Part of the AOTA Centennial Vision involves moving the profession into an evidence based direction. Research therefore, is essential to the profession, and the skills to both consume and produce research are highly valued.
Keep in mind, that you are selling yourself in your personal statement.
To sell something, you need to tell the customer how they will benefit from a product or service, not how the sales person will benefit. The ability to empathize and see things from the customer's point of view is essential to do this. In this case, you want to see things from the perspective of the admissions committee. When you know what it is that they are looking for, and what they want, you need to directly and indirectly show them how you fulfill that need. For example, they need:
People who have a passion for OT, they are not merely choosing it because they didn't get into a PT program, or because they are in it for the money, or because they don't know what they are going to do for the rest of their life. I read a personal statement online once. The author stated that they were interested in OT because their friend suggested it to them, and it seemed like a good profession to get into. It was an honest but superficial statement that didn't communicate enough interest, passion, and understanding of the OT profession, IMO.
Compassionate caretakers with a genuine interest in the OT field, and in helping people (don't specifically say that you want to help people as that is automatically assumed and too cliche).
Students that are genuinely interested/committed to their specific OT program, are a good fit for their program; students that will not change their mind and drop out of their program. (OTCAS statements need to be non-specific, but you should know the focus of the specific program, curriculum, and what makes you a good fit for that program)
People without obligations, emotional instability, or personal issues, as they need the student to focus on the program, which is rigorous
People that can handle the rigor of graduate studies (which is why GPA is emphasized so much).
A high degree of maturity, resilience, intelligence, responsibility, reliability, professionalism, motivation, agreeableness, etc.
Research/quantitative skills if research is emphasized in the program.
Writing skills. This is a chance to show how good you are at writing.
Of course, all of these things should be backed up with evidence (extra curricular activities, personal experiences, what you observed during your OT observation hours, etc). Don't just state "I am passionate about OT." Tell them exactly what it is about OT that you are passionate about. And, you should say things that have not already been said, things that can't be said with a curriculum vitae. You don't want to sound redundant.
Lastly, I think the most important thing is to just speak from the heart. Worry about editing/refining the statement later. And like I said, getting opinions from OTs should help out a lot.
