Top Picks: Top 15 Best Entry-Level OT Doctorate Programs


Entry Level OT Doctorate Programs BadgeBy choosing an entry-level occupational therapy doctorate program as your route into the profession, you are signaling your commitment to enter the top ranks of OTs in America.

While there has long been a discussion among practitioners, educators and the major agency stakeholders AOTA and ACOTE about the DOT becoming the entry level requirement for professional practice, the proposal has been tabled for the time being. With a master’s degree still being perfectly acceptable for getting into the field, going the doctorate route is a choice, and one that’s reserved for the most ambitious and forward thinking future OTs.

And it’s a rewarding choice on top of that, one that exchanges a little extra time and money for additional semesters of education on the elements of practice that separate the average OT from the leaders in the field. DOT programs deliver more of everything that make practitioners exceptional, from more advocacy training and opportunities to explore theoretical concepts to more clinical experience and advanced research practice.

With a doctorate, you’ll also get an additional 16-weeks of experiential training and undertake a culminating project that serves as a capstone to that training. It’s an advanced approach to OT education that by itself could be well worth the extra time and money spent earning a DOT.

Naturally, you want to be sure the extra effort and expense makes for a wise investment. And that means picking only the best OTD program, the one that lines up with your career goals and the expectations you have of what advanced OT training should deliver.

That program is somewhere on this list.

ACOTE Accreditation Offers A Quick Quality Screen

It’s not worth your time to even look at any program, at any level, that isn’t accredited by ACOTE, the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education, the accrediting arm of the American Occupational Therapy Association.

AOTA has been putting its stamp of professional approval on American OT programs for nearly 100 years and is recognized as a specialty accreditor by both the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE).

That means ACOTE has the expertise and the experience to evaluate OTD programs and verify that what these programs offer is aligned with the expectations of the larger OT and medical communities. That involves going through reams and reams of paperwork and subjecting staff to exhaustive interviews, followed up by on-site visits where evaluators can eyeball facilities and classrooms in person. Constant re-appraisal and re-accreditation follows to ensure that standards aren’t allowed to slip.

You won’t find any school on this list that doesn’t have ACOTE accreditation, and you shouldn’t seriously consider anything less.

Beyond Accreditation: Picking The Gems From The Stones

Accreditation is just where we started, though. The much more involved work of isolating the programs we could feel good about recommending to future OTs as the very best meant performing our own in-depth assessment.

We looked at everything from faculty credentials and hiring standards, to lab and research resources available to students, to the variety of diverse clinical partnerships in place for fieldwork opportunities, to how well past students performed on the NBCOT exam.

Specialist Training

All entry-level programs offer a strong generalist education to prepare you for practice in almost any patient care environment. Specialist training is generally viewed as a pursuit to be taken on after graduation and certification.

Still, some of the programs here offer exceptional preparation in various OT specialty areas, while others offer an implicit boost through faculty or facilities that are nationally or internationally known for particular specialties.

Faculty Excellence

Instructors are an extremely important part of your education as an OT. We looked for programs that have nationally-recognized faculty, including AOTA Fellows, and also highly qualified clinical mentors at field placement sites.

With a heavy emphasis on experiential clinical learning, your field placements take on added importance, and having quality instructors outside the classroom has an enormous impact on the quality of your training.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork is one of the things that sets the OTD apart from lesser degrees, so you want to make sure you are getting the most out of the experience.

We looked through both the variety and quality of fieldwork opportunities that are offered at each of these schools, including clinical partnerships in the community and beyond. Whether the program focuses on underserved areas of your own home town, or offers international placements or tours, the breadth of opportunities are part of what helps them shape students to become outstanding OTs.

Labs and Facilities

As a form of therapy that’s all about assisting people perform the normal activities of daily living on their own, training needs to take place in settings identical to the ones where people actually live and do all the things that are a normal part of life. Like almost no other profession, OT methods and practices can only be taught effectively in environments that exactly replicate the real world. Also, learning in realistic simulated settings is the only way to develop a deep understanding of the patient experience, something that is fundamental to becoming a great OT.

