Abstract
Several studies suggest that preadmission GPA is the best predictor of academic success in the health professions including physician assistant, pharmacy, and physical therapy education.4-7 Studies of bachelor's level physical therapist (PT) education programs tended to focus on GPAs from basic sciences, especially physics, chemistry, anatomy, and physiology courses.8 One study that looked at final GPA at the end of a bachelor's program found that the grade in freshman anatomy was most predictive of academic success only for younger, traditional students.9 More recent studies of Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) programs have also found GPA to be the best predictor of academic success at the end of the first year, although with some limitations in applicability. [...]the cumulative GPA at four different time points in the DPT program was recorded: at the end of the first semester (1SemGPA), the end of the first academic year (AY1GPA), the end of the second academic year (AY2GPA), and the final end-of-program GPA (ProgGPA). Because the first semester historically was the most difficult for students, given the rigor of the foundational courses and that students were new to graduate school, we decided to include that semester and then the end of the academic year GPAs for each of the 3 years of the program. [...]logistic regression analysis was performed to explore the power of individual prerequisite course grades to predict academic performance in the DPT program. Relatively weaker students tend to struggle initially, yet still have average program GPAs that easily allow them to continue in the program. Because of the high correlation among GPAs throughout the program and narrowing of GPA ranges, academic performance may be more sensitively measured by using the data on academic difficulty.