Recruitment issues and potential solutions to increase rehabilitation science applications.

Recruitment of academically gifted students for Communication Sciences and Disorders, (Speech Language Pathology) Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy programs has been a challenge for the past few years. A student survey was created to provide insight as to when in their academic development and what methods are used by students to make program selections. Outcomes from this study include: (1) when students made career choices; (2) what influenced them in their career choice, (3) how and why they selected their future profession, (4) the number of programs applied to, and (5) the reasons they selected our university. As a result of this survey, recruitment methods have been enhanced to more actively recruit students during high school and to ensure that personal, volunteer or work-experience is included in the recruitment process.