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...

Self-awareness is your greatest and most valuable tool as a pre-PT, but the truth is, we don't use it that much. It's like, I know, I'm good at those classes or, I'm not great at standardized exams, we think that is self-awareness. Self-awareness is a lot deeper. Being self-aware is like being good at bowling. The concept of bowling seems simple, but the truth is, practicing it over and over is what allows you to become a better bowler. In your pre-PT journey, it is the same concept of you starting to practice to become more self-aware.

When we're not able to look inside and say, why am I feeling those things? Why am I stressed about that? Why am I anxious about that? Well, if we don't look inside, and assess those things, then what happens is we put ourselves in a position to self-sabotage by getting our way. There's a reason for everything you feel, whether it's stress or excitement. Do you understand why certain environments stress you out? Maybe it's the people you have around...

I'm going to share a story with you today about how I almost did not become a PT. I lived in Michigan for about 18 years.  I was in high school; one time every year, at my school, they would bring different professionals like a career day. I was focusing on two different professions which were becoming a lawyer and becoming a physician. My parents had expectations of me becoming a lawyer, engineer, physician, a minister, or something that my family would have seen as respectable. I just never fully felt like that was my calling. In school, we had an event where you had to register for which profession you wanted to listen to before being able to go listen to the professionals talking. But the two I wanted to go to were full. So I chose the next profession which most of my friends registered for and, this was a physical therapist. So I had no idea what a physical therapist was. I didn't know the difference between a PT or a regular therapist. 

I do remember being in...

There are four things I want you guys to prioritize when choosing a physical therapy school. Number one is cost, two is location, three is clinical experiences, and four is when you can take the NPTE your National Physical Therapy Examination.

Number one is the cost. I don't want a scenario to happen years from now, where you're regretting your decision to go to that school because of how much student debt you're in due to the cost of the school.  Now, with cost, I'm talking about not a difference between $2,000 and $3,000. I'm talking about a difference in costs of $10k, 15k, 25k, 35k.. of the schools that you're going to go to. The next thing with the cost is the rank of the schools that you want to apply to. So oftentimes, we get students asking about schools they have ranked number two, number five, number seven, but it costs so much more money than another school. If you're going after schools because it's ranked number two on your list, but it's a million dollars, you...

My name is Joshua Klepes, and I am a first year PT student @ D’Youville College. To be honest, life has not been very easy for me as of recently, and I am actually contemplating a leave of absence. Nevertheless, I wanted to share lessons I have learned over the past 3 years of being a pre-SPT and a SPT who deals with chronic depression. After reading this, I hope it inspires you to keep keeping on to obtain your occupational dream job. 

To manage your depression while being a pre-SPT, you need to learn how to walk the line.

There is a fine line between feeling your sadness and becoming motivationally paralyzed and obtaining your goals and ignoring your emotions completely. Obviously, either extreme is not healthy, but a healthy balance is possible. Society needs to normalize being able to do things while being sad because it is completely possible. To do this, I think there is, at a minimum, five things one must do: 

1. Admit to yourself that you are sad. Just say...

We all love taking advice from people we love, right? Everybody has an opinion, and getting advice can be a good and dangerous area to play. When taking advice, be very aware of the advice bringing you closer to getting accepted into PTs rather than farther away. A lot of people will give you input on what they think you should be doing right now as a pre-PT. While that can be a good thing from the right person, it can also be a scary thing from the wrong people. It can feel like you're being pulled in multiple directions. You can be taking advice from people that are kind of contradicting each other which becomes overwhelming and messy.

What I want you to do is, especially with people that have never applied to PT school, when they're giving you advice, ask yourself what they're telling me to do, or how they're advising me. Is it bringing me closer to my dream of becoming a physical therapist or, is it taking me away? Understand that when most people are giving you advice, they...

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...