 Alright, so there are a few things that you should absolutely be doing when you have gotten rejected from PA school and you're thinking about reapplying the next cycle or in an upcoming cycle. And in this video, we're going to be hitting five of those things that you should be doing while you are preparing to apply for PA school after a rejection. So let's get into the video right now. Thanks so much for joining me today. So as usual, you guys, I keep telling you leave your comments in the comments section below because I do answer those questions. And this video again comes from kind of a hybrid e-form, I guess you can say, of a question that was asked to me. So I will post that question up on the screen next to me as I usually do or in front of me so that you guys can see the question and we're going to get into answering it right now. So the question was posed by Trinity Smith and it says, what was your major? What did you do in the years that you didn't get accepted into PA school besides retake old classes? So Trinity, I think this is a really legitimate question and it's a question that many people have because really and truly several people, like the majority of people don't get accepted into PA school on their first try. Many of them are reapplicants and so it's important that you prepare yourself as best as you can when you're applying to PA school to make sure that you are the best possible applicant you can be. So I'll hit your first question of what my major was. My major was biomedical sciences. I've answered this in other videos and I really just chose that major because it sounded really cool. I actually switched my major junior year of my undergraduate degree because I was a biology major initially and then this new brand new spanking, like really nice major came up called biomedical sciences that we were offering and I was like, hey, that sounds better than biology because biology is kind of plain. So I switched it and mainly because it sounded good and then I only had to take an extra course to complete the fulfillment of that degree. So that was my major in undergrad. It got me all of my prerequisite requirements. So if I wanted to apply straight out of undergrad, I could have done so but that wasn't the route I took. I've seen it grow out. As many people do, did a lot of the different things in the years after undergrad and then eventually applied to PA school like a few years after that. So that was my route but for you with your question on what did I do in the years that I didn't get accepted into PA school besides taking or retaking classes, I did a lot. And I think that there are five things that you absolutely should incorporate in the things that you're doing to make sure that you're the best candidate moving forward. And so yes, you know, retaking classes, that is like your number one thing you should be doing. You should absolutely be retaking any courses that you've gotten to see in, especially if they're prerequisite courses or any science courses that you've gotten to see in because GPA is a huge component of the PA school application. It's kind of what opens the door for you, for them to actually look at your application and be like, oh, okay, this person, you know, they might be a good fit for our program because they've done really well in their harder upper division science courses. So that is absolutely something you should be doing but it's not one of the five things that I'm going to list here. So if you did not get accepted, one thing you should absolutely be doing is calling the schools that you apply to. Now, obviously, if you apply to 30 schools or something like that, it might be a little bit more tedious, but for the most part, generally, people usually apply to five to 10 schools. So if you're applying to five to 10 programs, you can easily take a program a day and call them to be like, hey, you know what, I'm really, really interested in your program. I applied last cycle, I didn't get in, but I really, like your mission statement really resonates with me and I want to know what I can do as an applicant moving forward to better my application next year. Now, some people will have an answer for you. Some may point you in like a general idea of what things that you can do, but there are a good amount of people that will sit down and be like, oh, what's your name? Let me look at your application and they will give you the notes on, hey, well, this is one area that I see that you can improve. This is something that, you know, we were looking at, we were going back and forth on your application, you were really close and this is kind of what tipped us in the opposite direction to not offer you an interview. So if you can hit those points, I think that you would be a better applicant for the next cycle. I mean, I did this with a few of the programs that I applied to, which was like tremendously helpful because it gave me direction. When you're moving like, you know, like a boat without a compass, like just kind of floating in the water, you have no direction and sometimes you need somebody to give you that direction to where you should be like be pointing your or focusing your energy on. And this is one of those things that you can do that will help you do that. The next thing that you should absolutely be doing is looking for more direct patient care experience. Now I've done a video already on this between the difference between direct patient care experience and health care experience. So if you haven't seen that video, just after you watch this video, go into like my YouTube channel and search that and it should pop up. Okay. And while you're at it, go ahead and subscribe and like my videos as well because it helps my YouTube algorithm a whole lot. But you should be looking for more direct patient care experience. You are trying to be a better application, you're trying to be a better applicant this cycle than you were last cycle. Okay. So part of that is increasing the amount of hours that you have. Now, obviously if you already have a job that's giving you direct patient care experience, then you're set. You're going to continue to work and you're going to gain those hours. If you don't have a position that's doing that, you really should be looking into trying to find one or get a certification that will allow you to