 What's up you guys? Zadana, welcome back to my channel. So I am really excited to talk to you guys today. I had a question on one of my recent videos about giving your application the edge. And so I wanted to talk to you guys about that today. So that is what this video is going to be about. Thank you guys so much for joining me. Thank you to those of you that are new. If you don't already know who I am, my name is Zadana. I do PA related video, among other things. So you can just check my channel out. If you like what you see, go ahead and subscribe. So someone asked me a question. They were doing their CASPA application, which is our central application, like website that you send all of your PA applications through to the various different schools that actually participate in CASPA. And they were saying, they asked if they joined one of the associations like APA because you can actually be like a pre-PA student through APA and get a membership that way. Will that give their application the edge? And honestly, I would say not really. I mean, yes, it shows that, hey, you know, you're really interested in being a PA so much so that you're willing to pay like the $75 to be a pre-PA student member. However, I mean, when people are when the application committee is looking at your application, like when we were in school and we were like looking at the various different students that were coming in, there is never anything like we never cared. Like, oh, they are members of APA that never crossed our minds. But there were three things that actually we looked at pretty deeply to see who got the edge or who didn't. And this was obviously before the whole like, you know, coming in and interviewing part. So that is what I wanted to share with you guys today. Those three things. So the first thing that gives your application the edge is your GPA. Now, obviously, like GPA can be very like skewed because there are some people that go and just like do all the prerequisites and they get like a prerequisite GPA or they've really, you know, just kind of done all of these classes within the last couple of years. And so their GPA is like a 4.0 or whatnot. And that's not necessarily an indication of the type of PA student they're going to be. But that is kind of what we have to go on. And that is what a lot of schools are looking at. That's why there is a minimum GPA requirement for the majority of schools that you're applying to. And that minimum GPA requirement is usually a 3.0. So if you have anything like 35 and above, you're in the average to above average range because typically students are coming in with like three fives, three fours around there, three sevens. So if you're at a three five or above, that gives your application the edge, you know, you're not just kind of like sliding by on that 3.0 with like a 3.1 or 3.09. And that is not like, let me just make this clear, that does not mean that if you have like a 3.1 or 3.2 that you shouldn't apply to PA school or you're not going to get into PA school with those GPAs because there are students that do that. I mean, the when you're looking at the various different schools and what their averages are, if their average is a 3.4 or 3.3, you know that there are students with below that average or right meeting that average to make an average, right? So just keep that in mind. I don't want to like scare you away from applying because you may not necessarily like be super above the minimum requirement, but we're talking about what gives you the edge and what gives your application the edge. So if you're trying to get an edge, then having a three five or above is what's going to get you there. The second thing that gives your application the edge is your direct patient care experience. So what do I mean about direct patient care experience? I mean, specifically, you're the one that is like directing the care of the patient, right? So you're a nurse or you're an ED tech or you're an EMT. Some schools accept CNA hours and MAs and things like that. So it's it all depends on the program, but what your healthcare hours were like the type of healthcare hours that you had, that gives you an edge. So there are some students that come in as like scribes and CNAs as I did. And then there are others that are coming in like from being firefighters and nurses and doctors and like other countries and things like that. And so when you're able to put that on your application, that gives your application like a super edge because it shows that you already know the healthcare field. You know how it operates. If you were a nurse or a doctor in another country or an EMT or a firefighter, you might be already like familiar with medications and how to administer them and what they're used for and the various different things like that. So classes like pharmacology and things that you would actually use in PA school and when you're actually a PA medications, it's kind of easier. So they're looking at that to be like, okay, so this student will matriculate. This student will actually like, you know, not lower our attrition rate or anything like that because hey, like they're going to actually stay in the program and likely do well, along with that great GPA. So and that is something that also gives your application the edge is the type of healthcare experience, direct healthcare experience that you get, right? And the third thing, which is kind of like, it gets to be, I guess you could say, is how many hours of direct patient care experience do you have. So obviously, like there are schools that have an average or a suggested amount of hours, meaning like, okay, your minimum requirement for, you know, a particular program might be having 500 or 1000 direct patient care experience hours. Again, just like with your GPA, you don't want to just kind of like be sliding by like, you know, the minimum requirements is 500 and you got 501. No, that's not going to give your application the edge. It's going to give you the opportunity to apply to the school because you're meeting the minimum requirements. However, when it comes to actually giving your application the edge, you want to surpass that. So for schools that are asking for like 500 hours, you know, you want to be in like that 1500-2000 hour range. And obviously that takes a lot of time. It takes months and years to actually get all of those hours in. But it is worth it if you're trying to really secure your spot in a school or make it more of, I guess the thing, like make your chances just immensely greater of getting into PA school by surpassing the hours that you're getting. So there are schools that require like 5000 hours or not necessarily required, but they suggest, like this is what their students typically come in, like 5000, 6000 hours. And that's a lot of hours. Okay, that's like years of work. But if you really want to be somebody that is, your application is looked at very highly upon, like hitting that range of like two, three, four thousand direct healthcare patient hours is important. So those are my tips for you. Those are three tips that will help you boost your application or give your application the well-needed jolt that it might need so that you can actually just be confident while you're applying to PA school. Obviously, this takes time, you know, getting the hours, getting your GPA where it needs to be, getting that job that will get you those hours, it takes time. But trust me, if you do this and you work hard at it, it will be worth it in the end. Please keep those questions coming, you guys. You guys are are doing an amazing job of commenting in my comment section and giving me some ideas for future videos. So thank you for that. Please continue to do so. If you have any questions, leave them in the comment section below. You already know what to do. Go ahead and sign up for get that see university.com. It is where my new platform that I am starting that's going to help pre-PAs get into PA school and PA students get through PA school. So go on over there right now. That's get that the letter C university.com and sign up so you can be the first to know when my platform actually launches and follow me on Instagram at adana the PA. Thank you guys so much for watching. I will talk to you guys next time. Bye.