All programs train OTs in simulated real-world environments, but programs housed in schools that go the extra mile to provide students with realistic driving simulators, and facilities that feature every relevant detail you’d find in a typical home or workplace show a real commitment to preparing students to be both effective and capable of relating to what patients experience every day.

Graduate Outcomes

Though it’s clear that most things that really make a program special can’t easily be represented as a number, there are exceptions: Nothing provides an objective representation of how well a program prepares students with the technical knowledge and skills they need to make the transition from student to practitioner than NBCOT exam pass rates and post-graduation employment rates.

When the information on exam pass rates and employment was available and current, we considered that too in making our selections, and included the information here for you to see.

Top Picks: 15 Best OT Doctorate Programs in America

You’ll need a bachelor’s degree at a minimum before applying and every program requires certain prerequisite coursework in the physical sciences. Most have GPA standards and some require that you take the GRE, with or without minimum qualifying scores. Most programs also require that you have a certain number of observation or volunteer hours with a qualified OTR/L at one or more locations before applying. Some of the programs offer a combined or accelerated degree path that will whisk you right through a pre-OT bachelor’s program and into the doctorate-level studies in as few as six years. This is all information that will help you in making your selection, so you can be sure we included it here.

If you have the dedication it takes to make an OTD program your path into the profession, you deserve the very best. There’s a lot of different ways to train an OT to the same standard, and these schools represent a wide array of approaches… one or more of which will certainly match your personal preferences

You can’t go wrong with one of the 15 options on this list.

This list features programs that our editorial staff hand selected to present as top recommendations. We believe the many aspects of a program that come together to create an exceptional student experience can’t be reduced to numbers alone, so no formula was used to attempt to score or rank these programs. Instead, they represent our top picks based on a thoughtful review of the things we know mean the most to students. Each one of these programs offers something unique, and all come equally highly recommended. We stand behind the principal of editorial integrity and make these recommendations independently and without compensation.

Huntington University
Occupational Therapy Doctoral Program
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Graduation Rate: 100%

NBCOT Pass Rate: 100%

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with minimum 3.0 GPA and B- or better in all prerequisite courses, GRE, and 50 observation hours
  • Cohort-based class keeps you close to fellow students and builds networks and friendships for life
  • Many student outreach and public service projects to participate in both locally and internationally including Wheels for the World and Big and Loud Training for Parkinson’s Disease
  • Specialty pathways available in: Pediatrics, Hand Therapy, Older Adult, Cross-cultural practice
  • International clinical placement opportunities available

A comprehensive Christian college like Huntington is always a good choice for an education in a career that involves caring for others, and the OTD program here lives up to expectations. The university is ranked as one of the best colleges in the Midwest by prestigious publications such as Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, and the Princeton Review. The mark of quality is stamped all over the OTD program. The specialty pathways at Huntington each deserve their own full write-up, each taught by faculty with deep specialist experience as well as the top credentials in the field. The school has developed partnerships with both regional and international specialty centers and students get exposure to current research efforts and some of the most innovative technological solutions in their respective fields. Although you’ll find maximal support and resources offered by the school, most of the specialty pathways are represented by student-run organizations, offering you a unique opportunity to have your voice and vision incorporated into your education. Every student will design, develop, and implement an advanced practice project as part of the program, offering another way to get a unique education out of your time at Huntington.

St. Ambrose University
College for Health Sciences Education
Davenport, Iowa
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Graduation Rate: 97%

NBCOT Pass Rate: 100%

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with minimum 3.0 GPA and C or better in all prerequisite courses, GRE, and 50 volunteer hours
  • First accredited doctoral degree in occupational therapy in Iowa
  • The Assistive Technology Learning Lab (Jim’s Place) exposes you to the latest innovations in assistive devices for the home
  • Learn and work with students from PT, SLT, Nursing, and Social Work in cross-functional healthcare teams
  • 16-week Experiential Component offers a capstone to the program that ties together all previous learning and experience
  • Study abroad options available in Ecuador and Peru

St. Ambrose delivers a generalist OT curriculum that doesn’t skimp on the details of the real day-to-day demands in the field. As part of the College of Health Sciences Education, you’ll be learning side-by-side with students from other fields, mimicking real-world practice environments where you’ll be working with inter-professional teams after graduation. Although teamwork is a feature of the program, it’s not a crutch; you will develop an individualized path of study in collaboration with a faculty mentor that will lead you through your Doctoral Project, a focused study designed to produce advanced knowledge to inform the profession and practice of occupational therapy. But the program isn’t just about research and study: you get a full 24 weeks of on-the-ground fieldwork experience, combined with a 16-week experiential component that serves as a sort of capstone project to the course, tying together your training and knowledge in a way that will cement the education you’ve received as a strong foundation for a lengthy career.

