 Get ready, set, PA school, let's go. All right, so this is your first step, right? You're here today. These are some applicants that I've worked with over the years helping them get into PA school. As you can see, they are all different kinds of applicants. We have younger applicants, older applicants, people from different diverse backgrounds, right? So we can help you get into PA school. You can get into PA school no matter where you are on your journey right now. I truly believe that with the right amount of time, effort and energy, you can be accepted into a PA program. All right, so why PA? So let's start a little bit about number one, what is the PA and why PA? I think I skipped a slide. So what is the PA? So a PA, as most of you probably know, is a physician assistant now moving to the term physician associate, okay? So a physician associate is a certified licensed medical professional that can diagnose, treat, perform exams, write prescriptions, perform procedures, assistant surgery with a collaborating physician. PAs can work in any medical specialty. So you can encounter PAs really anywhere from emergency medicine to psychiatry to oncology to surgery, okay? We have the ability to go to a PA program, get a generalist training and then graduate and be able to work in any specialty across the lifespan without having to get additional training. That is what is unique about this profession is that we are able to change specialties and move throughout the healthcare continuum with really not having to go back and do any additional training because of that generalist training we get in PA school. So to become a PA, you have to complete an accredited, very rigorous educational program and pass a national certifying exam, which is called the pants, okay? So in the hierarchy and in the scheme of healthcare, where do PAs fall? I had this conversation yesterday with my neighbors who were kind of unaware, right? So you have physicians, all right? So physicians are kind of, they have the most training, they have the most practice of authority, they have everything there, right? And then you have a collection of providers that are called advanced practice providers or advanced practice professionals. And that's where PAs fall. PAs, nurse practitioners, CRNAs fall into this category. We all have advanced degrees in our respective career and are able to function as an advanced care provider, right? And then you have sort of the nursing and then kind of beyond that, right? So that's where PAs sit in that advanced practice provider bubble. So why PAs? So PAs really offers a lot of flexibility, offers a lot of autonomy, a competitive salary, let's be real, and you can really get some meaningful patient interactions in there. Now, a couple of things that I feel like sometimes are misnomers about being a PA is that PA gives better work-life balance and being a PA, you can spend more time with patients. Those two things are not necessarily true. I'm here to like bust those myths because number one, no career will give you work-life balance. Work-life balance is something that you create yourself in any profession that you have. Does becoming a PA make it easier to do that? In some ways, yes. But you can find a lot of overworked and burnt out PAs out there. So I'd really be careful when saying, oh, PAs have better work-life balance because that's just not true. Work-life balance is something that you create for yourself in your career and in your life no matter what your role is in medicine. And secondly, PAs function a lot of times as independent providers, particularly in primary care and settings like that. So we don't always have more time to spend with patients because we do have a full case load. So yes, there are specialties like oncology, like I'm in where you are seeing patients over and over and you get those meaningful connections, but it's not necessarily the timepiece that you get more of, but you do get those meaningful patient interactions. So the biggest difference, which is a question I get asked a lot is what is the biggest difference between a PA and a nurse practitioner? Because we both fall into that bubble of advanced practice providers, right? So the biggest difference between a PA and an NP is the education. So NPs or nurse practitioners are nurses first in some way, shape, or form. So they've either been, got a bachelor's in nursing or got an associate's in nursing and taken the NCLEX and then move on into their master's level journey where a PA can really be anything before they decide to go into the PA profession. A medical assistant, a researcher, a paramedic, a nurse even can go to PA school, right? So you can really come from any background and go into PA, you don't have to be a nurse first, but you do need clinical experience, okay? So you do need that hands-on clinical experience to be able to apply to PA school and eventually become a PA. The second thing that's a little bit different is the nursing nurse practitioner model is of education is a little bit different than the medical model that PA is trained underneath. So there's that. And then the last thing is that nurse practitioners do have flexibility within their respective focus, but they have to pick a focus, okay? So they work under an umbrella. So you can change specialties within that umbrella. Like if you're an adult critical care nurse practitioner you can change specialties in that umbrella that you can't go and treat children, right? Whereas PAs don't have that umbrella and you can go from adult medicine to pediatrics to dermatology to surgery and all of the different things. So those are probably the biggest differences between the two. A little bit about my story. I know I had an introduction already but I actually had no idea what a PA was until I was about 22 years old. I went to college, thought I wanted to be a physical therapist, got there, realized I didn't wanna be a physical therapist. I was a genetics major. I went into a very laboratory based major and then subsequently profession. I was a basic science researcher at the Data Farmer Cancer Institute in Boston. I was working there for about a year and I decided this was not for me, okay? I was like, this just ain't it. This is not where I'm gonna be. So I basically decided to do some research into what other professions I could go into. Naturally PhD was an option, position was an option. And I just really didn't feel connected to any of those. And that's when my parents said, why don't you talk to Christy who's my family friend that I grew up with who was a PA. And she told me about it, she spoke highly about it. I started doing my research. I really felt like it was a good fit but I had to do all the things that pre-PAs have