 And I was always a people person, always knew I wanted to do something with people. So I kind of all mesh together. I also, my parents are both in medicine. My dad is a physician and my mom was a traveling nurse for a really long time. I got in. Oh, shoot. Okay. So maybe it wasn't as bad as he thought. 3.8 GPA, I don't know, 1500 PCE hours, 3000 by the time I matriculate. Excellent experience, double minor, neuroscience major, dad's a doctor, mom's a nurse, applied to 12 schools, by the way, not one, not to 12, only got five interview invites. And so now what you got an interview. What do you do now? Freak out. After that, helping others is a calling. It's not a job. Hey guys, my name is Boris. I'm a physician assistant and joining me today is I'm Grace. I am a student to be a physician assistant student in June. And we're going to tell you where she's going to be a physician assistant students shortly. Because part of this video is kind of a reveal where Grace decided to pursue her PA education and it was a tough battle to figure out which one, which for a lot of you watching my channel who want to get into PA school, it's kind of a good problem to have, right, having to decide between schools versus like just hoping and praying that I'm going to get in. So anyway, I thought it would be valuable to bring on somebody that just got in, figure out how she got there, her background, her grades, pick her brain a little bit, see if she has advice for you, and then finally reveal where Grace is going to PA school. Sound good? Sounds great to me. Excellent. So let's start with Grace's journey to PA school. First off, why medicine in general? Why'd you want to practice medicine? Yeah. I think I figured that out pretty early on. And high school probably is when I really figured it out. I was taking my anatomy courses for the first time. And I was always a people person, always knew I wanted to do something with people. So I kind of all mesh together. I also, my parents are both in medicine, my dad is a physician, and my mom was a traveling nurse for a really long time. So I was always kind of surrounded by it. It was pretty obvious to me that I wanted to go into the medical field pretty early. And yeah, here I am. I always find that interesting because I feel like doctors, kids go in like two polar opposite directions. Like some just say, I have to practice medicine. It's what my family does. And some go like, I will do anything but practice medicine. I have siblings. I have three siblings. And half and half completely. Yeah. How many siblings do you have? You said three siblings. Four of y'all siblings. Yeah. There's four of them. Size of four, two and two, two went medicine, two went non-medicine. Yeah. What is your other sibling who is doing medicine? What are they doing? So she is a child life specialist at Morse. She basically, she works in an emergency room and basically does a lot of mindfulness activities with the kids and helps them cope with hard topics. So it's really cool how she is able to be there for their mental well-being, their physical well-being, that kind of stuff. It kind of ties all of that in. Is that like a social worker or a psychologist? Like what's the training for that? It's in between. It's a really growing field. It's very new. It's, they have child life specialist master's programs, a couple of them throughout the country. And it's very new again. But so it's kind of in between social and medical. So it's not like straight medical, what she's doing, but kind of like an in-between type thing. She's there when a kid has to get stitches. She's there to distract them with games or like iPad. And then she's also there for really hard times when maybe a kid passes away and she's there for the siblings and as well as the parents and that kind of stuff. So she's a good in-between person, because she knew she didn't want to do straight medicine, but she wanted to be in that environment more than what a social worker would be. So it's perfect for her. That sounds like what a social worker or even a psychologist used to be. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it sounded like when she was first describing it to me. I thought it was really interesting. I didn't really understand what it was at first. And then she explained that. And I was like, isn't that what a social worker does? And she was like, no, they're pretty much more behind the scenes now. Yeah. Yeah. They're the expert of connecting people with resources and like filling out paperwork and like kind of quarterbacking that whole thing, but they're not actually doing that as much, which I'm sure they wish they were. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have like a billion questions about this. This is not the topic of the video. So we'll have to like talk about this offline or if she would want to talk to me, I would love to know more about this. I've never even heard of it. Yeah. I'll totally ask her about it. She would love to. It's very new. She got her masters in May. So she's been working since like June. So she's very good at it still, but she loves what she does so far. So yeah, I'll talk to her about it for sure. Please do. Because I would love to have her on as like a healthcare career highlight, like lesser known health careers that people don't know about. Yeah. Oh, that would be so cool. She would love that. I would be so stoked because that like, you can tell I'm like full of questions about this because I love healthcare, but like anything like that, it just sounds awesome. But anyway, guys, sorry for the tangent. We're going to get back on to why you actually clicked on this video, but I'm very, very stoked about this. Very interested in stuff like that. But anyway, okay. So Grace's siblings, half and half, half went medicine, PA, child life specialists. The other two, what are they like rock musicians or like bricklayers or something? So my brother, he went into, oh gosh, environmental economics. I don't have a good answer for exactly what he does. And then my little sister is in college. She's still figuring everything out, but doesn't want to do anything with medicine exactly. She's thinking speech pathology. So I guess it is kind of medicine. So maybe it's not so half and half, but. Nope. 25, 75. Literally, you guys are all going to work at the same ER together. No. Okay. So basically, it's a family affair. Dad's a doc. Mom's a nurse. That's why you want it to go in. But like specifically, like logically, okay, like I've been around it my whole life. I get it. What was that one moment where you were like, this is what I want to do? I think it was probably anatomy. I think in high school that was introduced at my school, either sophomore or junior year. And I mean, you've always learned about like the basic anatomy and that kind of stuff, but it was the first time we were really getting in depth into the systems. And I was like, I've been waiting for a subject like this to make me want to learn more since I started going to school in kindergarten or preschool. And it was just, it's like clicked for sure. I was like, all right, this is what I'm interested in. This is challenging, but I need it to be challenging because I want to know more. So it was definitely starting to take those kinds of classes. And then further, like, then I was so