Doctor of Physical Therapy Admission Requirements

Applications are processed through PTCAS. See Fresno State's PTCAS Program Page for more details.

To apply to Fresno State's DPT Program, a student must complete ALL items below:

Bachelor's Degree

Hold or be eligible to receive a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university by the end of the spring semester/quarter prior to admission to the program. Any major is accepted.

Undergraduate Cumulative GPA

A minimum 3.0 GPA for all undergraduate coursework is also required. The undergraduate cumulative GPA is calculated by PTCAS (not the institution where you received your bachelor's degree) and includes failed and repeated courses, even if they are later repeated for a higher grade or excluded from the GPA on the transcript. See PTCAS for more information on how the undergraduate cumulative GPA is calculated. You must have a minimum 3.0 GPA at the time of application.

The average GPA for Accepted Students can be found in the PTCAS Program Directory.

Prerequisite Courses (10 total)

In-progress Winter or Spring prerequisite courses will not be allowed. Additionally, applicants can only have 2 prerequisite courses in progress during the Fall term in which they are applying. All 10 prerequisite courses must be completed by the end of the Fall term in which the PTCAS application is submitted. Applicants with prerequisite courses planned for Spring 2025 will have an incomplete application and will not be considered for admission.

Receive a grade of C or better in each prerequisite course and maintain a minimum prerequisite GPA of 3.0. You must have a minimum 3.0 GPA at the time of application.

The average GPA for Accepted Students can be found in the PTCAS Program Directory .

All science courses must include laboratories and cannot be at an introductory level. Human Anatomy and Physiology must be taken from the Anatomy, Physiology, Anatomy & Physiology, Biology or Zoology departments. Combined Human Anatomy and Physiology courses will be considered only if a combined course sequence (2 semesters or 2/3 quarters) is completed.

AP credit, CR/NC grades* (See COVID-19 Updates HERE), correspondence courses, or independent study courses cannot be used for prerequisite requirements.

Course equivalencies : If prerequisite courses are taken at a school other than Fresno State, please ensure they are equivalent by checking www.assist.org (for California universities). If you have a course taken out of state and you are unsure if it is equivalent, please contact the Admissions Coordinator, Ashley Behlen, at abehlen@csufresno.edu to verify equivalency. You will need the name of the institution, course number, term/year, course description, and syllabus (preferred). You can also submit this information through your PTCAS Application as a document upload.

Prerequisite Repeat Policy : No course may be repeated more than one (1) time and no more than three (3) prerequisite courses may be repeated.

Coursework older than 7 years is not accepted . If you need to retake a course because it is over 7 years old, it does not count as a repeated course.

For the current application cycle for admission for Fall 2025, courses taken in 2017 are accepted, while courses taken in 2016 are NOT accepted.

Online Courses : (See COVID-19 Updates HERE)