Doctor of Physical Therapy - Virtual Information Session

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you so much for taking the time to attend our live virtual information session about our Doctor in Physical Therapy program here at Stockton University. We're going to give everybody just a moment to make sure your sound is on and that you can hear us before we get started on whatever device you're watching. If you are watching this pre recorded, thank you for doing that as well and just give us a moment for.

Our live attendees to to get situated.

Again, we thank you so much for taking the time to come and learn more about our program here at Stockton.

Looks like we have more and more people rolling in. We are so happy to have you all here.

All right, great. It looks like we've got everyone in. So again, good afternoon. My name is Jen Radwanski. I'm the Associate Director for Graduate Admissions here at Stockton University. And we thank you for taking the time join us for our virtual information session about our Doctor of Physical Therapy program here at Stockton. I am joined by some of my colleagues as well. Matt, would you like to introduce yourself?

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our information session for the DPT program. My name is Matt Scholl. I work in the Office of Graduate Admissions. I oversee our application system and I'm here to yield any questions you may have, but my expertise would be more so on your PT cast application and the process of applying to the program. Once again, thank you for coming today.

Awesome. All right and before I turn things over to our main presenter to introduce herself and when I just share a few items with you, Matt and I are going to be moderating this session for you all. As you notice there is a chat feature we would love to answer all questions that you have. If you are joining us live, you can put those right into the chat and again we will we'll be able to answer those as we go. However, we really recommend you waiting to put any questions in the chat because more than likely we will answer your question through this very thorough presentation that we.

For you, so maybe jot them down on a little piece of paper as we go and at the end we'd be happy to take some time to answer those questions you have. If you're watching this prerecorded, we are also going to be sharing information, our contact information with you all. So again, you can ask questions of us too. If you have questions that are maybe of a more personal nature and you are watching this live, we would suggest maybe refraining from any personal information in the chat again as this is being pre recorded and will be shared with others in the future.

So with that all being said, I would like to turn things over to our our presenter today. Doctor Mr. Angelo is one of our amazing DPT faculty and she's here to share more information.

About the program and some of the highlights and the things you'd have to look forward to if you were to apply and get into our program. So, Doctor, Mr. Angela, I'm going to turn things over to you.

Thanks, Jen. Hi everybody. Yeah, I am Doctor Alicia Mastrangelo and I am one of the physical therapy professors here at Stockton. Umm, some of my background, umm, most of my clinical expertise is in the area of orthopedics and sports medicine. Umm, I've also done.

Based physical therapy, so in the elementary and secondary schools in New Jersey, as well as Women's Health. In addition, I do research and my research is mostly involving a community Wellness and engaging the local and regional community and efforts to improve health promotion as well as Wellness. So, uh, we keep ourselves busy here at Stockton.

This first slide here is the building where our classes are held. It is a state-of-the-art building. It's, it's phenomenal to teach in this building. I, I can't say enough about it. So let's get on to the profession of physical therapy. Why physical therapy? So first of all, physical therapists are movement experts who optimize quality of life through.

Exercise as well as hands on therapy and patient education.

We work with our patients day in, day out. We do evaluation on patients and come up with diagnosis for why they're having, why they're seeking physical therapy. And some of our treatment plans are going to work on improving somebody's mobility if they have mobility limitations. Also a lot of our patients will come in with pain management issues and and we'll work on that as well.

As chronic conditions, umm, and injuries, we also get involved in uh, prevention of injuries as well as chronic disease. So umm, it's a great profession with a lot of options. I've enjoyed being a physical therapist my whole career.

People always ask on these types of presentations. What about the salaries? So uh, the mean wage for a physical therapist in the United States in 2023 was 99,710.

So a reasonable salary and the job opportunities are absolutely here. The projected job growth for physical therapy employment is 14% between 2023 to 2033, which is much faster than other occupations. So there are a lot of job opportunities, in fact about 13,600 openings for physical therapists.

Are projected each year, and that information is from the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, so lots of good current information.

The next slide here is about the application process. And Matt, I believe you're going to take that one.

