To help prepare you for coursework in the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program, you must complete the required courses listed below before admission. PTCAS will use these courses to calculate a separate specific grade point average used in the admission decision. All courses must be at least three credit hours and be completed with a grade of ‘C’ or higher. All science courses must be at a level for science majors and include a lab. Online courses are accepted.
At the time of application, you may have one, yet-to-be-completed course. This outstanding course must be finished before starting the program.
Courses required for admission
Start the prerequisite form
As part of your application, you must fill out the prerequisite completion form. Download the file and save it to your computer to fill it out.
Prerequisite courses for DPT program
- Statistics* (must include a study of descriptive and inferential statistics)
- Human Anatomy* (one semester with lab, OR Human Anatomy & Physiology I with lab)
- Human Physiology* (one semester, lab preferred OR Human Anatomy & Physiology II with lab)
- General Chemistry* (two semesters with labs and be inorganic focused)
- General Physics* (two semesters with labs)
- Introductory Psychology
- Human Lifespan Development course (must include the study of development from birth to death; more than one course may be required)
*grades earned in these courses will be utilized to calculate math/science GPA
which must be a 3.2 minimum.
Read the prerequisite course descriptions to make sure your prerequisites are a suitable match.
Additional information
Please read through the following information carefully to ensure your prerequisites are accepted and processed correctly.
Online courses are accepted. Dual credit courses are acceptable if recorded on a college transcript with a grade. Courses taken for AP credit will be accepted for prerequisite courses if a score of three or higher is earned (the course must appear on official university transcripts). CLEP tests are not accepted.
Students may retake up to fifteen (15) credit hours of prerequisites — the higher grade will be used to compute prerequisite GPA, but all grades will be used to calculate cumulative GPA.
Applicants who previously matriculated in any physical therapy program in the United States are not eligible for admission into the IU Doctor of Physical Therapy program.
Application changes due to COVID-19
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the IU PT Admissions Committee is making the following changes to application requirements for the 2021–22 application cycle:
- Acceptance of online labs for prerequisite courses completed during 2020 and 2021. These will be accepted for any application year.
- Acceptance of a Satisfactory grade for prerequisite courses completed in spring 2020. The preference would be for all applicants to earn a letter grade. If an applicant’s school has transitioned to a Satisfactory/Fail or Pass/Fail grading option, grades would be accepted as follows: For students in the Indiana University system, a Satisfactory grade would be accepted although a Passing grade would not be accepted. For applicants from universities other than Indiana University, either Satisfactory or Passing grades will be accepted, though Satisfactory is preferred if both S and P grades are an option.
- The required minimum of 40 observation hours can be in any setting. Applicants who meet all other application requirements though do not meet the minimum 40 hours of observation are still encouraged to apply. Following application submission, alternative solutions to observation hours will be provided. These alternatives will afford the applicant an opportunity to better understand the scope of physical therapy practice, which is the ultimate goal of observation.