do that because it is important. A lot of applicants, I think the minimum that you really should be trying to attain when applying to PA school is a thousand PCEs. Now, you may think like that sounds like a lot, especially if I'm coming straight out of undergrad, but if you look at it, you guys, that PCE is becoming more and more and more every year. You have students that are coming in with 5,000, 6,000, 10,000, 20,000 hours because they've been out of school, you know, they've been working in the healthcare field and now they've realized, hey, I want to be a PA. So for you has a new grad undergrad applicant coming in with your 500 hours, that doesn't look as good as the money that has like a thousand, 5,000 or 6,000 hours. So absolutely look at making sure you can implement things that will help you get more PCE. The next thing that you should be doing is revising your application. Now, if you haven't already gotten the theme of what I'm talking about so far, it's all about revision. You are looking at what you did in the past to now what you should be doing in the future to make sure that you're not making those same mistakes. So in this whole revision process, what you should be doing is looking at, hey, what did I write for my personal statement? What was on my transcripts? You know, what, who did I ask for letters of recommendation? What did I write in those supplemental questions that are already included in CASPA? How can I make that sound better? How can I make me sound more like a human as opposed to a robot that's just like regurgitating information that I found on the internet? You know, those are the things that you really need to be looking at because ultimately what you want to do is make sure that you're not applying as the same candidate. Essentially, right? That very minimal has changed from last year to this year. So when you do that revision, you might see things in your transcript that you're like, wait a minute, CASPA calculated it as this. Why? What, why is my science GPA this and my overall GPA this when in my, you know, transcript, it says this and maybe there may have been a class that was missed that wasn't like sent in in time or something like that. There are several things that you can look and you can do to make sure that your application is in pristine condition. So absolutely revise that application. The next thing you should be doing is looking for PAs to shadow. So what I mean is obviously like, you know, you may have shadowed some PAs in the past, you have like 20 hours, but the more hours you have, the better. Okay. This is again about making yourself look like a better applicant this cycle. So with that being said, you can do all of the various different things, you know, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, ask people, Hey, can I shadow you virtual shadowing is like up and coming in a really, really great thing that you can utilize. Get that so University has virtual shadowing so you can do that because in that way, what will happen is you have a broader scope, a broader idea of the PA profession and how PAs are utilized in different specialties. So it's important for you to get that overall picture and shadowing a PA does that. And so when schools are looking at your application, they're like, okay, you know what? This person has seen all of these different professions. You know, I think that they still want to be a PA. They really know what they want. So absolutely, you know, like let's that's just one extra thing that can give you a little bump in your application. And the last and final thing that I absolutely think you should be doing is rethinking slash revising the programs that you've already applied to. Now, not every PA program is made equally. Not every PA program is made for you and not every PA program is the same. And so obviously there are PA programs that are going to have various different prerequisites requirements. Maybe you didn't meet some and you applied to them. Nonetheless, a lot of us going to apply in a PA school and think, oh, well, you know, I have all these other things going for me. They're not going to see that I don't have this or they're going to overlook that or my, you know, although my GPA is this, you know, I have all these hours. If you're not meeting that minimum requirement, you are not getting an interview. Okay. I want you guys to understand this PA schools and PA programs are getting thousands of applications. They're not like at a loss for students. So you have to make sure that you are the best student, the best candidate. So you need to revise those programs. Do a deep dive. Okay. This is a covert operation. You are going to be looking at all of the schools that you applied to in the past and you're going to see, okay, how do I line up with their students that they've, you know, that they've allowed to be there. They've admitted into their program. I guess you can say, you know, where do I stand in that because ultimately you want to be either on the same playing field or better. You know, you want to make sure that your chance is that you're stacking the deck in your favor. And so what you need to be doing is really doing that deep dive, looking at all of the pages of these programs, websites, looking at all of their like Instagram stuff and making sure that you're hitting all of those various different benchmarks that they're really looking at. And when I say look at all of the website pages, absolutely do that because there are some like little hidden things that are in there that you may miss while you're not looking at just only the main page and that might be the difference in you getting an offer for an interview or not. Okay. So hopefully all of these things that I have listed for you these five things, um, slash five a being, you know, retaking in the classes because that's important as well will help you, um, in your process as being a re-applicant to PA school. Okay. Thank you so much, Trinny for this question. Again, you guys leave your comments and questions in the comment session below. Like I said, I do answer them. Go ahead and subscribe to my channel like this video. Follow me on Instagram. You guys, I'm on Instagram at it on the PA and check out GTCU and get that see university dot com to see what we have to offer. I'll talk to you guys next time.