Absolutely. Yep. Happy to jump in. So as you guys should know at this point, applying to the PT program, you're going through something known as the PT Cast application. So it is known as a physical therapy centralized application system. And then we have a couple different kind of paths that you can take into this program. So the first path being the 3 + 3.

Program regardless of your path, you are applying through the PT CAS application. So when you go to oursite@stockton.edu all the applications will push you back to the PT cast site.

You are doing a PT cast application, so the difference between a 3 + 3 and a traditional applicant is that generally a 3 + 3 applicant is very far along in their education to a point that they almost have four years of their undergraduate degree wrapped up. By year three, it is a 3 + 3. Because of that reasoning, you're in essence getting your undergraduate degree within three years time and then entering into the TPT program, which takes three years with all of your credits.

The doctorate degree. These are Stockton undergraduate students. Typically you really should be seeking out advisement and being linked up with a preceptor because the workload that you're taking on it could be pretty exhaustive. So just make sure that if you are interested in applying early that you're on the proper track to be considered as a 3 + 3 student.

So those are the details in regards to the 3 + 3, again, you're pretty far along in your undergraduate study, but make sure that you are seeking out advisement here at Stockton University so that the preceptor really has you guided towards the right path to make sure that you have all these prerequisites accomplished by the time that you're applying. The other traditional format program is that typically we're gonna see your senior year, you're gonna be applying to the PT program.

And you have all your prerequisites for the most part accomplished. You can apply to the program with two outstanding prerequisites in your spring term. But those are primarily the two paths that you have applying to our program. We majority of our program, we do have the traditional route again, the 3 + 3. It's very get after its students. But if you are in that scenario, that path is available to you. And then in regards to non Stockton students, it's the traditional path. So you'd be applying to PT cast.

And filling out the PT cast application the same way as I'm stocked in undergraduates would be applying.

All right, back to you.

Absolutely.

Thank you. So once you're in the well, the, let me step back here, the prerequisite. So regardless of which major you have as an undergrad, you can still get into a physical therapy program. Umm, we do have most students come through either biology, exercise science or Health Sciences, but we also have students come in through many other.

Pathways many other degrees, for example at Stockton there's also a a pre physical therapy degree through the dance program. And then we've also had people choose second careers. So lots of options, but everybody must take all the prerequisites. So they're going to involve 2 biology classes with labs, 2 chemistry classes with labs, 2 physics classes with labs as well as a full.

Of anatomy and Physiology with lab.

And some schools, if you're coming not from Stockton, will do A and P1 and A and P2, whereas others like Stockton will do all anatomy in one course in all, Physiology in the other. In addition, you'll need psychology, at least one course in psych and a statistics class. So good well-rounded background regardless again of your major.

So.

Happy to jump back in. So I'm back. Umm, so let's talk a little bit about the, uh, the overall process of applying to the PT cast application. So at the top of this PowerPoint, you see that we have a verified date of October 1st, 2024. Obviously that date is coming up very shortly. So if you are considering applying to Stockton, I would say that you should start your application no later than the next couple of days.

So like I said, you are applying through the PT CAST application, so you go to ptcast.org.

Start an application and then you're choosing Stockton University as a school that you're applying to think of PT Cass as a very similar platform to the common application for first year students. This is a centralized application system for you to not only apply to Stockton but apply to other DPT programs if you choose to do so so the process of PT cast when we state that you have to be verified, I'm gonna go over some of the steps but in essence you have to have all the materials that we're requesting you need to have all the the sections filled out on your application and then.

PT Cast verifies your application to confirm that your transcript entry is proper. So what that means is when you're applying, you need to list all of your academic history, all the schools that you went to. You're physically putting in a manual entry of those courses and then the grades that you got. And then your transcripts are being sent officially to PT Cast. If there's some kind of discrepancy between the entry that you put in your in your application and the transcript, that's an official document.

CAS will put your application onto a hold and they'll let you know. We have an issue with verifying your application because there's some discrepancies at that time. You could correct the issue and then you could become verified, but we want to give yourself as much time as possible to get verified in case you do run into some of these issues. So if you have not started an application and are considering Stockton, please feel free to start an application ASAP just so that you can get all that information in there and get verified and give yourself the best.

