In the summer and fall of the application cycle, most PT school applicants worry about whether they’ll be accepted anywhere. But eventually, typically in the winter, a lucky bunch of pre-PT’s have a new worry: What do you do if you’ve been accepted to a school and they ask you to put down a deposit before you’ve heard back from other schools?
I know how stressful this fortunate situation can be because I was once in a similar one myself.
When I applied to PT school, I ended up receiving multiple acceptances, and put down deposits at both Columbia and USC – my top two schools. I would have been happy to attend either school, but I waited to make my decision until my now-husband secured admission to graduate school himself. I let both schools know, and ultimately, we both decided to attend different programs at Columbia and live in New York City. As soon as we decided, I informed both schools.
In short, when waiting to make a decision, you probably need to put down two deposits. This is what was recommended by a PT professor friend of mine who plays an active role in his school’s admissions.
“Two deposits is the way to go,” he told me.
While these deposits typically range from $500-1,000, remember that although not inexpensive, it’s not a large amount of money compared to what you’ll ultimately pay in tuition to attend the school that is best suited to you.
This professor discouraged asking the first school to delay the deposit because it can leave a bad impression.
Another concern is whether schools can see that you’ve been admitted somewhere and whether this can influence their own decision on your application. I went straight to the source and asked PTCAS about this via email.
Their answer? “Colleges will not know where you have been accepted.”
Keyword: “where.” They can still find out that you’ve been accepted elsewhere, just not at which schools.
I personally don’t see how this would impact their decision. Each school wants to admit the best applicants who will matriculate, graduate (not fail or drop out), and ultimately reflect well on the program. They’re hardly going to pass up a stellar applicant just because she may have other options.
As recently as January 2023, an applicant I worked with noted that one of the schools that she applied to sent her an email saying they could see she had been accepted to multiple programs and accepted their offers, and wanted her to make a decision. However, once she pulled the other acceptances, they granted her admission.
Over the last couple years, PTCAS has removed most of the information about what to do with multiple acceptances from their website for unknown reasons. Instead, they cite traffic rules from ACAPT that were created in 2015 and revised in 2020 that they note APTA and PTCAS “cannot enforce.” A note from November 2023 once again encouraged schools to follow these rules. The American Council of Academic Physical Therapy (ACAPT) is a component of APTA that includes most PT schools.
The rules come from this ACAPT website, and the list for applicants can be found here. (Unfortunately, they list the wrong email to ask for help; instead, it should be acapt@apta.org). Most of these rules make sense and involve communicating honestly and professionally. They don’t actually give any guidance on what students should do when responding to acceptances and putting down deposits.
Instead, in their FAQ document, they say, “Applicants who hold multiple acceptances are especially encouraged to withdraw their application from those programs they are no longer considering attending.” This has been changed from stronger language that was there initially. This rule makes sense. Tell the school(s) you’re not interested … eventually.
The rules schools are supposed to follow include not mandating deposits before January 15. Many programs completely ignore this rule as they are not obligated to actually follow ACAPT’s traffic rules. If a school is mandating you submit a deposit before January 15, there’s not much you can do, aside from complaining to ACAPT: “First, we encourage you to contact the program for clarification regarding the rules and your specific situation. To ACAPT’s knowledge, the majority of programs do follow and abide by the rules. If after contacting the program you would like to speak with ACAPT regarding your experience, please contact us at ACAPT@APTA.org. There is no formal compliance or enforcement arm of ACAPT. When the ACAPT Board receives a complaint/concern about a program not following the rules, the approach has been to contact that program directly to engage in a conversation about the concern that was brought to our attention to a) confirm the accuracy of the complaint/concern and b) if accurate, explore the challenges/barriers to that program following the rules. ACAPT continues to monitor applicant experiences through the annual PTCAS applicant survey.”
It seems schools can find out that you have multiple acceptance offers, but they won’t know which schools have made the offers, and which schools have made other decisions regarding your application. The professor I spoke with acknowledged that his program didn’t seem to check these things often. Again, they don’t really care if you’ve been accepted elsewhere. After a cycle is over, schools can see more complete information for each applicant. This is likely because some schools want to track where they lost students.
In summary, if you do get multiple acceptances, you may have to put down multiple deposits while you make your decision or wait to hear back from additional schools. In this case, recognize that you are creating a headache for the schools and also possibly taking a spot from another pre-PT, so try to decide fairly quickly. Be polite when dealing with each university, and let the school(s) you will not be attending know as quickly as you are able.