MGH Institute of Health Professions
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Boston, Massachusetts
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Graduation Rate: 100%

NBCOT Pass Rate: 100%

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with minimum 3.0 undergrad GPA and in prerequisites, GRE, and 40 observation hours
  • Learn via hands-on practice with inter-professional teams at this health-sciences-focused institution
  • First accredited program in New England to offer an entry-level OTD
  • Affiliation with Partners Healthcare, the largest health provider in New England, offers a wealth of field placement options
  • Faculty recognized both nationally and internationally, including some on the AOTA Roster of Fellows

Inter-professionalism is engrained at a deep level in the MGH OTD program. Coming as it does from a school that already offers degrees in a broad swath of healthcare professions, it’s a natural fit: you are learning beside future nurses, PTs, and SLPs at facilities owned by the largest healthcare network in New England, an environment that looks very similar to the one you will be practicing in professionally. So it only makes sense to train for the kind of real-world practices you’ll be using anyway. It’s a collaborative, team-based learning environment where you will rub shoulders with faculty who are also well-respected practitioners and leaders in OT. You’ll be continually connecting theory with practice under their watchful mentorship. That will happen both through numerous part-time fieldwork placements, and at the Tabor/Connor Occupational Therapy Center for Learning, Participation, and Rehabilitation, a simulated learning environment that replicates a typical home where you can hone your diagnostic and adaptive treatment skills.

Washington University
Program in Occupational Therapy
St. Louis, Missouri
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Also offers:

  • MSOT
  • OTD for Licensed OTs
  • Joint MSOT/MPH
  • PhD in Rehabilitation and Participation Science

Graduation Rate: 100%

NBCOT Pass Rate: 100%

  • Admission Requirements: GRE plus bachelor’s degree in any field with minimum 3.25 undergrad GPA and in prerequisites, and 30 observation hours
  • Ranked as the #1 OT Program in the nation by U.S. News and World Report
  • More than 500 fieldwork sites available nationwide
  • 95% of faculty hold doctoral degrees
  • Choose among specialty concentrations including: Productive Aging, Social Participation and The Environment, Children and Youth, Work and Industry, Neurorehabilitation and Rehabilitation Science
  • Conduct research in world-class labs including the Connected Health and Innovative Rehabilitation Lab and the OT NICU Lab

Washington University has long been a heavy-hitter in OT circles, with a range of degree programs in rehabilitative sciences and a big stable of highly-experienced, academically-adept faculty. Many of the major assessment tools that OTs around the country use were actually developed at WUSTL. With that kind of reputation on the line, the program is very selective about who it admits, and very focused on graduating OTDs with the most advanced professional knowledge in the field today, and who also exhibit strong leadership skills. You’ll be actively engaged in leadership experiences throughout your time at WUSTL and learn to analyze the role of the OT across the service delivery spectrum to gain perspective on the place it occupies in the healthcare system. This is something that will help you leverage your OT skills to accomplish more for both individuals and communities. You’ll learn to develop community programming, use current technologies and informatics to inform your practice, and create models of assessment and intervention for specific patient populations. The WUSTL OTD program comes complete with the most relevant and high demand specialty options, and is topped off by a 14-week doctoral capstone.

