What's the importance of research in

[brady23]

What's the importance of research experience and COOP/work experience when applying for professional programs like physiotherapy and occupational therapy?

 

I heard that they're not as important as medical school, so would doing a degree without a thesis be okay or would it lower my chances dramatically for a program like OT?

[PurpleOT]

These experiences will definitely strengthen your application for schools like Queens who care a lot about volunteer, work, research, extracurricular activities, etc. but I wouldn't go on to say that it would lower your chances of getting into the schools in general. Different schools look for different things -for example, Western is pretty much GPA based so not doing a thesis or having research experiences won't matter in terms of getting in.

[manna]

I have Co-operative designation through my undergrad, and I was accepted to Queens, waitlisted for UBC and Western. I would say I probably have more experience than others, but because I had to work through my undergrad my GPA did suffer, and may not be as competitive as others. But I still think that experience is important, as I had friends who applied who had little or just the bare reqs for volunteer experience and were not considered at any school.