Thank you for your interest in the Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA) program at Mercer County Community College. Please make sure that you print out copies of both the Degree Requirements page and the Petition as they are both important documents to guide you toward accomplishing your goal.

  If you have never taken a college level or high school level science lab course then you should consider taking one prior to enrolling in Anatomy & Physiology. If you have never taken a college level Mathematics course or English course, then you should contact the Admissions office to schedule an appointment to take a placement test which will help determine the best courses for you to be placed in for you to succeed.

   The Degree Requirements page identifies all of the required courses for the PTA program along with prerequisite courses and the sequence of courses for the semesters within the professional phase of the PTA program which starts each summer. This is important to keep in mind since not all of the courses are offered in all of the semesters and the PTA specific courses in the professional phase must be taken in sequence.

   The general education courses (those that do not have a PTA prefix) can be completed at other academic institutions and considered for transfer into Mercer as long as you earn a grade of C or higher. However all 8 credits of Anatomy & Physiology must have been successfully completed with grades of C+ or higher from the same academic institution within the past 5 years for your credits to transfer. You can compare the course equivalents from your County College by checking on this chart. Psychology courses must be current as well and need to have been successfully completed within the past 10 years with grades of C or higher to be potentially considered for transfer. We will consider up to 23 credits for transfer into Mercer for the PTA program equivalents of the general education portion of the curriculum, which is the only portion of the curriculum where transfer credit will be potentially considered. Please keep in mind that when courses are transferred in from other institutions, the credit might transfer, but not the GPA from another institution and you will need to establish a minimum GPA of 2.5 at Mercer. The sooner you do that, the better so please consider taking a course at Mercer to establish your matriculation date!

   PTA 101 Intro to PTA and PTA 105 Kinesiology are considered pre-professional courses and must be completed at Mercer prior to commencing the professional phase of the program which starts each summer. Both PTA 101 and PTA 105 Kinesiology are offered in online and traditional formats and are available in both the fall and spring semesters. Registration for these pre-professional courses, PTA 101 and PTA 105 is handled exclusively by Beth Knight via email. If you have met the pre-requisite requirements for these courses, you would need to email Ms. Knight to let her know your student ID, which course you would like to take, and what format you are interested in. More specific information regarding this process can be found on the PTA program home page under "Registration Information."

     Student/learners who wish to be considered for the professional phase of the PTA program for the summer semester must complete and submit a Petition indicating the completion dates and grades for all of the courses listed which includes: 6 credits of English, 3 credits of Psychology, the Math requirement, 8 credits of Anatomy & Physiology and the 2 pre-professional courses prior to February 28th of the year in which he or she wishes to start the professional phase of the PTA program. Additionally, official copies of transcripts from institutions where these courses have been completed must be on file at MCCC to support the information stated on the form.

     This website provides access to a tremendous amount of information and it’s all just a click away! If you still feel that you would like to meet with someone to have some of your concerns addressed, I would be happy to meet with you to answer any additional questions that you might have, so please feel free to contact me at behrensb@mccc.edu .  I have office hours on Monday and Wednesday mornings between 9-11 and Wednesday afternoons from 4-5pm in my office, MS 350 by appointment.

     Here are links with directions to and a map of the West Windsor campus, which is where PTA program offices are located and all of the PTA program courses take place.

http://www.mccc.edu/welcome_directions_wwcampus.shtml

http://www.mccc.edu/welcome_directions_wwcampusmap.shtml

Barbara J. Behrens, PTA, MS (If you want to send me an email, just click on my name!)

NJ Lic#QB00015400

PTA Program Coordinator

MS 350 West Windsor Campus

Mercer County Community College

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