Creighton University
School of Pharmacy and Health Professions
Omaha, Nebraska
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Also offers: Post-professional OTD

Graduation Rate: 99%

NBCOT Pass Rate: 100%

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field plus prerequisites passed with a C or better
  • Ranked in the Top 25 of all American OTD programs
  • Hybrid pathways approach allows you to base in Anchorage, Omaha, or Denver for the course of your degree program
  • Cross-cultural training allows experiential learning at more than 20 international clinical locations
  • Over 400 clinical sites across the country give you many options for fieldwork placements

Creighton has set new standards in the profession of occupational therapy at every stage. This was the first entry-level OTD program in the nation and the first using the hybrid pathways approach to offer degrees to students in diverse geographic locations. The strong, traditional, Jesuit approach to education is a good match for the OT field with an emphasis on the truths and values essential to human life underlying all of your lessons. The three themes that Creighton focuses on are occupation, professional practice, and professional identity. These are nested into your curriculum and clinical training to offer a unique course of professional development even as you incorporate all the specialist knowledge and skills required to become an OT. The more than 43 weeks of experiential fieldwork you’ll engage in throughout the program will give you all the hands-on experience you need to perfect those skills and make you a valuable addition to the OT community.

Kettering College
College for Health Sciences Education
Kettering, Ohio
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

NBCOT Pass Rate: 95%

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with minimum 3.0 GPA and prerequisites passed with a C or better, and 20 observation hours
  • Curriculum design based on the Human Developmental Model and Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains

Knowledge; skills; attitude. Those are the three learning domains that Kettering’s OTD program drills down on, covering the full spectrum of requirements for a successful approach to an occupational therapy career. Knowledge you’ll get in the classroom and lab, through student-centered learning activities and problem-solving exercises. Learning by doing is a big deal here, providing you with plenty of hands-on experience with clients under the mentorship of accomplished instructors well-versed in the state-of-the-art in therapeutic methods and practices today. Attitude is developed through reflective learning practices and social-cultural exposure, asking you to look both inward and to develop empathy with clients to inform your approaches to diagnosis and treatment. It’s a holistic education from a respected school for a secure starting point to a lifelong career in OT.

Duquesne University
Department of Occupational Therapy
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Graduation Rate: 100%

NBCOT Pass Rate: 100%

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with a minimum 3.0 Quality Point Average and a C or better in prerequisite courses, and 60 paid or volunteer hours supervised by an OTR/L
  • Offers a 6-year freshman pathway for a combined bachelor/doctoral degree path
  • Community-based partnerships with organizations like ASPIRE, Bethlehem Haven, Shepherds’ Heart Veteran’s Home, and others ensure you have an opportunity to contribute while learning

Duquesne embraces a philosophy of engaged learning that will keep you highly involved during fieldwork placements throughout the course of the program. Not only will you go through standard clinical placements at a variety of practice and geographic settings, but you’ll also participate in community-engaged learning at local non-profits, and undergo the Doctoral Experiential Component as you approach graduation. A 16-week experiential component offers in-depth, customized experience in treatment and diagnosis that will cap off your learning and help you develop the advanced skills that will make you valuable to any employer and indispensible to the patients you work with.

University of the Sciences
Department of Occupational Therapy
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Also offers:

  • Accelerated Pathway BS/DrOT
  • MOT

Graduation Rate: 100%

NBCOT Pass Rate: 100%

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with a minimum 3.0 GPA and a C or better in prerequisite courses, and 50 observation hours
  • Faculty include winners of AOTA Awards of Merit and the Leahey Award for Excellence in Teaching
  • Research opportunities include projects such as Generation2Generation investigating geriatric patient transitions to assisted living facilities and the use of iPad and mobile technologies in parenting functions

With concentration tracks available to all second and third year students, the University of the Sciences gives you unparalleled options for specializing in different aspects of OT prior to graduation. From community-based therapy to advanced concepts of leadership, you’ll find the in-depth knowledge and specialized expertise you need to get the attention of future employers and to pave the way to a lengthy and lucrative career in the field. The university has many research initiatives underway and OTD students are given the option to participate in faculty projects for added exposure. Alongside the scientific side of the business, the program works hard to put you in the field almost every semester, tying the classroom and laboratory lessons in to real-world treatment plans. You’ll cap off the program in your final year with a doctoral research project in your concentration area, which will also line up with your clinical track.

