2012 Occupational Therapy Program Rankings

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It is always important to look at methodology when you look at rankings. This is particularly true (I feel) for this set of rankings because they use a somewhat strange methodology.

All the health rankings are based solely on the results of peer assessment surveys sent to deans, other administrators, and/or faculty at accredited degree programs or schools in each discipline. All schools surveyed in a discipline were sent the same number of surveys. Respondents rated the academic quality of programs on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding). They were instructed to select "don't know" if they did not have enough knowledge to rate a program. Only fully accredited programs in good standing during the survey period are ranked. Those schools with the highest average scores appear in the rankings.

http://www.usnews.com/education/bes...12/03/12/methodology-graduate-health-rankings

So in this case, they are basing the results solely on peer assessment surveys and do not include any other parameters that may be important and impact your education (like class size, fieldwork opportunities, quality of faculty, job placement of graduates, passrates of NBCOT, etc)
 
Interesting. I noticed several schools jumped up or down quite a bit in the rankings compared to last year's. I wonder why peer evaluations would change so much from one year to the next...
 
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So in this case, they are basing the results solely on peer assessment surveys and do not include any other parameters that may be important and impact your education (like class size, fieldwork opportunities, quality of faculty, job placement of graduates, passrates of NBCOT, etc)

"Peer Assessment"?? So they basically asked people what they thought of each school? I feel like we could collectively come up with a better list than this.
 
I DID not see
UNM ranked? Am I mistaken?
 
I DID not see
UNM ranked? Am I mistaken?

It's down at #36 now. Last year it was 17th. Just based on that, I don't really see a reason to trust this ranking system.
 
I agree...the rankings are not something to go by because some schools ranked kind of high have low NBCOT ratings....
 
I'm just curious - how can you actually find out the NBCOT pass rates? Is there a website that lists the stats?
 
I'm just curious - how can you actually find out the NBCOT pass rates? Is there a website that lists the stats?

Most programs list it on their website. You might have to look a little hard on some of them. You can also email their admissions office.
 
Yes, that is correct you have to go onto the school website and look for their pass rates. I usually go to the search bar and type in NBCOT pass rates and go from there.
 
I think each school is actually required to have the pass rates publicly accessible, so pretty much all schools have the last three years listed somewhere on their website.

Thanks for these rankings... I didn't know they FINALLY ranked OT schools again. Professional school rankings in general need to be taken with a grain of salt - law school is the same, although the last thing I knew, "reputation" only made up 40% of the ranking. Still, that's a lot. It's a self-perpetuating system. Law school deans can only know so much about so many schools, so the well-known schools stay top-ranked and well-known.

Don't necessarily mistrust the rankings based one seemingly large drops, though. Look at the score, not the rank. Each year a large number of schools have the same score and are tied. Look at how this year it drops from rankings of 15 to 21 to 28 to 31 to 36. Schools with scores of 3.5 are tied for #15, and those with 3.2 are tied for #31. Is there really a huge difference in quality, though? Why not have schools at 3.5 tied for 15, those are 3.4 tied at 16, those at 3.3 tied at 17, and those at 3.2 tied at 18?
 
I'm not one to worry about ranks my BS/MOT neither are ranked high. Make your own rank and keep a good gpa and pass the exam. Best ranked won't change your salary a lot of your pay is a basis of location and setting not on where you went to school. For me personal if best ranked means high tuition and it isn't going to pay me more forget it, rip off lol.
 
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You all bring up very good points!

I was wondering what is the best way for me to determine which schools are within reach vs dream vs safety? I was looking at the ranking and trying to get admission statistics from each school but it seems like the only option is to compare and contrast what other accepted students have posted.

Does anyone have a general idea of which ranking numbers or ranges match with which average statistics?

For example what is the average gpa/gre of an admitted student at one of the top 10 schools, vs # 25, #50, etc.

Thank you!
 
Geezus...there are over 150 OT programs?? That seems like a lot of schools. Is anyone concerned about over saturation? If the average class size is about 40 students, they will be graduating 6000 new OT's every year. Does anyone know the retirement rate for OT's?
 
I'm really not sure where you would find that.

This report was done by Fox Valley Workforce Development Board:

Healthcare Worker Retirement and Departure Intentions in Fox Valley Wisconsin in March 2012 as illustrated in Figure 14 it explains occupational/physical therapists will see extremely modest retirements over the next five years while recreation therapists and speech therapists will see no retirements within the next five years. Respiratory therapist reported the largest percentage of retirements within the next five years at nearly 15 percent. When comparing the 2008 study to the 2011 study Figure 15, occupational/physical therapy assistant saw an increase in the percentage of those planning to retire within the next five years; both occupations increased at a very modest rate. The only decrease between the two studies among those planning to retire within the next five years is the occupational/physical therapist occupation with a very modest decrease of 1.2 percentage points. No speech therapist indicated retirement intentions within the next five years in both the 2008 or 2011 study. Speech therapists have the largest increase among those planning to retire
between six and ten years with an increase of over ten percentage points. http://www.foxvalleywork.org/Docume...Retirement_and_Departure_Intentions_Study.pdf
 
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