interested in everything that we were learning that I was looking things up outside of school. And so it was, it was obvious that it was medicine for me. Would you say it just kind of clicked? Yeah, I think so. I don't know like the exact, exact moment, but that class, I just remember finally feeling like I'm super interested in something. And it wasn't fun all the time. I can't use that word. But it was something that I wanted to do more. Instead of like my math classes where I was just going through them or something like that. So. That makes sense. Because I'm sure like growing up from like day one, mom and dad were talking about medicine. They were probably using anatomical terms and they were joking about it. And you were like, now I finally get to learn this stuff, like get to be part of it. My dad's side of his conversations with patients on my way home from dance class when he was giving me a record, like every single time. So my siblings and I always talk about how we have like it's not normal that kids have heard those terms from such an early age. But we're like, this is so normal to us that hearing our dad like have a conversation about medicine is something you need to our experience as like a doctor's kid. But it's something so normal to us. And it was just kind of a seamless transition for me anyway. Makes a lot of sense. Maybe like for you, I can see it as just kind of being like part of your nature, part of your upbringing. And it just kind of clicked for like me who obviously did not grow up with medical parents. I like had to experience something very, very, I would say like impactful, like emotionally impactful to go like, that's what I want to do. I want to be that. But for you, you just kind of always knew. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty simple answer. Yeah, I just want to know. I wish I had a better story, but it was just that's a good story. But it's not anything super duper exciting, but it makes a whole lot of sense. Like this has just been part of my upbringing. It's like in my DNA. This is what I do. It's just like, you can't argue with that. Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. I'm also just kind of thinking on an aside, am I going to screw my kids up by using terms like STEMI and we're back. Okay, so last time we lost power right in the middle of our conversation. That's why we had an outfit change. And I promise we didn't coordinate this to both be wearing black, but I guess we're both just in that mood right now where we want to wear black. So that's what she got. Anyway, so I think last time we covered pretty well why Grace decided to practice medicine. Dad's a doctor, mom's a nurse. It's just always been kind of in the family, in the blood that she just wants to practice medicine. Is there anything you want to add to that, Grace? I think we pretty much covered it last time when we were talking about it. Yeah, it was always like, I was always a people person. I knew I wanted to do something with people. And then it kind of just turned into medicine with my family, with the classes I liked. So yeah, we covered it pretty much, I think. I think so. I remember specifically she said like anatomy was the first class that she took where everything just kind of just kind of felt right. Yeah. Yeah. I know a lot of people don't have like a true moment like that with what they want to do. So I was very lucky in that sense, I think. I feel like everybody does. I feel like everyone who wants to do something as hard as medicine really does have that one moment where they're like, this is it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think they do eventually. I think I guess I'm just lucky that it happened early for me. 100%. I would just say for most people, anatomy is more like a necessary evil. And they're like, no, this sucks. But it's like what I have to do to get to where I want to go, Grace is like, no, this is it. I love it. Yeah. Love anatomy. Okay, cool. So that's why medicine. YPA. Why not nurse doctor RTYPA? So I think I always I kind of thought I would go to med school at first back in high school when I liked my anatomy class, that kind of stuff. I think it was just a thing that I thought I was like, Oh, I think I want to do medicine. But like, so I'm going to go to med school. But it just didn't really feel right ever. I don't think I think it was just something that I thought my head. So I was actually a patient in an emergency room, my sophomore year of high school. And that was the first time that I had really been introduced to the position of a PA, because one of my main providers that I was seeing a lot was a PA. And so after that, I kind of did some more research on it, talked to my parents about it, talked to my dad a lot about if he works with PAs and stuff like that, because I had never really heard him talk about that part of it. And it was kind of just it checked off so many boxes for me right away. And it continued to do so. So I kind of went in that direction. But I really liked how they can work really closely with physicians, but still have individuality in their practice and stuff like that. That's huge for me. Another thing that's huge is how you can switch up your specialty throughout your career, because I have a lot of interests and I get bored easily. So I think that I can see myself potentially practicing multiple specialties throughout my career. Or I mean, I'm happy if I find one specialty that I end up loving and just doing that. I'm not too picky either way, but I like having the option. So that was another huge thing for me. Would you say you kind of like being a student and not an expert? Yeah, I love being a student. I always say that I have said that since like, I don't even know the beginning of college, like I love being a student, I really do. And so I really do think I chose a profession where I'll always be a student, which I love. I feel like that's the biggest difference is like as a PA you're constantly, constantly learning. I'm sure if you practice in the same specialty and you kind of like, I don't want to say, but almost pigeonhole yourself into kind of one corner and you're very good at that corner. Yes. But the profession is designed to kind of spread out the knowledge and to kind of constantly be learning from when you're 25 and you start practicing all the way to 75. And you know, you're done practicing. You're just there's always stuff you don't know because that's the nature of the profession. And some people hate that some people like it. I love it. I just want to constantly learn. Yeah. Yeah. So people who are kind of choosing PA versus MD, DO that might be one thing that you want to consider as your personality. Do you want to keep learning or do you want to be like top dog, the buck stops with me, I know everything, or more or less like everyone comes to me. Whereas like as a PA, it's like, no, that's that might be that case in like a small corner of your profession. But usually you just like you want to collaborate with other people and keep learning. So something to think about. So I always said, actually, he's a DO and he said when I was kind of deciding what I was going to do and everything like that, he was like, he always said to me, do you want to be the period at the end of the sentence? How important is that to you? Because that like if that's what you need, go for DO, MD, whatever. But he was like, if you don't need that, and if you are happy to have all of the flexibility that you would have with a PA or as a PA, then go that route. And he was he's very, very supportive of the PA profession. He's very happy that I'm going that route. So definitely matches with my personality, definitely was a good match of a profession. And also being on a medical team, I love it. I love being able to collaborate with other people. So that's always going to be a part of my profession as a PA. So that's another point too. I love that your dad said that I've never thought of it the period at the end of the sentence. Or do you want to like, be the sentence or be part of the sentence? Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly how he would explain it. And he was like, for me, I was working really hard. And I needed to be the period at the end that at the end of the sentence. And it fits his personality perfectly like it really does. So yeah, I love that he said that, but also that he's open minded enough to like, understand that you might be a different person than he is. And that maybe you don't want to be the period you want to, you know, support the period or whatever. We're getting into the metaphor here. But I just really love that doctors that support PAs, not thinking that we're encroaching on their practice or whatever. We just want to help you guys and work with you. If we don't know something, we want to come to you and we're glad you're there. You know, it's like, I just, I don't, I'm glad that it's not adversarial with some doctors and they want to use us as much as they do. Yeah, he loves his PAs. He can't talk enough about them. He always says I could not do my job without my PAs. So yeah, very, very important job. Love him. Yeah, like probably the biggest, like the biggest volume of hate comments I get on my TikTok are from this. It's literally like one person, but it's this person who keeps quoting this term noctor, NO, you know, CTO, whatever you are. And it's like what the, you know, DOs and MDs that are just like very insecure, I want to say, call PAs and NPs. They think that we're encroaching. It's like, dude, first off, probably just a resident or honestly not even like a med student, probably just some like, hateful 12 year old, but like, just stop it guys. Like we're all here. We're all in this together. We all want to like help patients. Let's just work together. But anyway, I'll get off my soapbox about that. This is about Grace. This is not about responding to hate comments on TikTok. But anyway, that's why Grace chose PA. She doesn't want to be the period at the end of the sentence. She loves medicine and she just wants to keep switching and learning and all of that, which I totally agree with. So since you decided you wanted to do medicine, you wanted to do PA, now we understand why now is the long, arduous process of actually filling out the application, becoming one, becoming a good student to get in there. If you don't mind, if you're comfortable, do you mind sharing your stats, GPA, PCE? Yeah, totally. I graduated with a 3.8 GPA and so my hours by the time I submitted my application, I had a little under 1500 and I am currently on a gap here. So I calculated all of that out to see how many I would have towards the end. And I will have a little over for this year. I'll have a little over 1500. So total I'll have 3,000 PCE hours, excuse me, at the time of matriculation. At time of matriculation, 3,000-ish, at time of application, 1,500-ish. Yes. And 3.8 GPA, what was your major? I majored in neuroscience and double-minored in biology and psychology. Wow. That's a lot of work. Yeah, it was a lot of work, but it was fun. Yeah, it was fun. She's wiping the sweat off her face. It was so much fun, the most fun I never want to have again. Although you'll have just as much fun if not more in PA school, but yeah, more on that later. It's worth it, I promise. It's really worth it at the end. And I bet you with those majors and minors, I bet you got basically all your prereqs just like kind of baked into the cake. You didn't have to do anything extra. Totally, totally. So that's smart. Who, who advised you to do it that way and set it up smartly like that? I guess I don't even, my freshman year advisor and then it switches, it switched at my school, but I had an advisor who was a neuroscience professor at our school, neuroscience psychology professor. And yeah, no, he was like, very chill about it. He was like, you're on the right track. He chose a good major if you want to go to PA school. I was like, okay. And it kind of just worked out. But at my school, they made it very easy to fit that kind of stuff in. So I was lucky. Gotcha. Did your family like mom's dad or did they like set you up with a PA or something to kind of push you in the right direction initially? Or you just kind of figured it out yourself? I think it was mostly kind of figured out myself. I, I'm very much like I'm going to do all my research. I'm going to know everything about everything that I need to get done. Just I'm a planner. That's what I that's just how I am. So I think I was looking into my like senior year schedule. I was looking in that far and like freshman year, I was like figuring everything out. That's just me. But yeah, in high school or in college? No, in college. Okay, that's a little bit more normal. Had a list of all of the classes I was going to take each semester and had a momentary freak out sophomore year that I was never going to get it done. So I signed up for a bunch of extra classes. It was yeah, I stress myself out a lot more than I that I needed to in the end. But well, I mean, what you just demonstrated is you have the personality that literally everybody who's a provider has PA MD and the same personality. Yeah, yeah, anybody who makes it very, very type a very, very like get it done planner things don't go according to plan. That's fine. But like just there always has to be a plan we're always working towards it. Never stop working type a yep. Absolutely true. You basically just demonstrated you have the providers like DNA. You know, that's just how it is. What I was a little scared about is when you said you had your classes for senior year planned out freshman year, I was thinking high school. I was thinking you're like this at 13. That's scary. No, that's a little okay. Yeah, yeah, already as an adult. Yeah, now at 13 year old doing that, I'd be looking at a psychologist. Concerned. Concerned possibly in a good way, but also like, I don't know, they're either going to be like Elon Musk or they're going to be like Jeffrey Dahmer. There's no in between. Yeah, there's no in between. No, either good genius or well, never mind, we're not arguing about this. Okay, anyway, so that's Grace's stats. So finally, you got all your classes planned out, you got your GPA, you got your PCE locked in, you know what you're doing, then you got to tackle the beast that is Caspa. Yeah, overwhelming. It's like all these questions, all this crap to fill out. Yeah, any tips or suggestions for someone who's just like looking at Caspa and going, what do I do with this? Start early. If you think you're starting early enough, start earlier. There's because there's so many little things