University of South Dakota
Department of Occupational Therapy
Vermillion, South Dakota
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Also offers:

  • Post-professional OTD
  • Pre-OT Bachelor

Graduation Rate: 93.9% (three-year average)

NBCOT Pass Rate: 100%

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with a minimum 3.0 GPA and a C or better in prerequisite courses, GRE, and 30 observation hours
  • Attend workshops on cutting-edge approaches to OT such as digital design and fabrication of assistive devices
  • Undertake a capstone experiential project in a subject area of your choice
  • Participate in faculty research projects in diverse areas such as pediatric practice, philosophical foundations of OT, and assistive technologies
  • Faculty include AOTA recognized Fellows

Students at USD learn in real-world settings and work with clients of all ages through the course of their time in the OTD program. It’s all part of the program emphasis on helping patients to maximize their independence in daily living, a gritty, realistic approach to OT that you should expect from a practical, no-nonsense state like South Dakota. You’ll get the holistic perspective here, looking at every aspect of life and functionality that impacts patients’ physical, psychological, and social needs, and you’ll get the tools you need to diagnose and effectively treat any type of impairment or disability. Your experiential capstone project follows in the same vein, focusing your effort and independent research in the subject you are most interested in and allowing you to make a real difference before you even graduate.

Belmont University
School of Occupational Therapy
Nashville, Tennessee
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Also offers: MSOT

Graduation Rate: 100%

NBCOT Pass Rate: 100%

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with a minimum 3.0 GPA and a B- or better in prerequisite courses, GRE, and 50 observation hours
  • Study in the advanced Gordon E. Inman Center with low vision technologies, driving simulators, a simulated apartment for exploring design features, and other modern equipment
  • Engage in practical clinical fieldwork in the first year of the program as part of a comprehensive experiential approach to OT education
  • Over 800 clinical fieldwork sites available across the spectrum of OT specialties

With curricular themes of clinical excellence, scholarship, service, and leadership, Belmont expects students to not only excel as occupational therapists, but also to be active participants in effecting social change. A strong emphasis on collaborative fieldwork underpins the program, with first-year placements getting your feet wet early on. The experiential component of your education is an integral part of the program, where you will take on research, clinical practice skills, advocacy, policy development, or education as a culminating project under the watchful eye of faculty. It’s a type of capstone project that allows you to put your own stamp on your education and build exactly the type of foundation you need to have to ready yourself for a long and successful career in occupational therapy.

Mary Baldwin University – Murphy
Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences
Fishersville, Virginia
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Also offers: Post-professional OTD

Graduation Rate: 97%

NBCOT Pass Rate: 100%

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with a minimum 3.0 GPA and a C or better in prerequisite courses, GRE, and 40 observation hours
  • Learn with an interprofessional focus highlighting collaboration across the spectrum of healthcare professions at a medical university
  • Integration of evidence-based and direct research experiences throughout the curriculum
  • State-of-the-art health sciences facilities offer you cutting-edge academic and research opportunities

Following the theory that the best way to learn a topic is to teach it, Mary Baldwin’s OTD program has a unique emphasis on teaching andlearning for students. You’ll take three specific courses on pedagogical processes and education, training you to take on a role as a leader and educator in your own right even as you learn the ropes of the profession from other expert faculty members. Your clinical education experiences will lead you into intra and inter-disciplinary healthcare practices under the supervision of expert professional role models. Your final doctoral rotation will be a customized experience in line with your culminating project, helping you to gain expertise in your chosen focus area and graduate with real-world accomplishments on your CV.

Indiana Wesleyan University
School of Health Sciences
Marion, Indiana
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with minimum 3.0 GPA and prerequisites, GRE, and 10 observation hours
  • The founding and current program director has 20 years of academic experience and gained full accreditation from ACOTE
  • Brand new $42.8 million Ott Hall of Science and Nursing offers completely modern class and lab facilities
  • Faculty bring educational diversity and clinical expertise to the table with a combined 180 years of experience

Indiana Wesleyan has one of the most outstanding faculty and administration rosters of any OTD program on this list. The deep bench of instructors has nearly 200 years of combined experience in the field, and three of them have served independently as educational program directors in their own right. They value an active learning environment that encourages personal and professional development along an evidence-based services track that exposes students to all the diversity and technological innovation occurring in healthcare today. As a Christian university, you can expect an extra dose of guidance in service leadership and advocacy, moral and ethical training, and empathy. A global perspective into OT and major scholarship and research project opportunities—including a dedicated residency project to demonstrate advanced-practice competency in your selected specialty area—are part of the package here.