Opportunity to get verified on time applications they must be verified to go to committee just because we need to take this information as accurate and only the way that we could do so is that it's verified by the company PT CAS themselves. So as stated official transcripts they're sent directly to PT CAS even if you are stuck in undergraduate student when you're setting transcripts they need to be sent to PT Cass and they're officially received by PT cast and verified. So make sure that if you did go to.

Any universities and if it's credits that are showing up on your transcript, that means that you need to provide that transcript from the other institution. So make sure you might have a lapse and just yeah, I did take a couple credits at this institution. Make sure that you are accounting for that within your application. 3 letters of recommendation are required within your application. Obviously get recommendations from people who know you and know of your experience. It can really, really recommend you. So don't go to you know, your grandparents although.

They'll give you glowing recommendations and family members, but really they need to be one from a professor, One from a licensed PT is strongly recommended. Strongly recommended because if you're doing hours with them, there's no better kind of recommendation when you're applying to a physical therapy program than having one from a licensed physical therapist that could talk about you as a an assistant. The hours that you did underneath them. They are great recommendations to include within your application.

Additionally, there's some essays that you will see.

In there, make sure that you're taking your time on the essays. Make sure that you get another set of eyes on them, your friends, family, academic.

Faculty members, anybody that you really trust judging your essays, make sure you take your time on them. If the essays are different, make sure that you're answering those essays different. Do not answer 2 separate essays that are similar the same way. Make sure that you're putting time and thought into those essays. Observation hours. You're looking for a minimum of 80 hours, and then once you start the PT cast application, you'll see all the other things that are required.

At the time of applying to the PT Cast app, the same wavelength of making sure that you're sending transcripts directly to PT Cast, make sure that you're sending your GRE scores directly to PT CAS. Please use that PT CAST code here. That's all over our sites. 0313, the GRE is required. However, you are judged holistically as an applicant. You're taking into account your GPA, your prerequisites, your GRE scores. So we typically get questions on like.

Is the average score that we're looking for. We don't have any postage GRE score. However, it is needed for you to be considered. So make sure if you do not have agreed completed yet, look at the upcoming dates. Get yourself registered for Agre. They are still offering GR ES at home. So the ability to take that GRE is there for you. So make sure that you have a plan to take that test if you have not done so yet. The last part when you are verified, you get imported into Stockton's local system. Here you will get an.

Saying that we've received your application and then you would pay the $50 Stockton fee to generate your account if you did not get a waiver code to waive that. I will actually include that waiver code at the back end of this appointment, this presentation today. And I'll make sure that those who have attended get that and that will take care of the $50 fee on the Stockton side. And there is a section that you will put that code into in your PT CAS application.

But I'll make sure that all attendees receive that code today and that'll take care of your $50 fee so that when you are imported into stock and system, you're not on the hook for the supplemental fee. And then additionally, there's technical standards and essential functions. These are typical among the health cohorts. Make sure that you review those. It tells you, you know the, the ability and the standards that you need to go through this program and be successful in the program, whether it's the requirements, physical requirements.

So just make sure that you look at those technical standards, those standards are read if you are to be admitted into the program and you do sign off understanding those technical standards if and when you are admitted to the program as well. So I know that's a lot of information, but make sure that if you are gonna start a PT CAS app to do that soon, give yourself some time. And like I said, the verification, it could be held up by certain data points that are inaccurate. So just make sure if you are gonna apply for Fall 25 to start that application as soon as you can.

All set.

OK, I'm gonna stay on this slide for just another minute. I did want to.

Just, umm, remind you all that 4 letters of recommendation. It is, uh, we are looking for at least one to come from a professor that you've had as well as, umm, someone that you either worked with or umm, done observation hours who's a licensed physical therapist. So whether you get paid for those observation hours or.

It is just simply a volunteer. It's very valuable and we look for that with the essay. Please make sure the essay is in your own words. That is also really important. Umm, that.

It's your thoughts and.

Umm, just a little bit of information, OK, umm, more on the statistics and the program. Our program has 34 seats in each cohort, and we do begin in the fall semester.

