 Do not let your GPA get screwed up by any means. Not to go party, not to go hang out with a boyfriend or girlfriend, not to go make more money or get more patient care experience hours, not for any freaking reason. And that's good, that makes you stand out. That way with a good solid hours, good experiences and a good personality, which I hope you have, you'll be fine, you'll basically be a shoo-in. So do not screw up your grades. You might not get the same quality of education but whatever, cares. The education you really need is in PA school anyway. Undergrad is basically a giant screening process. Hey guys, if you're new to my channel, my name is Boris. I'm a board certified physician assistant. And the topic of today's video is going to be high school to PA. The most efficient way to become a physician assistant if you're still in high school. And so throughout this video, what I'm basically gonna do is just give you steps, step-by-step instructions on how to take yourself from being where you are now, a high school student, to where you wanna go, a certified physician assistant. I'm gonna give you all the steps. What I'm also gonna do is explain, after each one of these steps, why I think it's important. So there's not one way to do everything, but this is the most efficient possible way I think that you can become a physician assistant. And I'm actually even gonna give you a couple of different routes and different avenues at each of these steps, just depending on what you wanna do with your life, how risk tolerant you are, how confident you are in your study abilities, X, Y and Z. Just try to make this a one-size-fits-all for as many people as possible. So without further ado, here we go, step one. Let's say you're a high school student, let's say you're not a senior, you're not graduating, you know, next month, you know, basically a college student already. No, you're still a high school student, you've got at least a couple years left in high school. You haven't applied to colleges yet, you're still in high school. So what do you do? You know that you wanna be a physician assistant, you're certain about that already, what do you do? Okay, so if you're at this stage in your career, if you're sure that PA is right for you, you don't wanna go to med school, you don't wanna do anything else, you wanna be a PA, I think that the best thing you can do is a 3-5 program. What that basically means is certain programs allow you to do three years of undergrad, and then if your GPA is high enough, you meet the certain requirements that you have to meet, you're guaranteed a spot in the physician assistant class. So it's three years of undergrad and ends up being like two or two and a half years of PA school, whatever PA school that is. For instance, the program that I went to had a 3-5 program, so I think 20 or 30 of our students, my classmates were 3-5 students. So they spent three years in undergrad and then they met whatever requirements they had to meet and then they got direct entry right into the physician assistant program, which is very, very competitive. So they didn't have to do all of that, they didn't have to apply to PA school, get all their hours, hope and pray that they get in, which most of us do, they were already guaranteed a spot because they did the 3-5 program, which is incredibly amazing if you're sure that PA is right for you and you start early enough, let's say if you're in high school. So not every program has a 3-5 program, definitely Google these, just basically type right into Google, three plus five physician assistant programs and see which ones are in your area or areas that you wouldn't mind living in and see what you have to do to apply to those programs. I'm sure that it's like applying to any other college program, you just have to have probably very good grades right out of high school and then maintain, like I said, a certain GPA while you're in college and probably get some hours while you're on your winter breaks or in summers, whatever you gotta do. Basically, you have to actually be a competitive pre-PA student, but you don't have to go through the whole application process and you don't have to do the whole fourth year of undergrad. So it's definitely the fastest, most efficient way to become a physician assistant. You skip a whole year of undergrad, so it's all those student loans that you're not taking and you skip the whole process of applying to PA school, which for a lot of people can be two, three, four times, you know, two, three, four seasons, years, whatever, trying to apply to these programs, which is very stressful, very expensive, and just a lot of time out of your life. So if you could get into a three, five program and maintain the requirements and then, you know, get into PA school and finish PA school, that is by far, by far, by far, the most efficient way to become a physician assistant. So definitely look up three, five programs. If for whatever reason a three, five program is just not in the cards for you, whether that be because you don't have the GPA in high school that you need, or you know, they just don't accept you into the three, five program for whatever reason, you know, you could go the more traditional route. This is kind of the second most efficient way to do it. You know, just have a regular undergraduate experience. You know, if you take extra credits, maybe you can finish it three years anyway and still make it sort of like a mock three, five