My son, now a sophomore at Brown in CS chose Brown over Duke b/c, while he was so impressed with Duke following a student visit and Blue Devil stay over, decided for CS that Brown was the better choice, and it has worked great. But Duke is clearly an amazing school. My daughter will be applying next year with comparable grades. She, as of now, is as certain of a career as a DPT as my son is a computer scientist. I can’t find that Duke offers a relevant undergraduate major such as kinesiology or health exercise etc., which is a little odd since it appears to have a great DPT program. Are there any relevant majors at Duke for aspiring DPT’s?
Duke doesn’t really have undergraduate majors that cater to a specific career choice. Just like they don’t have a business major. For aspiring physical therapists, biology would be a good choice. Basically, coursework in biology (particularly in anatomy and physiology), chemistry, physics, psychology, statistics would all be relevant. Health exercise and kinesiology are often athlete majors at other universities (not that that’s a bad thing, but they’re typically not known for the most rigorous curriculum). Check out the course catalog to see what’s available:
https://registrar.duke.edu/courses-classrooms/course-catalog
Below is a link to the APTA site in which DPT prerequisites and undergraduate majors are discussed. As with MD programs, an applicant’s undergraduate major is largely irrelevant, as long as the applicant has taken the required prerequisites.
http://www.apta.org/ProspectiveStudents/Admissions/PTProcess/
And here’s a link to Duke’s own DPT admissions page:
https://dpt.duhs.duke.edu/education/admissions/prerequisites
Duke notes that applicants can major in “anything.”