Top Physical Therapy Schools Ratings & Rankings

If you’ve always dreamed of a career where you could spend your days interacting with and helping a wide variety of people to live healthier and more satisfying lives, then you’re probably considering a career in physical therapy. If you’ve done your homework on this career path, you already know that the minimum educational requirements for achieving this position is a post graduate degree at the master’s level. This means that before you can even begin your formal training to become a physical therapist, you must complete a four year preparatory program at an accredited undergraduate university. If you are trying to decide between the myriad of programs and educational options available for pursuing a career in physical therapy, it can be helpful to check out some objective rankings for which schools are considered to be the best in this field.

There are a couple of different ways that you can go about discovering the top physical therapy schools ratings and rankings, and it’s important never to take just one rating system and assume that it is accurate. All of the different methods for ranking schools place different weight on different criteria, such as location, enrollment, class size, tuition cost, faculty and staff, and accreditation. Make sure you have your own list of which elements about a school are most important to you, and only listen to the ranking systems that have taken those elements into account.

The Graduate Schools ranking published annually by the U.S. News & World Report is considered to be one of the most comprehensive rating systems for schools all across America. One of the best things about this report is that it offers many different criteria across which the schools are rated, and offers insight and information about the type of experience that you are likely to have at each school. The Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at the University of Southern California has consistently ranked as one the best programs in the country in the U.S. News & World Report.

Using ranking systems like the one offered by U.S. News & World Report to help you narrow down the schools that you might like to apply to is a wise decision for many reasons. Although you may not be able to afford the very best programs on the list, it is helpful to know the types of things these programs are doing to achieve such a prestigious ranking. Then, you can look for similar attributes or opportunities at the schools that are in your budget bracket. You will also be able to find out who the most respected faculty are in this field of medicine, and which schools have the highest success rate for graduates finding jobs within six months of graduation.