program, except for the difference is you'll have to apply to PA school like anybody else. But, you know, if you keep a very high GPA, you get very solid hours. You shouldn't have any problem getting into a PA school if you're starting that early. You know, you're not like me who already screwed up their college GPA and then had to do all kinds of work to make up for that. If you start fresh, you know, from freshman year onwards, you get a very, very good GPA. You know, three, five is good, but you don't have to go that route. You can still become a physician very quickly. You know, worst case scenario, you spend four years in college instead of three years. You know, whatever, that's fine. So if you are a high school student, the three, five program for whatever reason is just not an option for you. You could just go the traditional route, you know, become a whatever major that you want. You know, there's all kinds of talk about, you know, people like, or physician assistant programs like people who are not science majors, who like add diversity to the class intellectually, might be like a language major, like a, you know, Spanish major, Russian major, whatever, English majors, history majors, like all that kind of stuff. I mean, that's probably true to some degree. It's not as true, I feel like, as a lot of people think, most people are science majors just because that's the most efficient way to get all your prereqs. You know, if you're like an English major and you still have to get all the prereqs for science and you still have to maintain a very high GPA in those prereqs, you know, that's gonna be pretty tough. So honestly, I mean, it's probably not a bad idea to have kind of an interesting major, but the most efficient way to become a physician assistant is to be a science major, you know, biochemistry major, biology major, exercise science major, you know, physiology, whatever, you know, whatever kind of science major is or a lot of the prereqs, you know, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, math, all that stuff is basically already, like, baked into the cake with that major. So you don't have to do all kinds of work on top of that. You just take those classes because they already come from your major and then, you know, you do very well in those classes and, you know, boom, you're good. So that's what you could do, just be a more traditional college student, do some sort of a science major, get all the required prereqs, make sure that you get all the required prereqs, you know, be smart about this, look at all the programs you might be interested in applying to, make a list of all those prereqs and make sure that you knock those out during your college experience and also make sure you do very well in that. That being said, whether you are a three-five student, whether you are a traditional college student, whatever you wanna do, make absolute certain now that you're in high school, you know, while you're still in high school, you haven't started your freshman year of college yet, you haven't screwed up your GPA, you know, you have a chance to start really good, you have a chance to start fresh and get good grades from the get-go, make sure you start learning how to study right now. You might be really smart. If you're applying to PA school and you realistically think you're gonna get in and get through it, you're probably smart. Like, you just, you probably are, you're probably a very intelligent person. So, there's a chance that high school's very easy for you, you never have to study, you just like, I don't know, you sit in class, you pay attention kinda halfway and you get good grades. Like, there's a lot of people like that. But, you know, in undergrad, those classes are gonna be tough, more than likely you're gonna have to study and then I don't care how smart you are, in PA school, you're gonna have to study and you're gonna have to study hard. Like, there was a lot of incredibly smart people in my pay school class, everybody's studying their absolute ass off. So, definitely, definitely, definitely learn how to study right now before you've had a chance to screw up your GPA. How do you learn how to study? It's basically like learning any other skill. You know, you gotta humble yourself, you can't just be like, oh, I'm so smart, I don't have to study. Yeah, that might be true right now. I promise you in the future it will not be true. You know, in PA school, especially, that will not be true. So you need to learn how to study right now. How would you do that, okay? You could do it exactly like I did it, except I did it very late. I was like 29 when I learned how to study. But, you know, I'm trying to save you 10 years of your life here, so listen up. Go on YouTube and look at some of the most viewed videos on how to study. Some of them are literally called how to study. For instance, I have a video just like that, linked above. Or, you know, Dr. Salini is a fantastic person to learn from. He's a interventional radiologist. He's incredibly smart. He's got a video that's called something like how I memorized everything in med school. Like a lot of doctors with YouTube presences, YouTube channels, they have videos just like that that are like how I memorized everything in medical school, how I studied in medical school, you know, X, Y, and Z. So watch some of those videos, try out some of those concepts, and see what sticks. You know, not everything is for everybody, and not every kind of study method