We do not read the OTCAS personal statement. The only essay we do read is the required supplemental essay outlined below.

PLEASE NOTE: Effective 5/4/2020 the first 3 essay prompts have been updated to accommodate for potential COVID-19 adjustments.

All applicants must compose an essay that addresses, in an integrative way, each topic listed below. The essay should have its own organization and not simply consist of answering the requested elements in the order listed. The purpose of this essay is for you to share with the faculty, in a reflective way, why you feel you would be a good occupational therapist and why you feel you are a good “fit” for our program. The essay must be electronically submitted via the questions section in OTCAS. You must embed your name in the file name for association with your application file. The essay must be double-spaced, using 12-point font, and no more than 1800 words. Your full name must appear on the cover page of the document along with a precise essay word count. Title this document: “Reasons for Pursuing Occupational Therapy Study at Puget Sound.”

  1. In your own words, describe what occupational therapy is. Include how you gained your knowledge of what occupational therapists do in the workplace. What insights into occupational therapy did this give you?
  2. Tell us how your education, work, volunteer experiences, and other personal experiences and goals have prepared you for graduate education in the field of occupational therapy. Discuss how your personal qualifications fit the demands of the profession. Include leadership experiences, in whatever form they may have taken.
  3. Describe how occupational therapists use occupation to improve the lives of clients. Be specific. Demonstrate depth and breadth in your understanding of the field.
  4. Describe how you faced a challenge in your personal life, work, or school. Use a specific example. Illustrate your critical thinking and problem-solving in recounting what you learned about yourself from that situation and how that could inform your work as a graduate student and future occupational therapist.
  5. The University of Puget Sound School of Occupational Therapy values achieving a workforce that supports a diversity of experiences and identity characteristics (such as disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, language spoken, nation of origin, race, religion/spiritual tradition, sex, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class). Write about how you personally would support and contribute to the achievement of the goal of a diverse occupational therapy workforce. To do so, write about one or more of the following:

    a. your own demographic characteristics

    b. your own cross-cultural or interracial experiences and values

    c. your personal goals toward engaging with diversity

    d. your own understanding of the need for a diverse health care workforce

  6. Relate why you are interested in attending the School of Occupational Therapy at the University of Puget Sound. Be specific.