with Caspa that you don't realize until you're actually sitting down and doing it. And for me, I started filling out applications on Caspa, my junior year of college, because I thought I wanted to go straight through that was part of my plan. So I had an interesting experience where by the time I was actually doing my applications, it was halfway done already. But anyway, start early, there's a lot of little things for sure. And honestly, because it takes so long to research schools to for me, I didn't know if I wanted to stay close to family or to go travel and be in a new place for two years at first. So I had no idea what schools I was going to apply to. But I found out pretty quickly that every school has different requirements. So just the research going into finding out which schools you can apply to that you could have a chance of getting into it took me so long because I was looking at so many schools. And I had a big huge list of them crossing them out when I knew I didn't have a requirement for one of them stuff like that. So a lot of little things that they take their time consuming. So starting early is super important. And then keeping yourself organized because for me, I had so many schools in a revolving loop in my head because I was looking literally everywhere. And so keeping myself organized was super, super important. Excel sheets help a lot. And I had a major excel sheet with like, which schools require like with how many hours they require, if they require the GRE, all that kind of stuff. So highly suggest that because that kept me very organized throughout it and saved me a lot of stress, I think. Did you take the GRE? I did. Yeah. I didn't actually end up having that many schools that I applied to require it. But yeah, I think less and less schools are actually requiring it. Did the school you ended up choosing, which we'll reveal later, did you did that one require the GRE or no? No. Okay. So that's one thing that a lot of people kind of freak out about also, it's like, I need to study for the GRE and do all the stuff. A lot of times you really don't. Yeah, if you plan it out, my school didn't require it. Yeah, a lot. I think I only ended up applying to two schools that required it. And I found since I started the application process, my junior year, when I was actually going through it again, my senior year, I found that a couple schools that required it the year before didn't require it anymore. So I think cutting back on it. Yeah. Interesting. What was I going to ask about the GRE? Oh, actually, okay, GRE is boring. Everyone knows what the GRE is. It's like basically an SAT for grad students. How many schools did you apply to? 12. Okay. The exact number that everybody always throws out apply to 12. Yeah, I don't know how that works out. But that was literally the exact number. So you applied to 12. How many did you get an interview offer at? Five. Five. And then you got into? Two. Two. Yeah. Okay. One of the interviews I did not go on. I didn't take. I only interview at three of them. Three of them? Yeah, three of them. Gotcha. But you were offered five. Okay. So I just want to pause there and just like, for a pre-PA student to hear those stats again, 3.8 GPA, 1,500 PCE hours, 3,000 by the time I matriculate, you know, excellent experience, double minor, neuroscience major, dad's a doctor, mom's a nurse, literally like all the little pieces and parts that should be ideal. I applied to 12 schools, by the way, not one, not two, 12, only got five interview invites. That means less than half, even with all those remarkable stats. So I mean, apply to enough schools, one, be competitive, two, just understand that even if you do have really, really good grades and you didn't get in, you're not the only one, Grace got rejected by seven schools. Just straight up, not even interview, just nope, not for us, you know, so. Well, some of them I just didn't hear back from because I pulled my applications. Oh, so those numbers might be different. So I got rejected by two. Okay. And I didn't hear back from five, before I pulled my applications. So. Okay. So potentially you would have gotten way more than five. Yeah, potentially, but I mean, I don't know, I didn't hear back from them and I applied in July, I think I submitted my applications, which I suggest applying before that I. Yes. Yeah. Not a good time to apply. No, for rolling schools, especially absolutely not. But I just wanted to say like, I'm not even applying. I've been practicing for tears for God's sake, but like I still got this like big relief, like off my chest when you said that because it's like, wait a minute, it's that competitive. Like, I got no chance. But yeah, if you pull your application from five schools, you probably would have gotten way more than five interview invites. Okay. Good. So just breathe the sigh of relief for you guys, guys, breathe a sigh of relief. It's it's competitive, but it's not that competitive. Okay. It's doable. Totally doable. That being said, yeah, if you're applying to rolling admission schools and you can find that out on their website, and if you can't call them, apply early, early, early, early, like April, like you should be done by April possibly. I was just going to say that like end of April, beginning of May, submit your applications, because I think in July was probably a big reason that I didn't hear back from some schools, because I was finding out that they were doing interviews and stuff before I even submitted my applications, which I didn't know until way later. And so I was like, oh, they probably literally already had a class before they even got to read my application. So yeah, so I only applied to two programs because I had to stay in Syracuse at the time upstate and Lemoine upstate was rolling. So when I applied, I want to say in June, maybe it was even July or August, I can't remember. No, I interviewed in August. So I applied in June. By the time I got to my interview, there was like only five out of the 25 seats left. Oh my gosh, like they were full. They were looking for like outstanding, which I guess I wasn't but they were looking, they're basically full. But if I had applied in April, I could have been one of those first few selected, like, oh, he's good enough. Let's just fill the seat. So that's for that. The other part of that advice is if your school is not rolling, and they collect all their applications at the end and they look at all of them like Lemoine did, Lemoine, the best, like Lemoine did, then you're actually beneficial to apply as late as possible, because then you have as much PCE as possible, you have more time, you know, so the strategy changes, it's kind of binary versus if it's a rolling admission school or not. So huge piece of advice for you guys. But anyway, yeah, I mean, you got there, not a piece of advice for Grace anymore. She needs advice on how to study maybe, but definitely not a not any of that. So anyway, so Casper's overwhelming, start early. There's a lot of stuff that's unexpected that you're going to have to do. Any advice for the personal statement? Oh, personal statement. Start early with that too. If you're, if you haven't started with Casper and because you're overwhelmed, but you want to be starting something, start with your personal statement, figure out what you want to convey. And