 One of my wonderful subscribers asks Can you make a video or post on how and where to take prerequisites? It's more difficult than I thought to find the right schools to take them Absolutely very common issue very common question Especially for people who are no longer an undergrad and who are looking to take prerequisites after they're done So they might be taking one or two classes at a time because they only need a couple of prereqs So the most important thing I would say about this is that most PA schools more or less require the same kind of Classes, you know biology chemistry But it's very important to know that some schools require classes that others don't and the schools that you are applying to may have Some of their own requirements like medical terminology or psychology not every school requires those kinds of classes So it's very important to go to that school's website or the PAEA like I'll show you in just one minute and make a list of the classes that you have not taken that you still need in order to apply for that school so How would I do this? I'm going to answer this question in two ways The first thing I'm going to answer is how to make the list of classes that you need the prerequisites that you actually need to apply to the schools you want to And also how to get those prerequisites So the first thing that I would do Is I go to the PAEA What is the PAEA? It is the physician assistant education association And according to their website as you can see here The PAEA is the only national organization representing physician assistant education programs in the united states Currently all accredited programs in the country are members of the association So this is definitely a reliable source and look at that. They have a dot org. So, you know, they're legit So this is definitely a good source So the PAEA does this wonderful thing and they have a Program directory. So like that website just said every american PA program is registered through the PAEA So here's a list of all of them Now you do have to note that they have this disclaimer all data in the directory was reported to the programs prior to the COVID-19 pandemic reaching the united states So some of these programs may have changed some of their requirements. They may have changed some of their prereq requirements Who knows even though this list is comprehensive It's very important to look on that school's own website And see if any of their requirements have changed or even better contact them directly see if anything is different But that being said, this is still a very good resource so I'm going to pick a school at random. So let's just kind of Do this You can see I'm not picking a school that I know about. I'm just going to do it completely at random and here we go Okay Francis Marion University in South Carolina. I have no idea where this school is. I know nothing about it So let's go with that. So I clicked on Francis Marion University. They are accredited through the ARCPA Uh, you can see all kinds of good stuff about them their mission Veterans information They're a 27 month long program they take 32 students they start in august Basically most things that you would want to know or most things that most people would want to know about the school is listed right here Here's their contact information in case you wanted to contact them directly Their minimum GPA right here if they had reported to the PAEA then they would show how many hours they require But they don't have that so you probably have to go to their website to find that out All that kind of stuff But what we're looking for today is the prerequisite coursework. So look at that So here the PAEA lists classes that a lot of schools require And what they mark off for each school is which of these classes this particular school requires So for instance Anatomy the school requires it and they require a lab biology general biology They require general biology with a lab Microbiology bacteriology they require it with a lab general chemistry organic chemistry Physiology all those courses are required So physiology usually you'd get that in anatomy and physiology But maybe some schools have a separate physiology class. I don't know either way You would have to get that covered with an A and P anatomy and physiology or just a dedicated physiology class So a few more prerequisites for this particular school statistics medical terminology general psychology So as long as you have all those classes that have a little check mark here, you're good You have the requirements to apply at least as far as prereq scope So what's interesting about this particular school is they require medical terminology, which not every school does For instance, my school did not require a medical terminology We actually took it as a separate course online through the summer before our program started So my program did not actually require medical terminology. This school, uh, francis maryon does You can see here that the school doesn't require biochemistry It doesn't require any kind of english composition or literature It doesn't require sociology Those are classes that some schools do require. So like I said, this is a good way to go So now let's go back. Let's check out another one just to see if there's any differences And I'm going to scroll down randomly again. Okay, Oklahoma University of Oklahoma Tulsa. Let's click on that one So we'll go all the way to the bottom where the prerequisite courses are So this one you can see that they require anatomy, but they do not require general biology like that other school We just looked at this one requires microbiology, bacteriology, general chemistry, but not organic chemistry physiology This one does require english composition. The other one did not It requires algebra, but not statistics And it requires general psychology So you can see that not every school requires the same classes So you either need to cater the classes that you take to the schools you want to apply to Or cater the schools that you apply to based on the classes that you've already taken. So it is important to do that Now so that's how I would find what classes to take and also like I said I would go to these schools websites just to make sure that the PAEA information is up to date So let's do that real quick. Let's just go to the university of