Interviewing for PT Schools

This past week was full of interviews: people looking to see if you have a personality, you’re bright enough to attend their school and nice enough to be around for the next three years. I felt quite nervous about the whole thing not only because I hadn’t been through anything like this before, but because it’s the thing I’ve been working towards for the past year and a half. That, and Julie might beat me up if I don’t get accepted anywhere.

So the first school I went to was the University of Utah. Those who know how big of a BYU fan I am also know how much pride I had to swallow to even apply there. But despite this, it is an excellent program, and it would be an honor to be accepted there. It was a two day process. They received over 577 applicants, interviewed 96 people and are going to accept 45 students. The first day consisted of two one-on-one interviews with two separate faculty members. The second day was one group interview with me, two other applicants and a panel of faculty, current students and local PT professionals. I had an idea of what kinds of questions might be asked, but no matter how prepared you are, you can’t be ready for everything. For example, in the group interview we were asked a question and then asked to present our ideas. The question was: “Define ‘Generation Y’, how you will use technology throughout your career and how you think us as faculty should integrate this technology to teach you?”….ah?! Thank goodness I got that question with the group, because I think I would have fainted had I been asked it in the individual portion. U of U interviews went pretty well, I left thinking that I had done ok, not spectacular, but good enough.

After I was done at Utah I hopped a plane to Denver to interview at Regis University. Regis is a small, private Catholic Jesuit school about 10 minutes outside of Denver. I was really impressed with the campus and the faculty members that I met. They were so nice and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say in the interviews (there were only two one- on- one interviews). They received over 500 applicants, interviewed 216 people and accepted 65 students. After the interviews were finished they took us on a tour of the campus, which took about an hour (and we saw every building on campus!) and let us sit in on a class lecture…which was really cool. After all that they tried to smooshe us a little by feeding us and talking about their program and how great it is. The greatest part was that they let us know three days later if we got accepted or not…and I WAS! Yay!

I flew home for a couple of days and then got on ANOTHER plane to Miami where I interviewed with the University of Miami. I got there on a Thursday afternoon and figured I had the whole rest of the day to go see the town, so I hopped on Miami’s public transit system and headed for the beach. All of you who have taken part of the public transit system in a big city know just how interesting this can be, and I assure you, this experience was no different. The first guy I sat by was singing out loud, another guy LITERALLY smelled like he had taken a poo in his pants (the entire bus smelled like an outhouse) and another guy with a full on mowhawk, rings with spikes on them and tight plaid pants sealed the deal. When I arrived on campus we only had one interview with a faculty member which lasted about an hour. We then took a tour of the Miami campus and a tour of the PT building. There is no doubt Miami has an excellent program; they have a stellar faculty, ties to a lot of pilgrims of the profession and a great reputation. To be accepted there would be a true privilege, but I won’t hear back from them for about a month.

All in all, a really great experience, but the number one school of choice’s interview doesn’t happen until the end of February. We’re crossing our fingers that all goes well there and they like me enough to let me in.