Umm, right now our semester starts right after Labor Day every year, umm, we do receive over 300 applications every year. So make sure that your application is, as Matt was stating, complete umm, make sure you've met all the, the markers that you need to make for the application. Another question we get asked a lot is what, what GPA do you need and.

We don't have a set GPA but we do have statistics on.

The individuals who have been accepted to Stockton's program over the last five years. So you can see that on this slide as well.

Another thing about the application process is that the Stockton DPT program does utilize what's called a holistic approach to your entire application package. Uh, we do give preference to residents of New Jersey as well as people who did their undergraduate degree at Stockton. However, there still are many people who are non stocked and graduates that get into our program, so.

Make sure to consider that.

When applying to us, umm, the application process, uh, deadlines, uh, is October 1st. So that is coming up. You do still have time to get that done. So, umm, as Matt said, get on that soon, uh, right away. Umm, applicants are typically notified by the Office of Graduate Admissions when they are accepted. Usually that's around late December or early January.

It's not an exact date every year.

And changes are usually posted in June for the PT cast applications. So you know, right now the cycle that we're in is ending October 1st and the next cycle will begin in June.

So our curriculum, we do have a full time program and it is made-up of six uh semesters plus 3 summer sessions. Umm, the uh, courses are organized within what's called a systems based curriculum. And uh, we strongly emphasize evidence based practice. So we're reviewing the current literature.

With our students and what we're learning.

Within research.

Our curriculum does include nine undergraduate credits as well as 102 doctoral credits. And then we have 3 clinical rotations and they are designed to be in three different settings. Umm, the first one will occur after you've completed the first two years. And so that's in the summer of your second year. And then the next one, the next clinical rotation will occur.

In between your fall and spring semester of your third year and then the third clinical experience is the final.

Academic experience you'll have at Stockton?

This though it might be difficult to see. I would recommend if you'd like to see what's occurring in our curriculum every semester to go on to our DPT website. You'll probably be able to see it much clearer. But this does show you each semester and what courses we have in each of those semesters. And then where our summer session falls like for example, we do have a summer session at the end of the first year, but it's only.

Six weeks, so you're still able to get out and work a summer job if if you'd like to do that.

Program outcomes. So this we have to, we have a national physical therapy exam that anybody who wants to be a licensed therapist in the state of New Jersey will have to take. And this shows our ultimate pass rate over the last five years as well as our first time pass rate. And currently our class of 2024 is in the process of taking those exams right now.

Our graduation rate.

Is also posted here on this slide.

And we are an accredited program through the Commission on Accreditation for Physical Therapy Education. And then in addition to our graduation rate, we also have a 100% employment rate among our graduates.

This slide shows a picture of anatomage. Umm, and this is for the purpose of teaching gross anatomy. It's basically like a huge iPad, umm, I believe it's 6 feet in length. And umm, it shows slides of, uh, cadaver dissection that's been previously done and umm.

It's a wonderful way to learn about anatomy.

And anyhow, it I have worked with it and I just find it to be a very easy way for students to learn about human gross anatomy.

Next is the simulation lab, UMM, at Stockton in the building that our physical therapy classes are held in, which is the Scarpa building on our main campus. We have something called a simulation lab and we have, I believe, four different simulation rooms where students are able to do case studies with our professors as well as our staff.

Umm, and.

Practicing what it's like to do evaluation and treatment on in a simulation setting before you go into the clinic. So it's, it's a wonderful experience. It's all state-of-the-art equipment. Uh, we're really proud of that area. Next is our interprofessional baby lab. This is probably, umm, outside of graduation, my most favorite day of teaching. I do get to participate as a professor in interprofessional baby lab.

And we involve students from physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech, as well as nursing. And then you can see our umm, our little mini professors are the actual babies that come in to participate and to teach our students what it's like to be a little one and to grow umm. And we put our students into mostly teams of three and four.

And each person in the group is from a different profession or a different curriculum. And we get our students to work together to learn about the the babies. We believe our our babies are up to 2 1/2 years old that come in. And then that's the picture on the right of the picture on the left is after the lab.

Then all of our students get together in the Campus Center.

And we discuss.

On a group level, what they learned from the lab experience. So lots of fun.

