After checking her grade point average on a list posted outside her advisor’s door and seeing the number of students who had signed up for appointments to talk about their GPAs, a Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences sophomore physical therapy major noticed that there was a huge number of students at risk of academic probation.

The student, who wished to remain anonymous, said only 15 of 42 sophomores listed were above the required 3.0 GPA needed to stay in the six-year program. She has already dropped the major because of academic and personal issues.

“I really loved and wanted to do this,” she said. “Then you get here and the classes smack you around because of the requirements and then you have to switch to something else.”

The PT program holds the toughest academic standards of Sargent’s programs because it offers students a doctorate, Director of Physical Therapy Programs Linda Fetters said. This year’s sophomore class is the first to have a 3.0 GPA requirement after their first two years or be at risk of getting kicked out of the program.

“Students are clearly told of this requirement when applying to the program and when they are accepted into the program,” Fetters said. While previous classes only needed to maintain a 2.7 for their first three years, the 3.0 requirement now applies to PT students for all six years of the program.

After the first four years, PT students earn their Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences and after six years, they earn their Doctorate in Physical Therapy. Due to changing trends in the physical therapy profession, school officials converted the PT program from one that allows students to earn a Master of Science in Physical Therapy to one that allows them to earn a doctorate.

Part of the reason for the school’s high academic standards for program freshmen is that they have already been accepted into graduate school, Fetters said. The program is unique, she said, and very few schools in the country offer the combined program.

But sophomore Frank Mastromauro, whose GPA is currently below a 3.0, said he feels that while the program’s requirements changed, the curriculum did not.

“Obviously because it went to a doctorate program, we have to work harder but I don’t think you can just change the GPA,” he said. “I think the curriculum would have to accommodate the [change] too.”

During both semesters of their first year, PT students take 18 credits, and during the first semester of their sophomore year they take three challenging science classes and one elective, Mastromauro said.

“All these tests would happen in three days so you have to pick and choose what times to study for each test,” he said. “One class is going to get less study time, not because you choose to do that but because that’s just the way it happens.”

Spreading out classes is not practical due to the program’s nature, he said. Students must complete pre-requisites in three years.

“It’s tough – I think the [harder classes] have to be spread out, but then you couldn’t do the first part of the program in three years,” he said.

As this semester reaches its halfway point, sophomores in the physical therapy program must face the possibility of having to change their majors or petition to stay in the program while struggling to raise their GPAs as juniors.

According to Fetters, the petition process includes a departmental committee review of each student’s petition. The student may also request a review by the college.

“Every petition and request is taken seriously and dealt with on an individual basis,” Fetters said. “To summarize the process as lenient or strict ignores the intent of the process, which is to carefully consider each student and his or her record and request.”

Mastromauro said that if the college is going to allow most students close to the 3.0 to continue in the program, it should just lower the GPA requirement all together.

“If you can petition and get away with a 2.9 then why not just make the requirement 2.9 and solve that problem?” Mastromauro said.

Even if Sargent is initially forgiving about not meeting the GPA requirement, he said, students still have to try to get above a 3.0 GPA by the end of their junior year. By then, if a student still fails to meet the requirement, “that’s three years down the drain to do all this work for nothing,” Mastromauro said.

Within the first few weeks of this semester, the anonymous student had changed her major to occupational therapy after her advisor told her she would need four As to raise her GPA above 3.0. The student decided not to appeal her case because her GPA was so low.

“Leaving my fate up to a committee was not the best idea, and if you’re under a 3.0 it feels like you’re just trying to dig yourself out of a hole,” she said.

Sargent’s physical therapy program ranks 15th in the nation, according to the 2000 U.S. News and World Report. According to Sargent’s website, 93.33 percent of SAR students pass the national PT licensing exam.

Northeastern, whose program is most similar to BU’s, has a requirement of only 2.0, according to academic counselor Sonya Larrieux.

Furthermore, GPA requirements for the top two graduate physical therapy programs in the country – Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Southern California, are 2.0 and 2.75 respectively, according to the schools’ websites, though they do not have the same six-year program BU offers.

But Fetters said some students drop out anyway because they decide to change majors.

“It may be challenging to make a six year decision immediately out of high school,” Fetters said.

While there are no clear solutions to the issues PT students are facing, Fetters said she meets with students in groups weekly. Student class representatives also have regular meetings with faculty.

“We listen carefully to students’ comments and concerns and use their feedback to improve our curriculum and the students’ experience,” she said. “This is a common and regular occurrence.”

Still, while Mastromauro does not think lowering the GPA should be the only solution, he questioned the logic of and motives behind Sargent’s decision to raise the GPA, besides the program’s changes.

“I think that their idea was to try to make the program stronger, but at the same time they had to take into account, this is what was happening with the 2.7 GPA, and they had to ask how they could make the program more prestigious but at the same time accommodate the students,” Mastromauro said.