There are a variety of outcome measures that the DPT program at Central Michigan University uses to assess the success of the program and it’s graduates.  The Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) has identified three of these measures for which all accredited physical therapy programs are required to provide the public with current information.  These data can be useful for prospective students and others to help evaluate the quality of each academic program.  They are only three outcome measures and do not provide a total picture of any program, but they do give a comparison point on three important measures.

Graduation Rate:  The graduation rate represents the percentage of students who graduate from the program within 1.5X the planned timeframe for completion of the program.  For a program that normally takes 3 years, that would be 4.5 years.  Students can fail to graduate or withdraw from a program for a variety of reasons from change in life plans to academic difficulty.  This statistic does not consider the reasons for withdrawal, but only the timely completion rate.

Ultimate Pass Rate:  The ultimate pass rate represents the average of the program graduates from the last 3 years who have passed the licensure examination.   There are many reasons why a student could fail to pass the licensure exam, but we want  to see this number as close to 100% as possible.

Employment Rate:  This is a self-explanatory statistic.  The employment rate is the percentage of program graduates who seek employment and are employed as a physical therapist within 6 months of passing their licensure exam.