Radiology Forums

beastykato · Joined: 10 Nov 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Pennsylvania

Well, I dunno guys I might be going into radiography. I just got off of the phone with the recruiter for the program from Penn State and all I have to do is send in my mid-term grades and I'm in...

Needless to say getting in was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Seemed almost too easy seeing as they only have 24 open spots total.

Anyway, I still have a lot to think about as to which way I'm going to go with this. There is one other thing I'd like to know about though that some of you might know a little bit about. I mentioned I've thought about Med. school but that I don't know if I could devote the time needed to it. The reason was because I thought about being a Radiologist (hence my interest in Radiography,) having said that what responsibilites does a Radiology Phycisians Assistant have? I've heard this is a fairly new pathway that's opened up for Radiographers and if I do go into this program I'd definately look at being an RPA as a next step.

Sidney · Joined: 01 Dec 2006 Posts: 53

Well, I dunno guys I might be going into radiography. I just got off of the phone with the recruiter for the program from Penn State and all I have to do is send in my mid-term grades and I'm in...

Needless to say getting in was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Seemed almost too easy seeing as they only have 24 open spots total.

Wow! My school is extremely competitive and very difficult to get into. I don't know if it's like that everywhere though. This year they had over 200 applicants. The local hospitals bought 9 of the 20 spots, so the school itself was only accepting 11 people from the general applicant pool. Perhaps your area has more radiography schools available?

rxis · Joined: 14 Nov 2006 Posts: 7

Wow! There are about 150 applicants for 25 spots at the vocational school. At the university 4 year program there are even more applicants and the standards are much higher.

beastykato · Joined: 10 Nov 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Pennsylvania

I know this thread has been up for a while, but I figured I'd post because getting in so easy was something that caught me off guard as well.

I'm not sure why it's like that, I've asked people around my school about the radiography program and most of them don't even know that PSU even offers that. In fact, the admissions staff at my branch of PSU had no information on the degree when I said it was my 2nd choice when I went for my college entrance interview. They had to call to other branches to get the requirement information.

Also in PA we have 2 programs that I know over near me. They UPMC health center and Washington Hosptial programs which will get you a certficate for radiography but no degree. I'm not aware of any problems with people getting into these programs quickly. Maybe it's just my area...

Also I see a lot of people people saying $20-25/hr is average for this field. However, Ohio states program figures signifcantly higher for 2005 in the state of ohio. They're claiming the avg wage for Radiographer (no specialization is 50k/year (~26/hr), for radiation therapists ~67k/year, and for sonographers ~65k/yr. So, it seems to me if you specialize you should be able to expect to be able to make up to ~35/hr on avg, at least according to their statistics