 Alright, so not everybody gets into PA school on their first try and that is okay. That is pretty on par with what happens across the board. But in that time that you're waiting to get into PA school or waiting to apply to PA school, what should you be doing? That's what we're going to be getting into in this video. What's up you guys? It's a dumb welcome back to my channel. So I know that not everybody gets into PA school on the first try and I had a question that was asked essentially like should I take a gap year or you know just take a year in general between my applications. And so the question was posed by Sunanya Kanchan. I hope I said that right. I'm not always the best with pronouncing these names but I hope I said it right or pretty close to it but she asked hey Adana, thank you so much for all of this information. I'm not sure if you've talked about it before but can you share some insight on reapplying to PA schools? Should I wait a year in between? What should I look to improve on? Should I do a program between cycles? I'm still waiting on some schools this year but I also don't want to waste time this entire year just waiting if there's something I can do that will improve my chances. Thank you. Okay and this is actually like a good question and it's really something that everybody should be thinking about once they apply. Whether you think that you're going to get in the first try or not you need to be thinking okay what can I always do to better myself. So a lot of us like to waste time and we're like okay I've applied to five schools or I've applied to ten schools or how many of our schools you're applying to even if it's three or one and in that time I'm going to just wait to see if I get you know supplemental applications or an interview or an acceptance because that's the track on which most schools offer you an acceptance. You'll get an offer for a supplemental application first then you will get an offer for an interview and then they will call you and let you know that you've been accepted but that takes time and so in that time I think that there are definitely definitely at minimum three things that you should be doing. Obviously there are lots more things that you know people can add in here but for me I think that these three are really the most important things that you should be doing. Let me first answer your question in terms of should I wait a year in between. I mean honestly that's up to you okay and I say this because you are the only one that knows like your particular situation your family life you know your single life whatever the case may be can you afford to wait a year you know can you not afford to wait a year. If you can then absolutely do it wait a year and in that year do the next three things that I'm about to tell you to do you know or some type of like a conglomeration of it you can put in your things or subtract things here and there because again I'm just a girl on YouTube that you guys have subscribed to that you know is telling you just from my experience and the experiences of others that I've seen come before me and come after me this is what was done and this is what worked for us but this may not always work for you so you have to do what is best for you so if taking a year is best for you then absolutely do that okay you said what should I look to improve on and that's where these three things come in so number one I feel like you should absolutely call the schools that you've applied to that you're waiting on hearing back from you know and obviously do this within not like it's not a matter of like oh I applied yesterday so I'm going to call them today no so if you've been waiting for a little while and time has passed call the schools and be like you know what I'm really really interested in your program I know that you guys are still uh sending out invitations for interviews but um I just want to know when if I do not get accepted if you know they're still doing in this process what can I do to improve my application if their application like their particular cohort is closed essentially although the application cycle may still be going because CASPA runs from April to April each year okay and so just because CASPA is open doesn't mean that schools are still accepting applications so that is something that you need to keep in mind and therefore that means that there may be schools that have filled their entire cohort by like January or February or December um it's really a matter of the program and when they open up their deadline or close their deadline I would say when's their deadline to apply so that's really important for you all to know and those are things that you can always find out on the CASPA like participating uh school's little site it will show you all the programs and their deadlines but in that time you need to call the schools and say hey what can I improve on not every school is going to give you an answer but for the most part people are really willing to help and they will give you an answer on some of the things they will that you can do I know that one school that did that for me um when I applied like the first time around was Kettering Kettering College like I called and I asked you know hey what can I improve on and she like the admissions counselor sat down on the phone with me for like an hour and looked at my entire application looked at my GPA looked at you know the courses that I had taken um and explained their application cycle to me and their application process explained that they actually have a prerequisite uh GPA that they calculate themselves that they take into account and looking at the different areas that I can now improve be it in GPA or classes that I've taken additional classes or hours that I need to make myself a better candidate and I really appreciated that because that helped me get into PA school because I literally went through and I revamped um all of those various different points that she touched on so that is something that you should absolutely consider doing um number two I think the next thing that you should be doing is exactly what they've told you to do or looking at this yourself and going through and pinpointing the areas that you can improve on if there are prerequisite courses that you have a C in then you should absolutely consider retaking those courses it's important because most schools don't want C's in their prerequisite courses some schools don't even want B minuses so if you have a C there then that is like a red flag to them that oh okay you know maybe this person doesn't work hard enough or they just don't really care or you know maybe this PA program that is going to be extremely rigorous is not for them and so you want to ensure that any little area that the schools can sit up here and try to like pinpoint and give you a red flag on you don't want to have that so look at your courses your prerequisite courses to ensure that you don't have any outstanding red flags and that schools can pick up on and then from that that will improve your GPA and it will improve your overall look of your application you can also look at the areas of patient care hours and shadowing hours now not every school requires shadowing but there are schools that look highly on shadowing and that's why there are like virtual shadowing like get that C university does or that some of these other you know just private virtual shadowing companies do because we're in COVID times and that is kind of the trajectory that our country is going doing things virtual so it's important for you all to like really and truly look into that see what you can do to improve that now the third thing that I absolutely think that you should be doing is revamping your personal statement okay I think a lot of times when we don't get into PA school if we have like really good stats and really good like hours and all that stuff you know your GPA is on point you got a bunch of like over 3000 hours but you still don't get like an offer for an interview it's typically because your personal statement isn't and so I think that is very very very important for you all to do while you're waiting throughout your your year gap I guess you can say from application cycle to application you really need to go ahead and revamp that personal statement look at it look at areas that you may be able to improve that personal statement be it you know writing a new story rewriting the entire personal statement I did that there were aspects of my old personal statement that I took and if you guys haven't seen that personal statement video that I made years ago you should really look at it because I still think that it's very much relevant but there are areas that you can absolutely look at in these in these personal statements that you write that you can improve on from my personal statement I guess editing experience that I've had over these last few years of doing this what I've noticed is that a lot of times people just write their same stats that they have in their application in their personal statement so you talk about why you want to be a PA but not necessarily like a PA specifically you just say like you want to be a PA because you've always wanted to be in medicine but if that's the case you can be in anything that you know that has to do with medicine you can be a pharmacist you can be a physical therapist so I think that a lot of times we don't pinpoint exactly why we want to be a PA and then we use these stats that we have in our application and then put it into the personal statement and the people that are reading your personal statement can get those stats from your application so it's important for you to show something different this is your personal statement it should be personal to you and therefore it should give them a different side of you that they're not able to see on paper in terms of your application because that's what's going to want them to get more or want them to see more in the interview process so those are the three things that I absolutely think that you should absolutely be doing I said absolutely absolutely a lot I don't know what's going on with me but I absolutely think that you should be doing this okay that's I'm trying to stress this home okay so you should be calling the schools to see what you can improve on you should be then putting that into action and improving on all of your various different uh tangible things so your GPA retaking classes and working on your health care experience hours and shadowing hours and then the third thing you should be doing is taking a second look at your personal statement and revamping that in such a way that you exude who you are and the character and the person that you are so that the schools will want more and will want to invite you for an interview okay all right so I hope that this helped um I hope that it helps and um you know thank you for asking that question if you guys have not left me comments go ahead and do that I answer these comments you guys I take them for videos so please leave a comment in the comment section below go ahead and subscribe if you haven't already done so and like this video because all of that really helps my youtube algorithm out a lot it allows my video to be seen by others who haven't seen it so thank you guys for doing that and thank you again for following me on instagram edit on the pa and on instagram at get that's the university thank you guys so much for watching I will talk to you guys next time