Recently Developed OTD Programs

In a relative sense, most OTD programs are quite new, developed as an extension of legacy MOT and MSOT programs to meet a recent and growing demand for an entry-level option that provides a higher level of expertise and career preparation. But, of course, some are newer than others.

As programs that only recently began enrolling students, these three OTDs needed a classification of their own. Even without a record of NBCOT exam pass rates or graduation rates to consider, these programs have been developed in departments that have years-long track records for producing well-prepared and highly sought after OTs and other healthcare and health sciences professionals. Though new to the education space, these DOT programs are very much deserving of their place on this list, and come highly recommended.

Thomas Jefferson University – Center City
Department of Occupational Therapy
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Also offers:

  • BS/MS OT
  • MSOT
  • Accelerated MSOT
  • Post-Professional OTD
  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with recommended 3.0 GPA and prerequisites passed with a recommended 3.0 or better, and 30 observation hours
  • Summer season coursework can be completed online for extra flexibility in completing your degree requirements
  • Ranked as the #6 Occupational Therapy Degree program in the country and #1 in the Delaware Valley by U.S. News & World Report
  • Students study at the leading Dr. Robert and Dorothy Rector Clinical Skills & Simulation Center in state-of-the-art teaching facilities, recently awarded reaccreditation as a Level I Comprehensive Education Institute
  • A partnership with Kitasato University in Sagamihara-shi, Japan, offers exchange programs for overseas experience

You’ll get a full-spectrum education at the TJU Center City OTD program… the full helping of academic and technical skills on occupational therapy, together with clinical research, administration, program and policy development, advocacy, and education and theory development, all taught by innovative, progressive, and enthusiastic faculty. It’s a prime setup for taking on any of the wide variety of OT roles that can be found throughout the growing profession. Your clinical skills will be honed in an interdisciplinary environment via partnerships between the program and facilities such as the Jefferson Center for Inter-professional Education (JCIPE), the Center for Research in Medical Education (CRIME), and the College of Population Health. You also have the opportunity to collaborate in other specialist areas through projects at Jefferson Elder Care, the Autism Laboratory, and the Measurement and Outcomes Laboratory.

Gannon University
Occupational Therapy Program
Ruskin, Florida
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Also offers:

  • MSOT
  • Post-professional Occupational Therapy Doctorate
  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with a minimum 3.0 Quality Point Average and prerequisite courses, and 40 observation hours
  • Nationally-recognized faculty offer a wealth of knowledge and experience
  • Experiential learning is embedded in all program courses
  • Service-learning opportunities are offered for community-building and additional experience

As possibly the newest Doctor of Occupational Therapy degree in the nation, Gannon is off to a shining start. Supported by expert faculty who view their business as offering guidance and support to every student, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to get deep into the details of every facet of OT education through maximal experiential learning in every course. The encouragement of faculty is extended into the area of research, where every student is required to submit research for publication. There’s no better way to both hone your skills and contribute to the field than to see the results of your project published and read by practitioners, academics and even potential employers. At Gannon, you’ll even have opportunities for specialized training and advanced certification to further boost your career prospects before you graduate.

Drake University
College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
Des Moines, Iowa
Website

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

  • Admission Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in any field with minimum 3.0 undergrad GPA, GRE, and prerequisites
  • Optional pre-OTD track available for Drake undergraduates to smooth your way into the program
  • Cohort-based program builds your network of colleagues long before graduation
  • Experiential clinical opportunities available throughout the state and region

Drake believes that you can make a difference in people’s lives through a meaningful career in occupational therapy, and their OTD is designed to produce graduates with the same conviction. But conviction alone isn’t enough, the program also provides you with the advanced skills you need to make it happen. The accelerated 3-year program emphasizes fieldwork and interpersonal skills on top of the technical knowledge you’ll gain in the classroom. Individualized attention from expert faculty and staff that are invested in your future come as part of the package, and the tight cohort-based experience means there will always be friends and colleagues around who have your back. Although it’s a new program, it has earned ACOTE accreditation status without a hitch.

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