PPOTD Admissions

Basic Admission Requirements for the Post-Professional OTD (PPOTD)

Applicants must:

1. Be 18 years of age at the time of matriculation into PNWU.
2. Have earned an occupational therapy master’s or occupational therapy bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university prior to admission to the program.
3. Complete a primary application through Occupational Therapy Centralized Application Service (OTCAS), which includes:
   1. Three essays responding to the below prompts:
      1. Essay #1 (approximately 3 pages and formatted in American Psychological Association style and using scientific literature published within the previous 10 years):
         1. Why are you pursuing the PPOTD at PNWU? How does it align with your personal and professional beliefs and values?
         2. Identify a short-coming, gap, or specific need in your area of practice that you propose to address in your doctoral project. The doctoral project must address a need relevant to rural and/or medically underserved communities. Using the scientific literature to provide a rationale, identify and discuss two potential approaches that address this short-coming, gap, or specific need about which you are interested in learning. In addition, describe what outcomes you hope to achieve through your doctoral project.
         3. Based on your proposed doctoral project, what expertise/skills do you bring to your doctoral studies that are relevant to doing this work? In other words, discuss why you feel you are prepared to engage in this type of work and what skills will contribute to your successful completion of the project.
      2. Essay #2 (approximately 1 page):
         1. Create a Circle of Mentors, listing three individuals with whom you might consult to guide and provide feedback and recommendations for completing your doctoral project.
            1. One individual must be from the PNWU School of Occupational Therapy. The other two mentors can be from outside of PNWU.
            2. One mentor can be a non-occupational therapist, but the inclusion of non-occupational therapy mentors is not required.
         2. Provide a rationale for the selection of each advisor. Discuss how their expertise, which may include their research agenda, ongoing scholarly activities, and other professional service/activities, aligns with your area of interest in a way that will support the successful completion of your project. (availability of advisors does not need to be confirmed at this point; any suggested mentors would be pending SOT approval).
         3. Based on your proposed doctoral project, what content and/or methodological expertise/skills do you anticipate that you will need from your Circle of Mentors to support your project goals?
      3. Essay #3 (approximately 1 page):
         1. What do you plan to do after you have earned a PPOTD, and how will your doctoral project help you achieve these goals?
4. Provide official transcripts of all academic coursework.
   1. Applicants should send all official transcripts directly to OTCAS (not to Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences). We strongly encourage you to submit all transcripts in advance of the application deadline because OTCAS requires several weeks to verify transcripts.
5. Submit a curriculum vitae noting academic training, work experience, and achievements.
6. Provide three letters of reference in support of your proposed doctoral project:
   1. One letter must be from a licensed and registered occupational therapist.
   2. The other two letters may be from non-occupational therapy professionals.
7. Applicants must also demonstrate they have taken coursework, within 10-years prior to the date of matriculation, that addresses the following foundational skills. Coursework must be from a U.S. Department of Education accredited college or university.
   1. Evidence-based practice: Coursework that meets this requirement typically covers critical evaluation of scientific literature, the scientific method, where and how to identify sources of evidence, how to formulate a research question, and how to perform a literature review.
   2. Research design: Coursework that meets this requirement typically covers a range of research methodologies (e.g., quantitative and qualitative approaches) and research designs.
   3. Statistics: Coursework that meets this requirement typically covers descriptive and inferential statistics, correlation, hypothesis testing, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and introduction to regression analysis.
      1. The above topics may be covered in a single course or multiple courses, but are required to be the equivalent of a minimum of 3 semester credit hours. In addition to transcripts, students may be asked to provide course syllabi or course descriptions to verify the attainment of prerequisites.
8. Complete a PNWU supplemental application:
   1. The supplemental application includes the submission of a non-refundable $50 graduate supplemental application fee. Requests for a supplemental application fee waiver will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
9. Upon notification of acceptance to the PNWU SOT, applicants will be required to submit a $500 non-refundable admissions deposit. This deposit, which must be received within 14 days (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays) of being notified of acceptance, will be applied toward the first-semester tuition.