There's one topic in particular that a lot of people question, "I'm considering not doing PT anymore because of how expensive PT school is." If you are locked into physical therapy, great! But if at any point you ever felt this concern, you are not alone and should continue reading. Now, my question to you, have you ever asked yourself that question, even if it was for a split second? But I'm telling you right now, this is a question that most people have asked because of the cost of physical therapy education, and we'll explain a little bit more. The cost of a PT school education has gone up.. people that went to PT school 20 years ago were not paying anywhere close to what most students are paying now, and this is the reality.

I'm not going to lie, PT is pricey, but so are all other health care programs. Do I wish PT school was less expensive? Absolutely! Anything to reduce loads and reduce debt- I'm here for it. But let's understand that this is a massive thing that's...

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...

Everything we talk about is based on setting yourself up to be the student that no one can forget. During a group interview, we also want to stand out as an applicant. A group interview is just an interview where other people just happen to be in the room. A lot of the stress and anxiety comes from not being used to interviewing with multiple people. Understanding why may ease some of the stress and anxiety. The reason why the school does a group interview can be as simple as saving time. The school may not have the time or the faculty to interview everyone individually. Another reason why may be to see how you interact with the other students, faculty, and PT profession. They might be trying to see if you are a team player or just trying to sabotage everyone else.

A tip is to realize that everyone is just as nervous as you. Every applicant most likely has the same fears as you. Everybody is thinking the same, wondering rather to outdo or sizing each other up. Use that to your...

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...

You need to become the applicant that you would accept. Consider what kind of person you would accept, ask yourself if you are that applicant and work towards becoming that applicant. The type of applicant you become is a choice.

Why does Physical Therapy interest you? 

This is a common question, whether for an interview or an essay but often when answered there is a sense of struggle of trying to pull from something that's not there. The applicant recites things they've heard from other people because they are not that applicant that they would accept. There is something missing, that it factor is not there. They haven't become that person yet, they’re still faking it. 

There are five tips on how to become that applicant.

First, get to know the profession outside of your clinic or one person's perspective. Get to know physical therapy on a deeper level.  Get the perspective from a someone in home health and outpatient. Gain a big picture of what physical...