is for every kind of material. So like some study methods might work great for anatomy and physiology, and then other study methods might work great for pharmacology, and you know, sometimes those might not be the same study method. So you know, learn what works for you, trial and error, if you're totally lost, like I said, look up a YouTube video, get some ideas, see how people study, and just try those things out. One by one by one, just try those study methods, see how they work for you, and you know, eventually you'll find things that work for you. So by the time you get to undergrad, you're way, way, way, way ahead of the competition. People are usually just figuring out how to study in undergrad, if they ever do. You know, most people never really figure it out. They just like beat their head against a wall, and like try to figure out how to study, and end up not really getting excellent grades, and then not end up getting into, you know, PA school, medical school, competitive programs like that. That's why these programs have like a, I don't know, three to five percent admission rate, because most people do not ever learn how to study. You don't have to be a genius. You don't have to be brilliant to be good at school. You just have to learn how to study. So just do it now. You know, when you're in high school, start yourself off on the right foot in undergrad, and then in PA school by learning how to study now, doing exactly what I just told you. Okay. So, so far we've talked about the three five programs, which is a fantastic choice. It's the most streamlined, the most efficient way to get into PA school, and to get through PA school. If that's not an option, the next most efficient way is to just get a standard undergrad education, some sort of science major more than likely, and then, you know, apply directly to PA school. Now, another little caveat there for both the three five students and the non three five students is PA school is different from medical school. You don't just need excellent grades, and you know, experiences and whatnot. You also need a certain number of high quality patient care experience hours for I think just about every PA school in the country. There might be, I think there might be a couple that don't need PCE hours. I'm not really sure, but I mean, virtually all of them do. So you may as well just start getting that. And so the way that most people do it, the way that most people that I've seen that go directly from undergrad to PA school without really much of a break, what they end up doing is on Christmas breaks, on weekends, on holidays, sometimes nights, if they're super motivated, just don't screw up your GPA. But these people basically take these extra time, times that they have, you know, their spare time to get the hours that they need. And you don't really need that many hours. Like some programs need 2000, but they're few and far between. Most programs need like somewhere around a thousand hours give or take. And a thousand hours is basically, I think like six months of working full time, 40 hours a week, or it's about, I don't know, maybe a year, maybe two or three years of working part time, depending on how many hours you put in. So if you work, you know, most weekends, if you work like one or two nights a week, and then you work, you know, pretty solid through your Christmas breaks and through your summer breaks, there is absolutely no reason that by the time you're applying to PA school during your senior year of college, that you don't have at least a thousand hours of high quality patient care experience. How do you get these experiences? Some of the most common ways are medical scribe, tons and tons of people that I was a scribe with were still in college. They were just doing it around their schedule and especially like the night shifts, they were really able to fit into their schedule. Like my hospital had a 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift. Yeah, it's kind of crappy by the time you get off work and you get home, it's like three in the morning. But I mean, you're a college student. You know, if you don't set it up that you have classes at eight or nine in the morning, let's say your classes start a little bit later. You know, whatever, that's fine. On Fridays and Saturday nights, you're probably going out partying anyway until three in the morning. So you may as well make that your schedule. You know, you wake up at like 10, you know, and you pull some night shifts. And you know, maybe you don't have to pull a night shift, maybe you just do it during the day. If your classes allow that. Or during weekends, or like I said, during breaks. You know, figure it out, make it work. It's possible. So medical scribe is definitely a good way to do it. It also requires minimal training. You know, you don't have to spend like six months getting an EMT degree or something. So medical scribe is a good way to do it. Another good way to do it is CNA. Certified nursing, you could usually find CNA courses that take like a couple of weeks to a month. Might be like a thousand bucks. So you could always do that. You could also, a lot of times, work as a CNA without any training. Like especially at nursing homes, they will train you. And they might actually even certify you as a CNA. So you could work there. So I mean, all of that is very minimal training. And you can start getting those hours right away. So you can start building those hours, being sad. And not