I think then figure out, like, because I feel like for some people, they have like something that they want to talk about. They know that they want to talk about it. And they're like, Okay, this is what I'm going to write about. For me, I was like, I don't really know. But so I had to do a little bit of a deep dive and be like, Okay, when did I find out like, what I wanted to be a PA? What was my process like? So I kind of just went back in my head and thought about like my journey and why I want to be going to PA school in the first place. And so then I told the story about when I was in the emergency room as a patient, that kind of stuff. So yeah, just kind of figure out what you want to be saying to them first. And then I did a lot of research on like tips for my personal statement, because I did like a rough draft and then I did some research about tips for it. And I found out that my rough draft sucked based on the tips that I was finding. So I went back, redid it. And then I reached down to you guys and because I was still freaking out about my personal statement. And so definitely get Boris's help because they were a huge, huge help for me and my personal statement. I really ended up loving my personal statement by the end of it. And so yeah, just start early, figure out what you want to say and listen to the tips and tricks because they, like, if they read your personal statement and it's not great, then they're not going to look at the rest of your application. So be careful with your personal statement for sure. Yeah, I couldn't agree more, especially about getting me an Elijah's help and reading my book. Yes, literally wrote the book. I wish this wasn't blurry. There we go. It's going to be in the information for the video, but I literally wrote a book and I'm going to say the book on from the ground up from scratch, getting your personal statement done, as well as a bunch of CASB application tips, how to edit your own essay if you've already written it x, y and z. But if you don't want to do that, then of course there's, I mean, when I started giving advice on personal statements and applying, there was probably like 10 of us. Now there's literally hundreds. Like it seems like every PA student is like, I got in, let me help you. It's like, okay, cool. I have five years of experience. But anyway, the point is, the point is there's a lot of help out there. Screen your help out. If you want help from me personally, BoristhePA.com, or my buddy Elijah, who I feel like is better at this than I am. Like he's got so much experience with this kind of thing. But yeah, all of that. Get help, have a lot of people read it. Don't take their opinion as gospel, even if they have a lot of experience, even if they are a PA, a PA student, if their advice doesn't feel right for you, it doesn't have to be right. You know, it's not a math problem. There's no right answer. It's you. It's your personal statement. You personally communicating what's important to you, you know, so get advice. You don't have to take it, but just make sure that you, what do you call it, crowdsource it. And buy the book. Totally. Buy the book. Get every single guest on this podcast to say buy the book. But anyway, Mimi was laughing her butt off when she had to say it. She was like, buy the book and the mug. I'm not holding you hostage, Mimi. You don't have to say anything. That's funny. I promise I didn't pay to say that. Pay grace to say that. Anyway, so yeah, so definitely start early, start early, start early. I wish they would put the personal statement first in CASPA instead of last, because making it last makes it feel like an afterthought. And I feel like it takes the most work, you know, putting in your grades, putting in your experience, it's pretty straightforward. The essay takes a lot of work and creativity. I wish it was first. So treat it like it's first. You know, it takes a while. So for sure. So that's CASPA. That's personal statement. So Grace obviously wrote an excellent personal statement with some people's help, some people's excellent help. And then she loved it. And then she got a bunch of interview invites. And so now what? You got an interview. What do you do now? Freak out. After that. After that, I just did a lot of research again about tips. I talked to you guys about it. We did the whole mock interview, which was really, really great help and experience. And a lot of interviews are going to be online, some are in person, not kind of stuff. Each school is doing it differently now. So prepare for both, for sure. And have answers to the questions you know you're going to be asked. But don't, don't prepare them too much, I say, because you don't want to sound like a robot. I did. I totally did sound like a robot in my first interview. I was practicing a lot. And I, yeah, it was just a very, it's a high anxiety situation. It really is. And some people are really chill and relaxed in interviews. I am not one of those people. So I had to talk myself down a lot beforehand. And just, just you have to be yourself. I know that everyone says that. And that's like a piece of advice that everyone's like, oh, great. Okay, I'll be myself, whatever that means. But yeah, they want to, they want to talk to people like they don't want to talk to robots. It's not fun for them. And so just, you really have to do like be yourself, show your personality. And if you feel like you showed your personality and they still don't want you, then it wasn't right anyway. So I can't remember. Did you do your mock interview with us before or after your first interview? Before. Before. Yeah. Because I remember, I can't remember if we did one or two, but I remember giving you that advice, not to be a robot, but to kind of just be more vulnerable, be more just human, you know, not trying to be as perfect. Yeah. No, yeah, we definitely did it before because I remember I was thinking that my first interview because I was like, oh, you are not doing that right now. But also I'm talking about about my first interview and that's the school I'm going to. So I got in. Oh, shoot. Okay. So maybe it wasn't as bad as he thought. I guess not. I guess not. It felt harder. Like, you know, the analogy with the duck, like it's kicking its feet like crazy, but above the water, it's like smooth. Maybe that's what it was. Yeah. I think so. I think so. And after that first interview, I was super relaxed in my other interviews and I felt really good about my other interviews after that. But the mock interview was definitely super, super helpful to get those jitters out of the way. It was just that first one. Sorry. I mean, let's say Grace has like a full on 40 ounce Stanley cup full of jitters. The mock interview got her to like here. And then after her first interview with a lot more practice, she got to like here. So that's, I mean, the mock interviews are good because of their feedback. Let's say somebody, you know, who's mock interviewed a few hundred people like me or Elijah, that's helpful. But even if what we say isn't helpful, just the going through the motions, waking up on time, getting dressed, getting your wifi connection, setting up your room so that it doesn't look distracting, just answering questions online that could be important. Just the practice of that alone. That's what I feel like is important in a