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NPTE October 30, 2013

Hey everybody,

Many of you reading this blog have likely just finished the National Physical Therapy Examination, and probably couldn’t feel more relieved.  I did think that it was appropriate to put the exam date on the 2nd to last day of October just to make your Halloween a little bit scarier.  However, now that you’ve completed the examination, you can just sit back and relax, knowing that all you have to do is wait and see how you did.

But if you’re like me, you’ll likely find yourself on pins and needles while you wait.  I recall being very anxious to know how I had done on the test, especially considering that my ability to have an earned income more than minimum wage depended on whether or not I passed.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the score reporting process, let me break it down for you.

NPTE Score Reporting

After you have completed the exam, the FSBPT will report the scores to your selected state jurisdiction 5 days after the exam.  The candidate will then have access to the scores on the FSBPT website 10 days after the exam.  These are the dates reported by FSBPT.org:

  • October 30, 2013  Exam Date
  • November 6, 2013  Scores reported to jurisdiction
  • November 14, 2013  Scores are available to the candidate on the FSBPT website.

Despite these dates, there are instances when you can find out your score sooner than November 14.  These occur when either the state reports the scores to the candidates immediately after they receive them, or if the candidate calls the licensing authority and gets their scores via the telephone.  This is what I did when I was applying for licensure in the state of Idaho.  The supervisor for professional licensing was very kind to me and did not seem bugged at all that I called almost every day after the exam to find out if my score had arrived.

Once the scores are updated on the FSBPT website, you will have access to your free score report for 30 days, after which you will be required to pay a fee to get a copy of your score.  One student I worked with was kind enough to show me what a detailed score report looked like.  Obviously it will be very different depending on the scores of the individual, but this is the basic gist of what it will look like.

Sample NPTE Score Report
NPTE Detailed Report Front Page

 

A passing score is defined as a 600/800.  This year, the FSBPT has introduced a “scale score” and updated scoring model that is designed to more accurately assess the performance of the individual test taker.  They are pretty tight-lipped about the exact scoring method, but it is designed to make the scoring more sensitive to individuals near the cutoff mark.  You do not need to have a 600/800 in each of the content areas of the examination.  A higher score in one category will compensate for a lower score in another area as long as the average is greater than the 600 cutoff.

Overall, the wait for the exam scores to arrive can seem very difficult.  You worked so hard to prepare for this exam.  Now all you can do is wait and hope.

For those of you who took the exam, please comment to let others know how it went and commiserate.

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