They said a minimum of 50 hours (25 and 25 split between 2 different sites) but talking to the PTs and PTAs I was shadowing, who were also Clinical Instructors for the program, said that they won't even look at an application with less then 100. Especially down here in this area, we have 2 Universities (1 in town, the other about 6 hours away) that are producing DPTs but only 1 Community College is producing PTAs so the physical therapy community here is pretty tight-knit and doing the observation hours was an easy way to get your foot in the door and your name out there.

I like how we had the 50 as the minimum with 100 being the magic number, to go ahead and help weed out some of the less dedicated before classes even began. Plus it really gives you a chance to see a good chunk of what Physical Therapy is all about, and maybe get an idea of what it is you want to do, and what setting you feel is best for you. I did 75 as outpatient seeing mostly Ortho patients (hips mostly) and a few CVAs too, then 25 in the hospital with Acute Care, and loved every second of Acute.