 But some things that tend to be most concerning a student may have our minimum requirement for patient care experience But perhaps it's all in a low-quality category All of it is in shadowing or all of it is in more of an administrative role in a physician's office or something like that That can be concerning because although you have the minimum you really haven't had any Real high quality higher decision-making type role and it would be difficult for someone to be successful in our program without a Little bit more high-quality experience So even though you may have that minimum if all of your experiences in a lower quality category That tends to be concerning to us early on in the process that even if you were to Erin interview spot It may may be an issue for you moving forward Other issues with the a lot of time students if I could I know this is a comes up later But it's sort of like an applicant tip Very often students do not take the time to describe their experiences in CASPA In good detail and really tell us what that role is So they'll for example use a title for a job that they assume we know everything about you know They might say oh, I wasn't a CNA a certified nursing assistant and although we are competent people We know what that role generally entails You're missing an opportunity to really showcase your experience by not describing it Even if you think it's something really obvious So sometimes that can be a little concerning if you if you look at an applicant It almost looks like they rushed through it. They didn't really give you enough information And we really want to get to know that experience because it's an important part of our review process So that would be another sort of red flag is not taking advantage of the the duty section and describing that experience in detail I actually really want to cover that really briefly Because I do kind of help some PPA students with their applications And I look at their CASPA and a lot of people try to stick all of that into their essay They think that it's a narrative of their whole life Yeah, I want to like describe all their duties and I tell them no that's not the place for it, right? Advantage of all that space CASPA gives you to describe all those Responsibilities that you had in that section. So definitely take your time describing each experience Yeah, you nailed it on the head. You know, you have this opportunity to showcase those specific roles in so many different parts of your application that your essay should be more Qualitative in nature. I should be more more personal more descriptive of you and your experience and your goals As opposed to just a listing of everything we already have on file for you And so next question just off of that is are there any common mistakes or red flags or anything during the interview process? That would make somebody less competitive as an applicant. Oh Yeah, I have to laugh a little bit because It doesn't matter if you're applying to PA school or you're applying to an MBA program or you want to be a teacher and you're applying to an education program Some of these common mistakes are just found everywhere One that I would mention is saying that the school you're interviewing with is not your first choice or that You're fine because you didn't get into your first choice or there's some some illusion there that you you're You know, we weren't the ones that you were you were hoping to apply to That can be very a quick deterrent for a faculty interviewer to say what do you mean, you know or or What we what we tend to see in clinically based programs is I was trying to get into Med school and So now I'm just kind of try this instead and it's like well, you know Everyone has a life path and there's a way to explain that life path But just to to kind of unload that and make it seem as though this isn't something you really even researched And maybe you don't really even know that much about it can be a deterrent as well So why don't you be really honest in your life path? If that's what your life was and you were intending to do that we value that we think everybody has a good You know way that they got to us, but you want to be sensitive in the way you approach that topic if that's what he's for you So just with that let's say somebody had been shooting from at school their whole life And then discovered the P the PA profession during their shadowing experience and they decided hey This is better for me. Don't hide the fact that you want it to be a doctor at some point and now you want to be a PA Yeah, I think that again as a Jesuit institution having a really holistic review process We often times throw around the term cure a person Alice right care of the whole person So we want to know that life story, you know, what what did you do? Why did you apply there? How did you start a program and now you're not in it anymore? What happened? You know, and so we're really sensitive to the fact that everyone has a different path to getting here You know, some people were were born with parents that were PAs and they knew from the second they could talk that they were gonna be a PA Other times it's not something people discover until they've been in a career and this is almost like a second career for them So it really there's so many ways to come to this place So being really transparent and honest in that but being sensitive to the fact that you know This is a very competitive program And we want to make sure that if you've made the choice to apply to it that you've done the research and you understand Truly what this what this profession is All right So number one on the list of things not to do is don't say that this is your second choice program or Second choice career don't say you actually want to do something else and you're just trying out this PA thing. Don't do that Yeah, yeah, I Sort of I sort of joke sometimes with students and say think about like you're interviewing someone to be your new best friend Would you want that person to say? Oh, well, you're great. But like I was really hoping to hang out with Cindy down the road But you were just like available It's a lot nicer if you know that person really is invested in you and they know a lot about you and they think you'd be a great Best friend, you know, so it's a silly way to think of it, but kind of put it in that perspective I think that's a good way to think of it All right, so can you give me one more thing someone shouldn't do during the interview During the interview or during the admission process like the full process or just at the interview You know what how about one of each? If you're invited to interview it's because we believe that you could be a good fit for this program And if you do your best and you you are yourself and you you do the absolute best you can do with the interview questions That's all you can worry about. That's the part that's in your control And anything else beyond that what's happening with the committee and the faculty and the analysis of all of that There's no there's nothing a student can do to have changed that So I always say if you've been invited to interview do your best to lose that imposter syndrome this feeling that you don't belong there for some reason You know, we see something in you and we want to learn more about it. So do your absolute best You know, I've heard that before like if you're invited to the interview There's no rank order system anymore. You are possibly going to get one of those spots It's all about moments at the interview from now on Yeah, a lot of times what I'll tell applicants in our information sessions is You know, once you get to the interview, it's almost like everyone's on even playing field, right? Like you've all been invited for some reason so there's no reason to then be comparing yourself to the person next to a person to the right of you or left of you because You've both been invited on your same merit for whatever reason that was so at that point it's really a matter of just being yourself and Remembering that it's a two-way interview, you know competitive programs It can feel very much like you're on the spotlight and you're you're the one being critiqued and in many ways you are But we're also you're also critiquing us You know, you're a competitive candidate, which means you have a choice of a number of programs Likely in the country to explore So the fact that you're interviewing with us is a reminder to us that you know We want to also recruit you to choose us if we should offer you an invitation. So it's a two-way interview That's a really good point and I know one common interview question is do you have any questions for us? Yeah, the worst answer to that question is no no You want to yeah, you want to put the other person not on the spot, but you want to know more about the program Like what is your favorite thing about this program? Why did you choose to teach here whoever's interviewing you? Yeah? Yeah, those are all great. I mean there's you could there's so many different ways you could go with that question But when you're asked in an interview, do you have any questions? It can be an opportunity for you to learn more about the person interviewing you It can be an opportunity more learn more about the college learn more about the program or an opportunity to really Turn the question back around, you know and say, you know, this is something in my experience that I really valued Does your program also value that? You know, does your faculty also have experience with that? So it can be an opportunity to also showcase something about yourself while getting a question answered And many career services offices all at all different colleges offer a lot of help in that So if you're an alumni or even if you're finishing up your senior year and you want to get some good interview practice very often Your undergraduate institution will have a career services office that can do a lot of really good prep with you on that