Another thing that we do with our students is faculty student presentations. Umm, as I mentioned in my, my umm, introduction, I do uh, quite a bit of research here at Stockton and uh, while none of these are showing a picture of my research, umm, I can tell you that.

Every year we as a faculty present with our students at state as well as national and even international presentations. This past February we had, I believe, 53 faculty and students at our national conference, as well as a lot of our alum because it was in Boston, so it was easy to get to, but we really do try to do.

Engage our students in research.

Next is our DPT white coat ceremony, another one of my favorite days in our curriculum. And so this occurs in the spring of the second year and umm we have a celebration of all that the students have learned up to that point and that there a couple weeks away from going on their first clinical. And so that is what the white coat ceremony is about entering the profession.

Clinical Profession.

So next is a slide about the DPT Core faculty. These are my colleagues that I've been teaching with for years.

A little bit about them. There are nine of us. We have a one.

Board.

American board of physical therapy specialists in Pediatrics. We have 3 orthopedic specialists. Umm, we have an 11 to one ratio for students to core faculty and a 17 to one ratio of faculty to students in lab. Umm, we have had a number of grants, uh, in particular I was funded by the CDC for.

Live Healthy Violin Grant, which was a three-year grant that we evaluated community Wellness.

In Vineland, we also have a number of us have co-authored textbooks as well as chapters in textbooks. Umm, and uh, we have a couple of words, uh, of our faculty. So we have a Catherine Worthington fellow of the American Physical Therapy Association as well as fellows of the National Academy of Practice. And then we have a number of continuing education courses that we offer to our colleagues.

Who are already licensed. So we engage in the community a little bit more about Stockton. I already did talk about the ratio of faculty to students. We have 342 full time faculty here at Stockton, not in physical therapy, but in the whole university and 91% hold the highest degree in their field.

We also have this amazing academic quad expansion that has been going on over the last few years.

I mentioned about how physical therapy is in the new Scarpa Health Science Center and we've been in there since 2018. And there's also an additional campus at Atlantic City which houses, uh, no joke, beachfront living, umm, which is pretty cool. So, uh, that's neat to see and be a part of. Uh, and then some additional information on.

Slide about our national ranking as well as how well Stockton really tries to work with vets who are returning to college. So that brings us to questions, which I believe is where everybody else comes back in.

Correct.

All right. Can, um, thank you so much, Doctor. Mr. Angela, that was, can you hear me? Can you hear me now?

Can you hear me now?

Hang tight while we wait for Jen to come back in.

Alright, try again.

I can hear you.

All right, I can see the little green light going off. So it looks like we're good. Thank you so much for for sharing all that information. That was extremely, extremely helpful. So for those of you who are joining us live, please feel free to take some time to put some questions in the chat. The three of us would be happy to answer any questions you have. If you are joining us and watching the pre recording, I am going to share our contact information. This is for everyone as well too, but please feel free to call or e-mail us with questions we can do.

One-on-one sessions with you if you have additional questions, but again, for our live guests, please feel free to take a couple of moments and drop those those notes in the chat.

Alright, Sydney, we have our first question. If we have submitted our application and it was verified, how soon will we receive an e-mail for information and the link on how to fill out the supplemental Stockton application?

So it would be likely the next day, it would depend if it was on the weekend, it would likely be that Monday. And then you'll receive that e-mail letting you know that your application has entered our system and your profile has been created and you'll have a PIN to finish the creation of your application.

And there's not besides clicking that link and activating your account and submitting the the fee, there's nothing more than that. So it's not a legitimate application. It's kind of just the creation of your Stockton account.

Great. Thank you. All right. Another question, I was wondering if there is an interview process?

So currently now we currently do not have an interview process for our PT program.

How are clinical sites determined?

So do you mean when you are admitted within the program or setting up hours prior to the program? So we do have a clinical director as part of the DPT program. They do their best to get you.

In locations that are geographically close to where you're staying, where you're living. But yeah, we do have a clinical director that is appointed and then like I said, they'll do their best to get you into location. But we have so many great relationships with a lot of sites through our program.

That we've been utilizing for years. So that's how the clinical placement exists when and if you are admitted into the program.

