Research methodology

Workflow

1. Discover candidates. ACOTE's school directory, AOTA education resources, state association and licensing pages, federal education datasets, university catalogs and other directories are used to find leads only. Other directories never verify a fact.
2. Verify the institution and program on the school's own pages: the exact program, not the university as a whole.
3. Classify the professional pathway first: entry-level OT, OT assistant, post-professional, pre-professional, research, certificate or continuing education, or aide training. These are never mixed.
4. Record the award exactly (for example Master of Science in Occupational Therapy, or Associate of Applied Science), separately from the normalized browsing category.
5. Check accreditation against the accreditor's own record (ACOTE for entry-level OT and OTA programs): accreditor, program covered, campus or location covered, official status as worded by the source, status date, published term and the date we checked.
6. Separate delivery facts: coursework delivery (on campus, online, hybrid), campus attendance, practical requirements (labs, fieldwork, capstone, placements, in-person assessments), study intensity and teaching mode. Online coursework with in-person fieldwork is shown as exactly that.
7. Extract admissions and costs as published: prerequisites, GPA, observation hours, tests, application route (OTCAS only when the school says so), deadlines, and tuition with its billing basis, academic year and in-state or out-of-state category.
8. Save sources: the page address and a short verbatim quote for each fact, with the date it was checked. A script re-fetches pages and checks the quotes; facts whose quote cannot be found are withheld.
9. Withhold anything that cannot be confirmed. A withheld fact is shown as “Not published” or “Not confirmed”, not filled in from memory.
10. Deduplicate and publish after review; every batch is written to a coverage ledger.

Who is included

Dedicated occupational therapy and OTA qualifications, formally named pre-OT pathways, occupational science programs, post-professional programs, research degrees with a documented OT focus, relevant academic certificates and structured professional education. Occupational therapy aide training is a separate support-role category and is never presented as OT or OTA preparation.

Excluded: generic health degrees with no named OT pathway, rehabilitation programs without a documented OT connection, physical therapy programs, informal webinars presented as qualifications, and discontinued programs presented as enrolling. A program stays listed even when tuition, deadlines or admissions details are missing.

Qualifications are not interchangeable

A PhD is not an entry-level OTD. An entry-level OTD is not a post-professional OTD. A pre-OT bachelor's degree does not by itself prepare a graduate to practice, and an academic certificate is not NBCOT certification. Combined programs are one record with both awards and the professional phase identified. We do not compare unrelated pathways as if they produced the same professional outcome.

Geography

The scope is all 50 states and Washington, DC, each with its own research entries, plus territories where eligible programs are verified. Institution headquarters, campus, program location, online enrollment eligibility and fieldwork location are separate facts: an online program of a university in one state does not automatically have a campus or confirmed enrollment in any other state. Research is recorded in a ledger and is not complete; “no verified program found” is an outcome of our search, not proof that none exists. See the coverage on each state page.

Costs

Tuition is shown in US dollars with its published basis (per credit, per term, per year, whole program), academic year and fee category. A per-credit fee is never compared with a whole-program fee, and fees are never summed. Mandatory fees and other costs are separate lines where published.

Editorial selections: how the “best” pages are made

The best program pages are unranked editorial selections, not league tables: no numbers and no invented scores. Entry-level OT, OTA, post-professional and research programs are evaluated separately, against criteria that fit each category:

• relevant accreditation status for the exact program
• curriculum and published structure
• faculty expertise, where the school publishes it
• experiential education and fieldwork support
• research opportunities (for research and post-professional programs)
• student support information
• cost transparency
• published outcomes, only where cohort, reporting period and denominator are stated

We can assess only what is published on official pages, so a good program that publishes little can be missed. Selections are a starting point for your own research, not a verdict. We never invent acceptance rates, salaries, reviews or outcomes.

Sponsorship is separate

Sponsorship has no influence on inclusion, verification, accreditation information, order of results or editorial selections. Paid placements are labeled and sit in their own slots; see the sponsorship disclosure.

What we do not do

• We do not invent programs, accreditation, eligibility for certification or licensure, tuition, reviews, rankings or outcomes.
• We do not state or imply that a degree grants a license, that admission guarantees future certification eligibility, or that a certificate qualifies someone as an OT or OTA. See accreditation, certification and licensure.
• We do not bypass bot protection or access restrictions. Where an official page could not be reached, the record says so.

Limits

Coverage is incomplete and uneven by state. Facts are checked at a point in time and accreditation statuses change. If you find an error, see corrections.