oklah Oklahoma Tulsa PA program It's usually the first thing that comes up. There it is OU.edu And there's your physician assistant program. Okay, let's go to admissions Admissions requirements. There's everything and let's just go down to prerequisite courses There it is prerequisites And here you can see it basically matches up with what we saw on PAEA They need english composition college algebra, but no statistics psychology chemistry microbiology Uh, and then there's a few other things here like in upper division science and then human anatomy and physiology So it basically matches up, but The school's website might have a little bit more information on the specific prereq that they want So anyway, how would I get these prereqs? So right now during the covid pandemic, obviously everything's moving online I'm not really sure when schools are going to start on campus instruction again Every school is different But you can get a lot of these classes if not all of them online So I know there's a lot of discussion on which schools accept online Classes which schools do not can you take them at a community college? Can you take them out of four year? That preference is completely up to the schools that you apply to so I would definitely contact them if you're concerned I just have to tell you from my own experience Community college classes online classes are completely fine Some online classes even have a lab where they send you specimens and you can dissect them at home And you can send videos to the instructors and they'll critique you so It's just like an on-campus class except it's done, you know from the convenience of your home So again, definitely check with the schools you want to apply to if that's okay for them But especially right now. I can't imagine that a lot of schools would not be taking online classes So since you asked where to take prerequisites, I'm just going to share where I took a good portion of mine I'm in no way sponsored by the school or endorsing them in any way I'm just sharing my experience from a place that I found a lot of the prereqs that I took and it was very convenient So this right here is portage learning And they're through a four-year university But all of their programs here at least through portage are online and let's just take a look real quick So essential biology one with a lab So you might be asking how does an online school have a lab? Like I said a second ago, they send you specimens you dissect them You take a video and pictures of yourself dissecting them and then you send all those things to the instructors They critique you they teach you so you basically get a lab experience, but you can do it at home So this is definitely something I found extremely useful when I was in the navy and I was moving all around I couldn't just be at one school for a long period of time to take all my pre-rex I had to move around so this was really convenient. So Real quick, let's take a look. So we have biology one. We have biology two both of them with lab We have medical terminology nutrition Uh human anatomy one and two I definitely took these online Even though I took them in college by the time I applied to PA school It was so long ago that I had to retake them. So here they are human anatomy and physiology one and two Microbiology pathophysiology pharmacology If all these look familiar, it's because we just saw them on the PA EA website I think almost every program requires a and p one and two. So here they are I think almost every program requires biology one and or biology two here. They are a lot of programs require medical terminology We're not done yet Uh chemistry most programs require at least a basic chemistry. Maybe an organic here's general chemistry one and two with lab here is Biochemistry not every program requires it, but I personally highly recommend biochemistry I got a lot of use out of what I learned in biochemistry and it definitely made things in PA school much easier at least so far English we saw that a lot of uh PA schools require English composition. So here is English composition one two Math we saw that some schools require algebra some schools require statistics Well, here they are basic statistics basic algebra Even psychology general psychology or a lifespan or abnormal psychology, whatever you're interested in A lot of PA schools do require a psychology course. So here they are some require sociology. There's an intro to sociology So just with this school alone, you can knock out pretty much all of your basic prereqs for PA school And again, I'm not sponsored by the school. This is in no way an advertisement. I'm not getting money from them This is just a school that I used check out the prices 600 bucks 600 bucks the ones that I have a lab component are a little more in-depth Uh a little bit more involved 800 bucks And it's a four credit class. How much does a four credit class cost at a university? A couple thousand a few thousand, I don't know But either way, this is definitely a good resource There's about 4 000 colleges and universities in the united states a lot of them are going online now You have plenty of options to get your prereqs. This is just one thing that I use personally So to wrap it up, how do you find which prereqs you need? I would start with a PA EA directory, so just directory dot PA EA Online dot org and find the school or schools that you're looking for Look through there That'll give you a start and then go to that school's website Look on their own admissions requirements prereqs and make a list of all the things that you need Cross off the ones you've already taken if you took them five years ago or 10 years ago Make sure that's still okay. If it's not you're gonna have to retake them So make a list of all the classes you need then Decide which school you want to go to if there's one locally you prefer going to that's fine If you want to do it online you could google, you know, anatomy and physiology online Whatever you want to do one option is this portage learning place that I definitely took a lot of my own prereqs at It's excellent. I really had a good experience with them And so you take your list of prereqs you knock them out you do really well in your classes You put your grades into CASPA. There you go. You're done with your prereqs. All right. Thank you for the question