PT applying to OT?

[peppermintglow]

It seems like a lot of people who want to do PT apply to OT as well, and not so much the other way around. Why is that?

 

To me, the fields are extremely different! I'm only really interested in OT and not so much PT, and curious as to why there's overlap more one way than the other.

[Happyness]

In general they are very different but in certain settings they are very similar. 

 

I applied to both because I love both. If I really had to pick one (which I might have to do soon) I’d go with PT because i think it would be easier to work as a PT in other countries. If I wasn’t going into PT or OT I really don’t know what else I’d do. All the other professions I researched don’t interest me. 

[Hopplah]

I think you get a lot of people are apply to OT as a back up for PT, because the GPA requirements tend to be a bit lower. So it wouldn't make a lot of sense to "back up"  your OT application with a PT one, if you were feeling like your OT application was potentially weak. PT is hard to get into these days. Extremely hard. If I was an aspiring PT, I think it's pretty easy to look at OT and see appealing aspects, like hand therapy.

I also think a big contributor to the trend is that OT attracts a bit wider of set of backgrounds and experiences - I know I went into because of my interest in mental health, for example. PT was never something I even considered, and I imagine that applies to a lot of my classmates. 

Finally, it seems like PT in general has more requirements (i.e. I think Dal is one of the few OT schools that has both anatomy and physiology as pre-reqs for OT). If you have geared your application and course selection towards OT, it's not a given that you've taken the PT pre-reqs.

[OTPT2019]

First-year OT student at Mac. 100% of the OT students in my class knew for a very long time that they wanted to do OT. From what I know, none of us applied for PT. I agree 100% with Hopplah about OT being the back-up due to it having a lower GPA entry by a couple points, and no pre-reqs for the Mac program at least.