just by calling? Do they take the higher of the two? Rounding rules? 

5. Anyone apply to UK schools, such as Ireland or Scotland? What is your opinion/recommendations?

Any other suggestions for improving my application / statements for next years Sept 2020 entry for PT would be awesome! I appreciate the feedback  

I understand I have lots of questions but any help would be very appreciated. Thanks for your time!!  

1. All schools except Queens use sub-GPA, which is unfortunate because I think Cumulative-GPA should be considered much more than it currently is (as I said, only Queens uses C-GPA afaik).

2. I'm not sure I entirely understand what you are asking here but you need 5 courses per semester to have each course counted as a separate grade (if you take  classes after you graduate, for example, they aren't added as separate grades but as averages to your most recent full semester). I knew someone who tried taking courses in the fall and winter semester and they were getting really high marks but because they were never taking full course loads, the calculations were not what they expected. I'm not saying taking more classes won't have a positive impact on your overall GPA but unless you are taking a full course load, it won't impact it as much as you may think.

3. I never used Athabasca so I have nothing to add here.

4. To my knowledge, all Ontario Physio programs use ORPAS and the GPA that you see calculated within your application is what they use but if you feel a mistake was made, they tend to be quite helpful with sorting that out. To my knowledge, it would only be a different GPA scale if you applied to UoBC or UoA (Alberta).

5. While I haven't applied myself, I do know of 2 people that I went to school with that applied to Ontario PT programs and sadly did not get accepted, but one of them applied somewhere in the UK and got in (at least that is what I heard) and the other guy applied to Australia and was accepted there. There is no where that says you have to go to Ontario and these two people did not want to wait around so they decided to go overseas.

[rehabgal]

Hi! Thank you for all of your information, I really appreciate it