mock interview. Yeah. You know, I practice like interviewing myself. I had my friend interview me. I did a little too much because I ended up memorizing my answers. But yeah. Yeah. I always tell people you can't memorize answers to questions. You don't know, you know, the questions of what you're going to be asked. But you can memorize the answers to like five very basic questions. Why do you want to be a PA, the history of the PA profession, why medicine, you know, something about your PCE and like a weakness that you might have in a strength, like using those you can if you're creative enough, just you can, you can use those scripted answers pieces and parts of them to kind of get into anything. Yeah. You know, and that's as a as an interviewer doing mock interviews. That's like my favorite thing to hear is when someone goes, I ask a question and they're like, yeah, and they get all confident and they just know what they're going to say. That I really liked it. Yeah. You know, that just shows confidence. I've actually I've noticed, tell me if this is your experience to grace. I feel like a lot of providers specifically I can't talk today. I think I'm getting sick. That's why I'm drinking so much and I'm going to do a netting pot later. That's urgent care for you. Kids are just constantly sneezing in your face. Yeah. Let's see those tonsils. Oh, crap. They're those two weeks. Anyway, yeah, urgent care is fine. But anyway, I feel like that's the thing that a lot of providers specifically PAs and NPC is like anytime anytime you say something to them, they're like, yeah. And then they go. Yeah. Notice that it's like, yeah, actually, literally, literally right now. Yeah. No, it is, it is the PA that I work with. Um, she definitely does that literally all the time. Right. I feel like we all do it and then you find yourself doing it and you're like, huh, I'm one of them now. Yeah. That's crazy. It's just, it's funny. It's like what that communicates is I hear you and I already know what I'm going to do about it. It's just very confident. So I'm not going to say you should do that in your interview, but I'm also not going to say you shouldn't. Don't overdo it. If like, okay, if there's a group interview somewhere out there at a PA school and I hear like a chorus of yas at the same time, I'm going to be angry because don't take this advice too literally, but you know, pepper it in once in a while, you know, you get a question. Yeah. And then do an answer. What you don't want to do is say that and then sit there for 30 seconds thinking. Now we know you're faking. Yeah. So that's why I'm saying. If it feels right, do it because I know I did that in my interviews and for me it was, I totally did that in all of my interviews. What the yeah. Yeah. I did the yeah. I did the absolutely when they asked the question. Absolutely. It sounds confident though. If you start talking right away. It does and for me it gives me like half a second to breathe and to like think before I start. Okay. I'm a word runner and I will start and it's hard for me to stop and then I'm thinking about what I'm saying next, but I'm saying words and I'm like, oh my God, I don't even know what I'm saying. Oh, did you do that too? Yeah. Like your brain goes faster than your mouth. Yeah. Okay. If you want an example of that rewind this video 90 seconds and I literally did that really bad and I'm not cutting it out. I don't care how stupid it makes me look. I want you guys to know that literally everybody who makes it into this profession, we all do that. All of our brains are too fast for our mouth and we just we do that and it's okay. It's okay when it happens. No one cares. It's fine. Yeah, it is fine. But that like first little word before I answered a question. I was saying it mostly to allow myself to breathe and gather my thoughts for half a second. I never thought of that. I thought it was more just like, yeah, I got this blah, blah, blah, but I didn't think that it was like an extra couple of seconds where you're saying, yeah, you know how to say that and then you're kind of thinking. I never thought about that. That's actually brilliant. Yeah, that's what it was for me, honestly. I think in the mock interview, I started doing that and I was like, what am I doing? I didn't know I was going to do that. But I ended up realizing I was like, oh, it's okay. It's given me a little bit of time. Yeah. So maybe try it. Maybe try it with a friend first. Try reversing it. You know, don't just like go into your interview doing something you're not used to doing. Yeah. But anyway, I digress. Okay, so those are some very, very solid interview tips. Anything else that you would say about the interview? I think we covered a good bit of it. It's a high stress situation because you're more often than not going to be with a bunch of other students and you're like, oh my gosh, what are their stats? Like what are they doing? Whatever. So just don't compare yourself. Just go in there and show them who you are. Be really confident about why you want to be a PA, why you're going into this profession, because that's what they want to see. Just breathe. It'll be okay. If you got an interview, you already got an A. Just wanted to throw that out there. Like very arbitrary stats. I'm not going to say where I got them, but they're from pretty good personal experience. I'll go with. Schools interview about the top 10% of their applicants. Let's say they get 2000 applicants, they'll probably invite about 200 people to interview. Out of them, they accept about a quarter. So getting into those 200, you already are the top 10%, which means you've got at least a 90. You already have an A. You're already an A student. You deserve to be there. Two, you have just as good a chance at getting into the program as anybody else getting interviewed. Your stats, your numbers, your whatever doesn't matter anymore. Now it's all personality. So one, you're already an A student. Breathe. Two, you already have just as equal a chance as anybody else. Breathe. It's all about the interview now. Don't worry about everybody else. I mean, they obviously want you enough to talk to you. You're there for a reason. They think you're good enough. If your school thinks they're good enough, you're good enough. Okay. So you got to believe that too. So yeah, very solid interview tips. Any just general advice for prepaid applicants or you think we covered it? Kind of with the interview then also, if you don't get it in from your interview, it doesn't mean you did a terrible interview because you were just sharing the stats about how many people they are interviewing and they might be looking for a very specific applicant that fits into their class. And so don't be super disheartened if you don't get in after an interview and think, oh my God, what did I do wrong? I mean, try to think about what you could have done wrong. Obviously see what you can fix. But don't get super discouraged if you don't get in after an interview. It feels like a shot to the heart, but it doesn't define you and your experience. Yeah. I mean, they like literally a bunch of schools potentially rejected Grace who if we paint the picture of the perfect PA applicant, she literally fits it, right? Excellent GPA, excellent PCE hours, blah, blah, blah, you know, very well spoken, and she got