Great. We have a GRE question. I'm going to kind of summarize, but basically someone is taking the GRE this week and nervous about making sure that the GRE scores are going to be received by the October 1st verification deadline. And then we've gotten some questions like that in the office recently too and asking about, you know, whether they could submit unofficial and, and all that. So Matt, can you touch on that for a moment?

Yeah. So typically there isn't too much of a hold up. If they're getting sent virtually, we should receive them. What else state is don't, don't be extremely nervous about it. Like I said, make sure that you are scheduling a test if you haven't taken it yet. But when the GR ES come through, I can receive them and then put them within your application if need be. But as I said, it should be sent directly through that the PT cast. So when you're doing your GRE.

You are going to be looking for PT Cash's code for stock University. So sometimes your, your GRE, if you select Stockton, it'll go to Stockton's funnel of Dre's. I can grab it from there and then I, I manually will adjust your application for you. But really to, to avoid any hiccups, I would send that directly to the PT cast code. It can take a few days if the GRE comes forward, if you're verified, that's great. The GRE comes in by the time that we go to.

Committee review, you will be fine. Additionally, you would hear from us in this office. If a Jerry is still not a part of your file, you would certainly hear from us, but just make sure you take that Jerry as soon as you can. Use the proper code so that there's no hang up in the time, but typically virtually receiving it shouldn't really take more than a week, but just make sure that you're doing that as soon as you can.

And then for those who are retaking the GRE, they've submitted a score but are retaking it after the October 1st deadline. Preference on how we receive that and how that gets reviewed?

One more time. I'm sorry, Jen.

Yeah.

Any thoughts on that one, Matt? That's OK. So there the question is anybody who's retaking the GRE, so they've already submitted GRE scores, but they're resubmitting scores that may come in after the October 1st deadline or after their applications BeenVerified.

Yep. So as long as, if those are received before the committee has done their review and they've cut the file, we can include those GRE scores. Additionally, we didn't touch on it, but if you have a, a certain section of your GRE that is stronger than the other sections in, in another test, we do a super score of those, right. So if your quantitative was stronger on one test, we will take that section score and you'll, you will be super scored. So I found the one test.

Struggled with quantitative and the other one was stronger. As I've stated, we're gonna take the strongest sections out of the multiple GRE tests, so that's something to think about. The GRE scores come through after verification. If they are there as they go to review, they will be seen and scored within your file.

Great. Next question is regarding those who have been verified and received notification that their application has been verified, but they have not received the information on the supplemental. And also if they have already paid the fee for the supplemental and are just hearing about the waiver, is is there a way to retroactively reimburse?

Umm, so for the first, I can verify umm, make sure that you're checking spam. Sometimes we may have umm, the slate instance may struggle with education emails. Umm, so I could definitely look into it. Uh, if you have not received it, you should receive it. The getting the feedback. Unfortunately, I would not be able to give it back. But if you are imported into the system and have are not paid up at this point.

I can assist you. Like I said those that attended you will get the code. However I can't do a retro refund for for the $50.

Alright, I believe that has brought us to the end of our questions. However, like I said, our contact information is there on the screen, so please feel free to jot that down. It's also on our website. If you come up with any questions as you're going through the process, we're all here to help you through that and very happy to answer those questions. Matt and I are part of an amazing team. There's more than just the two of us and there's someone to answer the phone Monday through Friday, 9:00 to 5:00 and to help to answer those questions as you're going through this application process.

Also wanted to give just a huge shout out again to Doctor Mastrangelo for taking the time to.

Sit with us today to share her experience. One of the things I will always say is Stockton's strengths in our graduate program is our faculty. We have amazing faculty who really, really care about our students who take the time. You're not a number, you are a name, you are a person. You are you are a story to each one of them. And they really take the time and energy to work with all of you in in our program. And we are so grateful for that and really proud to be able to share that as one of our largest strengths of our graduate program.

Thank you.

Here at Stockton. So again, if you have other questions, please don't hesitate to reach out, but we wish all of you a wonderful day and thank you all so much for your help. Have a great day.

Bye.

Hi, everybody.

Play.