 Alright you guys, so we are gearing up for Casper, we're so close and one of the things that you're constantly thinking about is how do I make myself the best applicant or how do I make myself the best me as an applicant? And one of those things that you want to be able to address really adequately is any hardship that you may have faced and overcome in your pre-PA path. So how do you go about doing that? That's what we're going to be addressing in today's video. What's up you guys? Welcome back to my channel. Thank you guys so much for joining me today. If you're new, take a look around. If you like what you see, go ahead and subscribe. If you're not new, thank you guys so much for already subscribing and hanging out with me again on today. So I had a question that was posed to me by Regan Moser. She said, how did you tie in those hardships that caused your GPA to lower into your PA application? Did you address it in your personal statement? Thank you so much. So I don't know if you have seen any of my personal statement videos that I made a while ago. It seems like so long ago, which is crazy, but a few years ago I made these videos about my personal statement. And I did talk about things that happened. I alluded to the fact like, hey, you know what? I had a bump in the road. This is what happened. And because of that, my grades suffered, but I also overcame that. And so yes, I did address it in my personal statement. And I think that is one of the main places that you should address any hardship that you want the committee to understand and realize like, hey, this does not define me. Okay, like this is not who I am. This is not who I will be as a PA student. This is who I was when I was still figuring myself out. This is who I was when I was going through some things, but at the end of the day, I overcame this. And the personal statement is the exact area that you can use to take the opportunity to explain them. Because they're going to be able to look at your application and see the various different numbers, right? You're going to be able to see, all right, you know, Adana has a 3.2. Or Adana has a 3.0. Why did she get that? Was she just not studying? You know, was she out partying? Was she, you know, barely going to class? What was the reason? And honestly, as human beings, our minds always go to the negative. We always go to the point where it's like, you know what, she wasn't doing what she needed to do. Or he wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing. But that's not always the case. Sometimes it is, but it's not always the case. And oftentimes, there are valid legitimate reasons why your grades suffer. And if it's due to hardship or whatever it may be, the best place, the best place to address that is in your personal statement. Now, while addressing it in your personal statement, there's a way to go about doing that. And that's why I think it's essential that you guys have as many people as possible that kind of do this, you know, review your personal statement. Like friends and family are going to be like, oh my gosh, it's so great. It sounds so great. I had so many people read my first personal statement. And they were like, this is amazing. And it wasn't. Like looking back on it as I went back and saw the videos of what I read and, you know, looked at my personal statement before I changed it. It wasn't a great personal statement. It read very sad. It read very like woe is me. And I didn't really get my point across that, hey, although I had these hardships, I did better. So if you are looking for personal statement reviews, shameless plug, get that C University does offer personal statement reviews. Okay. We have a lot, a lot of personal statement consultants that are there willing, ready to review your personal statements for you. I just did a couple myself this past week. And so hopefully, you know, you guys can take advantage of all of the various different resources that we have to offer you on the site. Okay. So get that C University.com. Check us out. But honestly, you should really have people reviewing your personal statement because when you have somebody else look at it from, you know, an outsider looking in or a new set of eyes, they see things, they see grammatical errors, they see just, you know, how things may be better worded or structured a little bit differently than you see them because you've been reading the personal statement for the longest period of time. It's just like if you're like putting on weight, right? So like you see yourself in the mirror every day and you don't realize, oh, you know what? You're getting like a little round. Okay. But, you know, somebody that hasn't seen you for over a month, they'll be like, yo, like what happened? So it's the same thing or vice versa if you're losing weight. You know, it's the same thing. So I really want you guys to think about that when you are writing your personal statement. Now, how do you go about addressing these things? I don't think that you should take like a whole two, three paragraphs and essentially your whole personal statement to talk about like, you know, my freshman year, I did this. I was dealing with, you know, my dad or my parent or my aunt who had cancer and because of that, I had to take care of them and so my grades suffered. And ultimately I was, you know, pretty sad and kind of depressed and down and even though you may have been dealing with all those things, there's a way to better word that and to manage all of those emotions that you're trying to get across. So be very meticulous in what you choose to include in the personal statement to address your hardships and then talk about how you overcome them. That's important. That is so important. Okay. Honestly, you guys, when you're reading it as an admissions counselor or an admissions advisor, you know, if you're reading and all you see is like hardship, hardship, hardship and you don't really see like overcoming it. Like the question in your head is like, okay, well, why would I let you into my PA program, my PA program? If, you know, this is how you've kind of dealt with it. You dropped out of school or you took a semester off or whatever the case may be, you know, I want the students that come into the next cohort to actually matriculate. So why you? And so you need to be prepared to answer that question, not only in your personal statement, but in the interview when you get one because we're going to be speaking those things into existence. So that is one of the places I think the most important things are in place to address any hardship that you deal with. And I think the next place that you will address it, there are some schools that actually have supplemental applications within CASPO or supplemental questions, I guess you can say, within CASPO that asks the question, hey, have you dealt with any hardship? You know, have you had any lapse in your academic career? If so, tell us why that kind of stuff. And so that is another place where you will have to potentially answer that question. And so have your answer ready and prepared, not only for online, but in person, okay? Because it is important that you're able to not only answer what happened, but what you did to overcome that and then what your plans are for the future. Always have that laid out. The plans of the diligent lead to prosperity. And we want you guys to get into PA school so you can get that seat. So ultimately, you really need to be paying attention to exactly the words that you're using, how you're going to go about addressing that and where you're going to address it. But again, I think the most important place that you could absolutely address it is in your personal statement, because it will be in your words and not just numbers on a screen. All right, thank you so much, Reagan for asking that question. That was such a great question. If you guys have any other questions for me, leave them in the comment section below. Go ahead and like this video and don't forget to subscribe. Follow me on Instagram, go down to the PA and on Instagram at GetThatSeeUniversity and check us out because we have personal statement reviews. We have consultations. We have mock interviews. We have a lot to offer you guys. So check us out. Join us and thank you guys so much for watching. I'll talk to you guys next time. Bye.