 Hey guys, good morning. Hope you appreciate the sunrise. So today's video is gonna be a pre-PA Q&A from a question by Ronnie A. Mainly because he included so many different things that a lot of you guys ask about all in just one very quick question. So this is gonna be a five minute video, lots of value, so let's go. Ronnie A. asks, hello, thank you for the video. This is on how to get into PA school with a low GPA video. He says my son, he's asking for a son. He says my son is a senior, bachelor's of science in microbiology, decided that he wants to be a PA. Awesome, good decision. His final GPA is 3.1, not awesome. That's gonna be a challenge. And he said that O.K.E.M. killed his GPA with a C and a C minus and all the rest were A's and B's. If his GPA is a 3.1, it sounds like there was more B's than A's in that situation because just one C and one C minus should not bring you that far down. So yeah, I mean, B's and A's okay. You'll probably want more A's, but the C and the C minus are gonna be the issue here. He said completing pre-rec anatomy at a community college, that's fine. There's absolutely no problem with taking one to five classes at a community college. If they're pre-recs and you just happen to need them, they weren't part of your major. So that's totally fine as long as he gets an A, like I told him. He's asking, are there any courses he can take to boost his grades? I'm assuming you mean his GPA. And then he goes on to say he has 1,600 paid hours as a Red Cross lobotomist, which is good patient care experience. That's totally fine. It's hands-on. You have some responsibility for patient care. So I'm gonna say that's totally fine patient care experience. And 1,600 is definitely plenty and volunteering. That's cool. Then he also asks, what else can he do? He's looking to shadow a PA. Any insight you have would be greatly appreciated. Okay, so I'm gonna answer these from easiest to hardest. Easiest would be he's looking to shadow a PA. The pandemic is more or less over as far as us getting back to work in the office and whatnot. So it's a whole lot easier to get into shadowing than it was a year ago or especially two years ago. So what I would say to do for shadowing is ask his career office at the school that he's at. See if they have any opportunities. See if there's a pre-med club, pre-PA club. Usually they have pipelines into shadowing for things like that. If they do not, literally just pound the pavement and just go to any medical office, urgent care, hospital, emergency room, and just walk in there and just ask the front desk. I'm looking to shadow. I'm a pre-med, pre-PA student. What can I do? How do I sign up to shadow? Usually there's gonna be a few weeks of paperwork and screening and all kinds of junk, especially at the bigger hospitals, but you'll get in there. A lot of them just have basically just built programs on how to get students to shadow because we know that it's so important in healthcare. So yeah, just go ask literally every hospital, every urgent care, every private medical practice in your area. I guarantee you, if you ask about five to 10 of them, you'll find at least one or two opportunities. So that's the easy one. So that one, he said, he moved into shadow of PA. Any insight? That's my insight. He's also completing pre-rex anatomy at a community college. Totally fine, just get a good grade. His hours are solid. He has a good experience and he has a good amount of them. So that's all completely fine. Your son sounds like a pretty solid applicant. The issue we're talking about here is the GPA, 3.1, maybe for newer programs, there's a possibility, but otherwise, that's definitely on the low side. So yeah, I definitely would say fix that. And I'm assuming you're asking how to fix that. So I'm gonna say, depending on how many credits he has, honestly, it's really hard to say how many courses, and not even what type of courses, but how many courses he's gonna need to bring a 3.1 up to like, I'd say bare minimum, 3.3, 3.4, you know? So if your son has just finished his bachelor's, he has maybe 100, 220 credits. I don't know what the math is. You're gonna have to do like an online GPA calculator to figure this out. But I would say, I don't know. I honestly don't even wanna venture a guess, but just play with it. Maybe four courses, maybe five courses, three to four credit courses, getting all A's and all of those might get them there, just depending on how many credits he has. That's one possibility. Another possibility is if O.K.M. was early in his career and his last 60 credits are all solid, a lot of schools just look at the last 60 credits. So do your research, see which schools just look at the last 60 credits. That's another possibility. Another possibility, of course, is doing a structured post-bac, which is usually my last resort, just because they're expensive and you don't really get much for your efforts, except for more undergraduate classes, but a structured post-bac. A lot of people bring up their grades with those, and a lot of times there's mentorship and tutoring and things like that, and those that can help you get your GPA up. So my first advice would be to just pull up a GPA calculator and play with it, see how many courses you actually need. What kind of courses you take doesn't really matter as long as they're upper level bio, upper level chem, preferably courses you have not taken already. That's a big common sticking point. A lot of people try to retake courses that they failed in or that they didn't poorly in. I think that's a bad idea. I think it's better to just take new courses that you have not already taken because that looks a whole lot better. Let's say I took O.K.M. and I got a C or a C minus, then I take it again and I get an A. Okay, this is your second go-around. You've already had the material the first time that I got it a second time. That doesn't, as someone in admissions, I'm not in admissions, but as someone looking at it from an admission standpoint, that doesn't look as good as you took a similar course but different content, let's say biochemistry, and got an A. That tells me a whole lot more. So I would prefer that he not repeat any courses that he takes new bio or chem, upper level, 300s, 400s courses, get straight A's. You need to know how to get straight A's. Look at my channel, how to study and how I memorize everything in PA school and how to study for anatomy. All those videos are available to you, they're free, and they all teach you how to study, so go do that. So anyway, yeah, play with a GPA calculator, see how many courses, how many credits you actually need, see if it might make sense to do a structure post-bac. It usually doesn't, in his case especially, and I would not even really tell you to consider a master's degree in this case unless there's a master's that you really want to get for PA school, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. He could usually fix this in one to three semesters instead of doing a whole master's, which is like eight to 10 semesters. So yeah, that'll be my advice to you, Ronnie, or better yet to your son. Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions. Thank you for watching.