to mention, you get some money. You know, some money coming in while you're in college, which is really nice. You know, it might offset some of your tuition. Nowadays, tuition's so high. Let's be real, it probably won't offset much of your tuition. But you know, it's beer money, it's food money. It's money to go out and do things, have fun. Maybe have a car while you're in college, whatever. It's just, it's good to have some extra money. But mostly you're doing this for the hours, not the money, so don't like freak out over how much you get paid. You know, these entry-level medical jobs don't really make much more than minimum wage. And even though it's hard work, that's kind of not okay. You know, it's the reality. And again, you're not doing it for the money. You're doing it for the hours, because you need that thousand hours to apply to K-School, right? So while you're getting excellent grades, while you're studying and your study methods are already locked in and solid because you worked on them in high school, like I'm telling you to do. You know, you're not really struggling and you're not really spending tons and tons of hours studying because you're so good at it and so efficient at it. And because compared to PA school, undergrad is a freaking joke. It's easy, even if you're taking hard courses, unless you're going to like an Ivy League school or something, in which case it's still easy compared to a PA school, you know, you'll be fine. So you should have a few hours to spare for, you know, getting your hours, your PCA hours. That being said, it is very important. It is critically, critically important to not screw up your GPA because take it from me. It is very, very hard to fix, even if you screw up one semester, okay? And then you got to explain to yourself in your essay and then you're competing with all the people that, you know, also have to explain yourself, no, it would be much better if you just, from day one, you just get a 4.0. Okay, let's say you screw something up or a professor doesn't like you, whatever, you get like a little bit less. Let's say you get like a 3.8, whatever, okay? That's pretty good, but do not go far below that. If you get like a 3.7, eh, okay? You get like 3.8 or above, you will be in the top 10% of applicants, you know? And that's good, that makes you stand out. That way with a good, you know, solid hours, good experiences and, you know, a good personality, which I hope you have, you'll be fine, you'll basically be a shoe-in. So do not screw up your grades. And the reason I'm telling you this while I'm talking about hours is do not screw up your grades in college in order to get more hours. Do not use that as an excuse to not study or to get poor grades because poor grades are very, very difficult to make up for. Hours are very, very easy to make up for. You know, worst case scenario, let's say you get to the end of your undergrad career and you are only at like 500 hours, you know? Probably not enough to apply to most BA schools. Okay, fine, so be it, but your grades are solid. So all you have to do now to fix your application is, I don't know, put in like two months of full-time work. Put in like three months of full-time work, boom, you got the hours, that's it, easy day. But if you screw up your grades, that can be several semesters to make up for that, or it could be even worse, you could just never make up for it. So do not, do not, do not screw up your GPA just to get patient contact hours. You do not need them that bad, but you can always get more hours. You could not always, you know, fix a bad GPA. So I hope I said that enough times. I feel like a fricking broken record, but I'm only repeating that because it's incredibly important. I don't want you to waste hours and months and years of your life like I did, not doing what you want to do for a career because you screwed up your GPA in college. Please do not do that. Please take the time now that you're in high school to do what I told you to do, look up how to study, figure it out, your trial and error, what works for you, get really, really good at studying, and do not be lazy now that you're good at studying, and just get really, really solid grades through college. And then of course, get into PA school and continue doing well in PA school. Also, last but not least, as far as college is, some of you might be asking, you know, where should I go to college? I'm gonna tell you something a little controversial. I'm not gonna say it doesn't matter where you go to school because it does, and I'm also not gonna tell you that it really matters where you go to school because it doesn't. I know, I just totally contradicted myself, but not really, so listen up. So what matters is that you go to a four year college and you get a very, very, very solid GPA, okay? That's most important. If that four year college happens to be prestigious, if it's like an Ivy League, or if it's like, you know, one of the new IVs, quote unquote, like on Caltech, or one of the, you know, SUNY schools, not the SUNY schools, but one of the like, state of California schools, like the really prestigious ones, or like MIT or whatever, like a really prestigious school, like, yeah, that probably counts for something. You know, the name, especially if you go to a local PA school, they probably recognize like, all right, this is a solid school, you know, students coming out of there are really smart, you know, like that's cool. That's probably a good