Hello all! I'm going to be reapplying to OT school this fall, as I unfortunately didn't get in last year. Along with obtaining more OT shadowing hours and retaking the GRE, I am now looking at rewriting my personal statement. Does anyone have any advice for this? Thank you! 🙂
General Admissions & OTCAS Advice for rewriting/editing personal statement
- Thread starter OTgirl29
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I am in the same boat, OTgirl29! And I also was wondering the same thing!
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I am reapplying as well and first thing I would advise if you haven't already is to talk to schools you applied to last year and see how you "scored" on your essay/personal statement. It will give you a good idea of if they had major concerns with it and you should do a total redo or if you need to mainly fine tune it.
I would in no ways suggest reusing the exact same essay but if you're anything like me the reasons for me pursuing OT are still the same so redoing it completely doesn't make complete sense; and even the professor I talked to said the same thing. His main pieces of advice were to have more people look over it (from multiple fields/areas of expertise) to make sure the essay emphasizes what you were intending and also to make sure there were no small grammatical mistakes.
I would in no ways suggest reusing the exact same essay but if you're anything like me the reasons for me pursuing OT are still the same so redoing it completely doesn't make complete sense; and even the professor I talked to said the same thing. His main pieces of advice were to have more people look over it (from multiple fields/areas of expertise) to make sure the essay emphasizes what you were intending and also to make sure there were no small grammatical mistakes.
I agree with @Bokonomy, we could help you all more if we knew at least how you set up your personal statement. So for example, for my personal statement I started out with a story, then went into why I'm interested in OT, then moved onto how my education and jobs helped prepare me for a career as an OT, and finally I closed with my future goals. When I applied a second time, I edited it by completely changing the story I opened with and adding info about my current job and how it will help me as an OT. That's literally all I changed.
I'm in the same boat! I didn't get accepted last year and am going to be reapplying this year and in addition I've decided to apply to other masters programs as well because I don't want to take another year off if I don't get into OT this time around. I've got everything all set for applying tomorrow except for my personal statement. I'M SO STUCK! Last year I started by explaining my family situation (two family members with special needs) and then went on to explain some of the experiences that I've had and gave specific examples from them and what they've taught me about OT. I'm not sure how I'm going to change it up for this year but I feel like I definitely need to since I've learned so much more since applying last September.
I applied to other masters programs too @mull015 and for the same reason... OT is what I wanted to do, but I had to find an alternative career that I would be happy with if OT didn't work out...anyway for your personal statement maybe you could open it with something that you witness while observing an OT. Like start of with that WOW moment that confirmed that you wanted to be an OT. Don't make it one sentence... be descriptive, make the reader see, hear, and feel what you felt while witnessing the incident. Then maybe from there have a sentence or two about why you decided to be an OT (your family members with special needs.... you don't need to get rid of that idea just don't elaborate on it as much as you did the first time). You also have to decide how much of the "new stuff" you learned since September need to be put in the essay. Remember, you basically want to convey that everything you've done in life have help pave the path for you to become a great OT. You don't need to saturate your essay with everything you learned this year. But obviously you do need to bring it up. I too learned a great deal on my year off, but I literally only included like 2 or maybe 3 sentences on it. But that worked with how I formatted my essay so just balance it. Hope that helps! Good luck! 😀
Could you tell me which other masters programs you're applying to? I would also like a back-up just in case since I can't take another year off!
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I think you should say something like, "I applied last cycle and did not get accepted. These are the things I did to improve myself, and this is why you should accept me."
It could be quite compelling and a nice change from the standard essays most admissions committes read.
It could be quite compelling and a nice change from the standard essays most admissions committes read.
My backup place was social work... but I was a sociology and biology double major in college so social work was right up my ally... I think that career compliments many of the skills that an OT has to have (depending on the area). It's great to get ideas from others, but make sure that whatever plan B people tell you and you decided on that you investigate it thoroughly. You obviously want to make sure that it's something that you can see yourself doing for another twenty years. (I also looked into public health, but ultimately decided that social work was closer to what I wanted then public health... social work programs seems to be easier to get into too (and a lot don't require the GRE... Pitt has a VERY good program and if you have certain GPA and apply by the end of the year you a guaranteed acceptance which is awesome!!).
I will be applying to a handful of social work programs and neuro psychology programs in addition to OT programs. For me, I just don't want to take another year off working a job that I don't love and I'll be honest, am not making much money doing. Social work programs do seem a lot easier to get into so I'm hoping to not have much trouble with that and if it doesn't work out with OT this year then it just wasn't meant to be.
Feel free to PM me and we can talk!!
Did you end up getting into OT?
I did... I was accepted into my social work programs and two OT schools (Chatham and Salus University) and waitlisted at Winston-Salem University... I decided to attend Salus.
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What did you think about WSU? Did you have to interview? I was thinking about putting them in my "maybe apply" category.
I liked the school (although I never visited the campus which is I think is actually really important... just didn't want to spend the money until I was accepted)... GRE scores are important at that school ... so if you did well on the GRE and have a descent GPA I would say go for it! I've heard great things... I even spoke to two alumni there and they had not complaints. There wasn't an interview (just the application). If I was accepted there I probably would have went... but because I was accepted other places I only stayed on the wait list for like two weeks then withdrew my application. They have great communication when you're emailing them which i always look for when applying to schools.
