Here are some key things you should know.. because I want to make sure you dominate. One thing that can hold you back as a pre-PT is not taking it upon yourself to figure out what the solution is. It is important when reflecting on your solutions that you are not blaming others, like blaming professors for your low GPA. Listen, we all had crappy professors, but in this situation where you have a low GPA, I want you to think “What am I going to do about it?” I want you to take action right now on those situations. The second you put your success on someone else you have failed but the second you put your success on yourself, you succeed. When you take action on your success it is completely different and it's not passive.

There are three key steps to be successful, number one, you got to do the work. What I meant by doing the work is to figure out what action to take and just do it. An example of this is doing the work to match ourselves up for those PT schools. Or if...

This is MORE than just getting into PT School!

My name is Joses Ngugi; I'm one of the co-founders of pre-PT grind. This platform helps future physical therapists get into PT programs. I want to share a little about my life; I was born in Kenya, Africa and moved to the United States. The specific group I am writing to is future black physical therapists. Casey and I understand that the department of physical therapy does not have a strong black representation. Casey and I have talked about obstacles that our students have to face and things that are stopping them from getting to where they're trying to go. Whether it's your race or the lack of not having the background in what we are trying to achieve can be the biggest obstacles that can get in the way. I want you all to know that you all belong here. You all belong in this profession in physical therapy especially as the minority because; you are part of an element of change. That's why I am advocating for you to continue to...

Start treating your application like a workday and treat it with priority and importance as a job. If you can start practicing breaking everything down like most of the students in the Accepted System, we literally teach them how to reverse engineer everything. Make it simple for yourself and ask yourself, what do I need to do tomorrow? What do I need to check off the list? That will allow you to be on track for what you need to do and worry about your application. Once you check the task off the list, then treat yourself to some snack you like, watch whatever movie you want to see. Like literally, if you do that, then what will happen in those days will build upon your application.

If you continue to treat your application like a priority, eventually, those little things on your checklist will build this grand, pretty, beautiful, and massive completed application. In reality, what makes the application great, is you. You made the observation hours great, and you made PTCAS great....

I'm going to give you five things that I want you to start thinking about doing so that you can set yourself up to crush it. Here are the five things that I would highly advise you to do next if you feel like you're running out of time right now.

The first step is to take a deep breath. Sounds simple, but it's if you're going through this right now you know how hard it feels to do this, right? So first of all take a deep breath. The reason why I say this is because, instead of panicking over everything, maybe there's another way to go about this. Like as a pre-PT, you have to realize where you are right now and have to figure out where you are stuck right. An example would be after taking a deep breath then to decide how do you fix your grades or GPA? You might not be able to control everything in your life but there are certain things you can take on control during your application process. 

The second step is you have to ask different questions. What I mean about this...

Hi, my name is Briana Lievanos, I wanted to share my story of how I got accepted into PT school because it is not a traditional path. During this journey, I have learned so much about myself and about the physical therapy career and in retrospect, I realized my adventure was right for me. I also wanted to do this blog because now being part of the accepted system family; I know that I am not the only one overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, and balancing life while applying to different PT schools.

So my journey start back in 2015 when I had applied to two PT schools, I had graduated with my undergrad from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and moved back home to El Paso, Texas to finish up some prerequisites classes and also get a job as a PT technician at an outpatient clinic.  To my great devastation, I did not get accepted into PT school at this time. This led me to do some reflection on myself and my PT career. What was my next step? What do I need to change to get...

What should I do after being waitlisted? 

1. Cross my fingers and wait to see what happens 
2. Lose hope
3. Keep messaging the schools asking where I am on the list
4. None of the above

   First, being waitlisted does not mean that you've been rejected. It's not the same thing. Being waitlisted is like being in the “friend zone”. Being in the friend zone does not mean that you cannot get in. But, you won't get in if you stop trying or you do the wrong things that can ultimately cut that connection. 

   Many times there's so much anxiety about and around being waitlisted because there's a huge lack of understanding and communication between the Pre-PTs and the schools. So all Pre-PTs are doing is messaging and saying, “Hey, I've applied,” and asking for updates. And it's not to blame you as a Pre-PT. You’ve been told to keep in contact, but incorrectly. “Well, what are things that I should be looking at,...

Check out some wise words from one of our mentors, Greg Todd!

"The reason why I can train students however I want is because I get the people.  I do the marketing and the advertising, not having to rely on anybody to get them for me. Therefore, nobody can tell me that I cannot play music at my conferences because I'm in charge of marketing and advertising. If we want to be able to help people, we can do it in a way that we see fit but we must learn a set of skills.  I have created a program for those that want to learn these skills. Particularly for healthcare professionals, whether you are going to go into PT or other areas. It's proven and tested. It is called the 2021 healthcare challenge.

You can impact so many people through pushing forward with your dreams of becoming a physical therapist but just adding one more thing to it. Just add this one more thing and you can make it sound so good for yourself, your patients, and your community. The program will teach you...

Listen to what Greg Todd, one of our mentors, had to say during one of our livestreams:

Marketing and advertising must happen for a patient to come into your world. Once you have marketed and advertised to someone, you are starting to talk to people about a problem that they didn't know that they had. When they show interest, they realize that you might have a solution for them. That then moves them into the sales cycle. Which means that they know that there's a problem that they have. The solution to the problem is physical therapy. Once they are sold on doing a treatment, this is where most physical therapists only work. Physical therapist fulfills and treats clients. Once you finish fulfilling and treating, the patient cycle starts over.

In order to be in the top 1%, you must know how to do it all. The problem is that the doctor has marketed and advertised to the client. The doctor brought the client in and provided the script. The doctor did all the selling for you. So, all you...

A lot of students don't know they're in the rejection loop until after they apply and don't get into any programs. The rejection loop is something we recreate for ourselves. It is created from the fear of being rejected. We do things out of fear of getting rejected. Let’s say that I apply to as many schools as possible, any school that I know of, hoping that at least one of those programs will accept me. What happens is I might have applied to programs that are not a match for me. Then when I get rejected, I get a false result. A false result means that you were told that you were not a good applicant..even if we both know you ARE a good applicant. So now you believe it and take it personally.

Out of fear, we do things that give us a false result. In this case, the fear led to apply to as many schools as possible. The false result was there are schools that rejected us, but those schools were not a good match to begin with. We start to falsely believe that we are not good...

I went to Clearwater beach and came across a lot of street performers, but there were two that caught my attention. These two had the same gifts, but they had different results from the audience. One of them drew the crowd and the other did not. The reason why this happened involves you as an applicant. 

The first performer was good, but the crowd was not feeling it. There was another performer about 100 yards away and the crowd was locked in on what she was doing. She appeared just as gifted as the first performer, so the difference was not the skill level. As a Pre-PT, we put all our efforts towards our skills. You might feel like you're a solid applicant.. but students with a high GPA have been rejected before. 

The first person that was not drawing in the crowds was very gifted, but was self-promoting. She spent more time talking about her success and her accolades. She was saying how she was a professional street performer, spent many years doing this and her message...