thing. But it doesn't matter nearly as much as getting that number, that GPA, that's even gonna get you looked at by the admissions committee. If you go to like, I don't know, Harvard, and your GPA is 2.3, you're not even gonna make it pass like the initial process where they screen people out without even looking at your cricket application. You know, you're not even gonna get looked at, and they won't even care that you went to Harvard because they won't even see it because your GPA is so low, you're not gonna make the minimum threshold for them to even look at your application. So the GPA is way more important than where you go to school. That being said, if you get like a four-year degree from a community college or something, that might count against you because they'll see your numbers and be like, okay, this guy's got really good grades, but then they see where you went to school and it's like, oh, community college. He went, like he took all his classes or she took all her classes at community college, that might actually count against you. I'm not sure if it's supposed to, but just realistically, it probably will. So like I just said, you wanna go to a four-year school, just a regular four-year college and get that 4.0, get a very solid GPA. If you can go to a better school and you think you're smart enough to pull off good grades at that better school, you know, so be it, get it, that's awesome. You know, you'll always have that Ivy League experience, which, you know, might come with some connections that might not, but you'll just always have that piece of paper on the wall behind you. And I mean, it's just, it's a good feeling. If anything, it's just a confidence booster, like, yeah, where'd you go to school? Oh, I went to X, Y, and Z, you know? So it's, it doesn't mean nothing. It really does mean a lot, but it doesn't mean nearly as much as getting a solid GPA, okay? So that's all I have to say as far as choosing what school to go to. More importantly than that, I would just say go somewhere you can afford. You know, don't go to a school that costs 60 grand a year. When you can go to a school that costs 35 grand a year, you know, and you have the same GPA. You might not get the same quality of education, but whatever, who cares? The education you really need is in PA school anyway. Undergrad is basically a giant screening process. Like, you might learn some things, but none of them are gonna be important. Let's be real. Everything you need to be a PA is taught in PA school. Everything you're taking at undergrad, yeah, like the knowledge in PA school builds on top of that a little tiny bit, a little tiny bit, but not much. It really doesn't count for much. It's really a screening tool. More like, if you can get through biochemistry and get like, you know, a B or above, you can probably get through PA school. If you can take biochemistry while you're also taking anatomy and physiology on like three other classes and still maintain a high GPA, yeah. It's pretty likely that you can get through PA school. That's why these things are important. It's not that you really need a lot of biochemistry in PA school. I promise you, you do not. You do not, okay? Nothing you learn in college almost really counts for much. As far as knowledge goes, it's just basically a screening tool to see if you can handle PA school. And then everything you need to be a PA is taught in PA school. All right, so that's what I'm gonna say about, you know, your education. I think that's really it. So if you're in high school, that's really the two steps that I would, or the two routes that I would tell you to go through either the 3.5 program or just traditional, you know, undergrad to PA school kind of a deal. All the other routes, the accelerated nursing program for, you know, somebody who already holds a bachelor's degree, post-bacs, you know, fixing GPAs, this and that, applying to PA school as an adult. Like all those things don't really apply to you if you're in high school. If you're in high school, you're sure you want to be a PA. One of these two more like streamlined efficient routes I think would be best for you. But just bringing it all together, the most important things that I would tell a high school student who wants to be in the A school are, learn how to study right now, learn, learn, learn how to study through trial and error as hard as you can, just get really good at studying. That's number one. Two, do not, do not, do not under any circumstances mess up your GPA in college. Go to college, you know, select a school based on what I told you a couple of minutes ago, but do not let your GPA get screwed up by any means. Not to go party, not to go hang out with a boyfriend or girlfriend, not to go, you know, make more money or get more patient care experience hours, not for any freaking reason. All those things are important, but they should be second priority, right? So even third priority below, getting good grades and taking care of yourself so that you can become, you know, so that you can have good grades. So yeah, number one and two, learn how to study and get good grades, don't let anything stop you from getting good grades. After that, I think you'll be very, very well set up to go to whatever P.A. school you choose to go to. All right guys, that's all for me for today. I'm Boris, I'm a board certified physician assistant. In case you're new here and I didn't already tell you that, and I will see you guys in the next video.