Isaac Noble '20Sub-Title

Name: Isaac Noble

Graduation Year: 2020

Major: Exercise Physiology

Your Story: 

Hello! I am Isaac Noble, and I am from Buffalo, MN. Growing up I loved playing baseball, however, going into my senior year of high school I started having issues with my shoulder. I was slowly losing velocity on my throws and feeling a sharp pain every time I threw with max exertion. At the time, my mom was battling cancer and my family was struggling with medical expenses, so I never sought medical treatment. Coming into Gustavus, almost all my love for the game of baseball had vanished. 

My shoulder issues in high school were a blessing in disguise, because they lead me to an interest in pursuing a career in physical therapy. I became so intrigued with how shoulders work and the thought of helping others continuing to do what they love. I took a few PT pre requisite courses early on in my college career to get a glimpse of what I was getting in to. However, it wasn’t until I started shadowing my sophomore year, that I fully knew that PT was what I wanted to do with my life. My junior and senior years a majority of my classes were within my exercise physiology major, learning about the human body and how it functions. These classes even further made me excited for what was in store for me!

I took a gap year after graduating from Gustavus because I wanted to gain more shadowing experience and save up some money before grad school. Fortunately for me, I was hired as a rehab aide at Courage Kenny where I could gain shadowing hours and make money! This was a great experience because I dove way deeper into the world of PT and saw firsthand the close relationships developed with patients and watching them get better each appointment. During this time, I started applying to schools. Waiting for schools to respond was so stressful and caused a lot of self-doubt. I volunteered quite a bit at Gustavus, but I had average grades with an average GRE score. Rightfully so, my confidence in getting accepted was not very high. To my surprise however, I was accepted into four schools. This was quite a shock because in undergrad I always heard about how hard it was to get into PT school. For any future applicants I strongly recommend taking advantage of volunteer opportunities at Gustavus, as well as shadowing as many different PT settings as you can! Especially if you are like me and struggled with many of the pre requisite courses.

Top 5 Activities/Experiences (in no particular order):

1: Habitat for Humanity trip to Johns Island, SC 

2: Studying abroad in Germany during J-Term 

3: Working in the admission office 

4: The countless hours spent with my fellow ex phys majors laughing and grinding on school work

5: Meeting so many different people and making lifelong friends

Advice:

1: Take advantage of as many things Gustavus has to offer as you can! There are so many different opportunities, and you never know, you might like something you didn’t expect to. 

2: Do not worry if you don’t have perfect grades. It is easy to look at the average GPA for a school and think “I am not good enough to go there.” But it’s the average for a reason, there are students with GPAs both below and above it! There is way more to the application than if you got an A in physics. Shadow as much as you can, get involved, and make great relationships with PTs and faculty that could write you a recommendation letter! 

3: Be confident in yourself, I went through way too many phases where I panicked, thinking I was not good enough to get into PT school. It is a very competitive admission process and it's easy to feel imposter syndrome, but just know that all your hard work will pay off! 

Future Plans: Attending the University of Minnesota’s Doctor of Physical Therapy program, starting Summer 2021