rejected. You know, but somebody who's nothing like her might have gotten in, it just depends on what that program wants, what that specific interviewer wanted. It's just like, they're so subjective. You might be an excellent applicant, you're going to make a great PA, it's just it was not your time or not your time at that particular school. So again, just breathe. If it's right, it'll happen, I promise. But yeah, any other advice to the nervous struggling pre PAs or are we pretty good? I think we covered a good bit of it. I think so. I definitely think so. So now you have done the work, you've got the classes, you got the grades, you got the PCE, you got the interview knocked out. Now you have an interview or not an at an interview, a school invite for a seat in their class. Now you might even be choosing like race between two specific programs or even more. What are the factors you consider when you're choosing a program? There's a lot of factors to think about cost. Number one, huge, because oh my gosh, the cost of PA school is large and rising for a lot of schools. So consider that and then obviously the area that it's in. For me, that wasn't too much. Well, I guess it was. So never mind, I take that back. So cost first. And then I did a deep dive into the programs and I looked into their curriculums and all that kind of stuff. It's all it's all very important to see if it aligns with how you learn as a student. Because that was something that was really important to me and how their classes are set up. And look at their, obviously their pants pass rate, their statistics like that. But yeah, I think for me it came down to you're going to have a feeling to like where you want to go. I chose between two amazing programs and I was super, super lucky to have that choice to make and it was a hard decision to make. Because I did get a really good feel for both of the programs. So it came down to also the area if you think you're going to be happy living towards a city or if you want to be in the middle of nowhere and have no abstractions and anything for during your two years of PA school. But yeah, look into the little things too. And I also got to speak to students at both of the programs. So if you have the opportunity, reach out and do that, because that was very valuable information that I found. How did you speak to students? Did you kind of like put yourself out there and just like random DM them on Instagram? Or did they have like a program where you talk to students? No, I just got lucky, honestly. I started DMing random people for my personal statement. That's how I found you guys. So do that. If you buy people, just do it. I DM so many people to get help with my personal statement. But with this, I was just lucky with connections. My dad is a preceptor for one of the schools that I was deciding between. And so he literally had students pouring out of him. So I talked to one of them. And then he also, well, I know someone in the program, in the other program, I know a first year student now. So I talked to them a lot. And I also talked to another student again, because of my dad's connections. So that was just luck for me. But if you have the opportunity, talk to students and go on tours because if they have them, because that was huge for me as well to actually physically be there and get some questions answered while you're actually talking to people and you're there. Yeah. I mean, if it's set up like my program was, which I bet you it is, you're not like, it's not like undergrad where your classes are scattered about campus and you're going from building to building. You're literally in one room for two years. Yeah. Like that's your home. You now live there. That seat is going to have like a perfect, just like imprint of your butt because you're never leaving. So like just imagine that being your home. Can you see yourself there? Do you like the surroundings? Do you like walk from the parking lot? I don't know. But just can you see yourself there? Use that gut feeling like Grace kind of said, assuming that all of the other stats are there. They have a decent first time pants pass rate. They're accredited. They're not at risk of losing their accreditation. All that stuff. Make sure that's all intact. If it is, then it's just kind of a gut feeling level type of thing. Yeah. Absolutely. What was I going to say? Oh, yeah. Before we reveal the two schools, Grace was choosing between. I wanted to piggyback on what she said about talking to current students. That is my biggest advice to incoming PA program students just like Grace. Talk to current students exactly how to succeed and specifically about every class because they're not going to want to like go into details. Be like Grace, make a checklist, make a Google doc, every single class that you're signed up for. Hey, so what did you do in this class? Where do they get their lecture materials for this class? Where do they get their exam materials? Do I have to buy the book? Do I not have to buy the book? What is this professor like? X, Y, and Z, all of that stuff. Make sure you specifically, specifically ask how to succeed in every single class. And that is the biggest like silver bullet to doing good first year. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a lot of those little things like that I got to know with talking to students. For me, it was how are the exams set up. That was big. Do they review the exams with you? Because some programs don't, and they just give you a grade to move on and they won't go over it. But some programs do do a really good job of reviewing exams is what I'm learning. I don't know. I'm not in there, so I guess I'll find out. And then if they record their lectures, that was something that was big for me because I know that in college, whenever I had a class that didn't record the lectures, I was kind of sucks because I can't go back and look at it. A lot of my classes actually didn't in college. But that was something that I didn't even think about until I was on the tours. And so I heard someone ask about it and was like, oh my gosh, I didn't even think about it. But then it was something that ended up helping me decide. It was a little thing because it came down to the little things for me. But yeah, just the little things that you gain. And if you go on a tour, talk to the students while you're there because they're most likely going to be, well, maybe not. I don't know. One of my tours was run by students. So that's that last one's a good point. Do they record their lectures? Because my school didn't. And I was just thinking about how helpful it would be if they did. They might still do it now. I'm not sure if they changed something. But like, so like back to what I was saying, like some classes, it's just straight up from the book, some it's from the lecture slides, the end, some classes, they literally will make questions based off stuff that was just set out loud and is not written down anywhere. You know, which to a guy like me that zones out is a nightmare. And so if they had recorded those lectures and I could go back like on my drive to school at the gym, whatever, just to listen to them one more time, that would have been a game changer. So that's actually a really, really big deal, I think. Yeah, for me, it was it was huge because I know that I'm going to utilize that so much in my studying. When I'm going through my notes for the first time, I'm probably just going to play the lecture and make sure I have everything before I start really studying it. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good idea. I'm glad you brought that up. And so with all of that in mind, what were the schools you were choosing between? I was choosing between Penn State University and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. PCOM. PCOM, yeah. Okay, Andy chose. I chose PCOM. PCOM. Is that where your dad went? Yeah. Oh shoot, that's so cool. And my cousin, actually, she also went there. She went to their DO program. So keep it in the family. Okay, cool. So you're like a legacy there? Yeah. Okay, so you're going to have like a parking spot and like a designated seat and all that stuff? I hope so. Really? No. No, you don't want that because people are going to be messing with you non-stop. No, I won't have any of that. But hoping for a scholarship, maybe we'll see. They have PA school scholarships? No. Yeah. That was also a joke. I don't think so. Where did we even leave off before we started talking about that? I don't know what we were talking about. But so, okay, so you chose PCOM. We were saying, you know, I have how my dad and my cousin went there. I'm keeping it in the family. Yeah. Yes. Okay, so that's probably one factor. It's just like he went to PCOM. She went to PCOM. So that was cool. But was there anything specifically about the school besides that it's your dad's alma mater? It was mostly, I don't even know. It came down to, again, it was all the little things that it was just, there were more pros on that side than Penn State. And because I had an excellent interview with Penn State. That was really, it was a really, really good. I had two interviews with them actually. And both of them were great. Everyone I met was great. I got such a good feel for the program. And my interview with PCOM went really not well. I thought, I thought, I guess it went well. So, and at first I did get waitlisted at Penn State. That's an interesting thing to put in there. I was waitlisted and they are a very small program. They only accept 30 students. And so I stayed on the waitlist. I pulled the rest of my applications. And so I was only with PCOM. I submitted my deposit to PCOM. And then I was waiting to hear back from Penn State just because I was curious to see how I would feel if I did get in. And then I did get in and I had this decision to make. But yeah, I felt really good about Penn State and that interview. And it, I don't know, it came down to, I think it was the area a lot for me as well. Because Penn State's program is in Hershey. And well, I mean, they have their hospital right on campus and stuff. And so they have a lot of really great things. And PCOM is in Philly. So I was kind of thinking about also after I graduate, but kind of where I want to end up in life and like area wise. And I live in Philly now. I love living in Philly. And I was thinking to myself, well, I'm probably going to want to continue to live in the Philly area. So I'm going to make so many more connections to hopefully aid in me getting a job after school around here. So that was a, that was another factor was the area for me and where I want to end up after school. That's actually, that's really smart. Because your first job, you almost always get it out of your rotations. You know, you might be able to do a fellowship if you know people in a different city, you know, it's possible. But it's by far the easiest to get your first job out of PA school through your rotations. So if you don't want to end up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and you want to end up in Philly, it kind of makes sense to go to a school in Philly. That's where most of your rotations will be. Yeah, exactly. That's, that was a big thing for me. And just like with everything, Grace is organized about this and made the right choice, which is, I mean, that part's really cool. The other thing I just wanted to bring light to was the fact that she thought she did poorly in this interview. This is the school that she got into right away without the waitlist and the interview that she thought was excellent she got on the waitlist. Ended up getting in, but she was waitlisted. So like, even if you feel like you did like crap, you might did really good. Even like if the whole day you're feeling like crap, just think about Grace's story. She literally thought the whole day was a bad interview and she got in. You know, so you might be doing better than you think, just like give yourself some grace on, didn't mean to do that one. But give yourself some grace and just like understand that you might be doing better than you think. You might feel awkward, but you might be presenting yourself not awkward, or someone might like that you're awkward. You might like that you're like, you don't know everything. You're ready to be a student. You're ready to learn. You're not like God's gift to PA programs. You know what I mean? So no matter how you're feeling, you might be doing way better than you think. So just keep calm and carry on, as they said back in 2008. No, it's so true though, because I was a mess after my PCOM interview. I was crying to my mom. I was like, I blew it because PCOM was at the top of my list forever. And I was like, I can't believe it. My first interview, my top school, like I totally just ruined my life. And I was very dramatic about it. But how it feels fine, what? That's how it feels. It is, it totally is. It's such like a soul crushing moment when you don't feel like you did as well as you could have done. But it's okay. It's really okay. I promise. Worked out in the end, right? All right. I mean, I can't think of a better way to end the video than that. And then on a high note, and also on kind of a cliffhanger, because we're going to want to know like how you're doing, how the program is, you know, how you're progressing. It's always cool to keep up with these folks. But yeah, congratulations. Awesome job. Thank you. If you see one for your help, I couldn't have done as well as I did without you guys and your help. So thank you guys. Yeah, absolutely. I wish Elijah was here, but it's Sunday morning. I think he's at church or something. I don't know. Like it's so hard to coordinate three schedules and then four. And so it's just, it is what it is. But Elijah's going to watch this. He watches all of our videos. So he's smiling out there somewhere from wherever the heck he is right now. Where is he? New Jersey? Yeah. Elijah, whenever you watch this, you know, shout out to Elijah. Because both me and Elijah looked at Grace's interview or her essay. We both gave advice and she did a mock interview with both of us. So Elijah was a huge instrumental part in Grace's success. So I just want to shout him out because I know he's going to watch this. So he's going to smile when he hears this. But yeah. So absolutely. Congratulations. You're very welcome. If anybody wants help in a very, very affordable way, read the book. If anybody wants, you know, one-on-one help from me or Elijah of BorisThePA.com. You guys have heard that enough. Grace, congratulations. Awesome job so far. Cannot wait to hear about more of your success. Thank you. You're welcome.