to do. I had to go back, I had to get clinical hours. I had to take classes I didn't take before. I had to, so I was working two jobs, right? Then I had to navigate all the different prerequisites from all the programs and decide what I wanted to apply to and kind of navigate that puzzle by myself because nobody in my family is medical, zero zip zilch, right? So after I graduated, so I got into Yale, graduated in 2005, started practicing, my husband is a surgeon, we moved multiple times. We finally are here in South Carolina where we live now. And I really started working with some students locally to kind of help them on their PA journey, understanding that I had no kind of beacon or guide during the whole time. And bam, posh PA was born and now I'm helping students every single day. So that's a little bit about me and why I chose to do the profession. So what do PA programs look for? So what I consider to be the four core application components that you must have to apply to any PA program, one a strong academic background, particularly in science, okay? Most programs have a minimum requirement of a GPA of an overall GPA of 3.0 and a science GPA of 3.0. There are some programs that have slightly lower, maybe a handful out there, but most programs are looking for a minimum 3.0, overall and science GPA. With that being said, the GPA of somebody that gets accepted into a PA program based on the data is 3.5, 3.6. So the average person who gets into PA school has an overall and science GPA of 3.5 or higher, okay? So your goal should be around 3.5. Now, if you don't have that, can you still get into PA school? Yes, there are different strategies and different things that you can do and there are different programs you can look at, but that will help you in this process. And when I talk about an overall GPA and overall science GPA, I'm talking about from every single class you've ever taken in college, okay? So if you've gone to a few different colleges or you've repeated courses, what the application does, the centralized application, is they average all of that together into one overall and one science, okay? So you need to keep that in mind as well that your overall and science GPA may look different than what's on your college transcripts because if you've gone to a few different colleges or if you're retaking classes, when you put them in the centralized application, they merge all those grades together to give you your overall and your science. So just be aware of that. The second thing you need is direct patient care experience, okay? Direct patient care experience means hands-on, you are working with patients, okay? So you'll see on the application healthcare experience or patient care experience, you want to focus on patient care experience, okay? So patient care experience means you're doing vital signs, you're involved in the patient's care, you're taking blood sugars, you're talking to the educating the patients, you're kind of in the team with the other healthcare team members, right? Physicians, PAs, nurses, all of it. Some examples of that, medical assistant, EMTs, patient care technicians, those are the most common. There are some that are kind of gray areas like pharmacy technician, a medical scribe. You want at least 2,000 hours of clinical experience when you apply to PA school. I do have some people that apply with a little lower amount of hours, but again, national averages suggest or say and tell us that the average person that gets into PA school has a minimum of 2,000 hours of patient care experience, that is one year of full-time work. So that will give you a little bit of sort of a barometer. Now, again, that's just the average. I am seeing programs go higher than that right now. But I would say if you're shooting for a minimum, I would shoot for a minimum of 2,000. Some programs out there have a requirement, you can't even apply without 500 or 1,000 or 2,000. So that really just depends on the program. If you have thousands of hours from a really long time ago, you need recent experience as well, okay? So yes, those hours will count, but you need experience within the last two or three years. The next thing is gonna be volunteer work or community service. Programs really love to see you giving back to your community and it does not have to be medical, okay? So if you are somebody that volunteers for your church, habitat for humanity, local animal shelter, whatever it is, those hours count on your application. You want a minimum of 100 to 150 volunteer hours to be a competitive applicant, okay? And again, you want those to be recent. And then the last thing would be PA shadowing. Now, I know this is something that people struggle with and how to find a PA to shadow and all of that, but it is very important to try to get in-person PA shadowing before you apply to PA school, why? Number one, it really will show you the role of a PA in a different clinical setting. Number two, PA schools highly value that and recommend it. And number three, you can get a letter of recommendation from a PA. So those are sort of the core four things that I believe you need to be a successful applicant to PA school. Now, you definitely want to be a well-rounded applicant. There are other things that you can add on the application that just enhance it even more, like leadership experience, teaching experience, research experience, extracurricular activities. All of those things you are gonna put into this centralized application just to make your application look even better, better and better. So all of those things will count. You really don't wanna go back. Now, this really depends on what type of applicant you are, but your experiences should be limited to college, okay? You don't wanna be going back beyond 10 years, beyond seven years, I would say really is the cutoff unless you are in college currently and the five years back is high school, then you can use your high school experience, right? But if you've been out of college two, three years, you're not gonna use high school experience, everything from college and beyond, okay? Patient transport, delivering meals, all of that, that is not direct patient care experience, that is healthcare experience, okay? You don't have any direct clinical involvement with the patient's medical decisions that are happening, all right? So patient transport, hospital billing, medical front desk, administrative, that is all healthcare experience. Patient care is more in there. You cannot use PA shadowing as your patient care experience or vice versa. So if you're a medical scribe and you're working with the PA every single day, you're being paid to do that job that is not shadowing, okay? Shadowing is an unpaid experience. So if you are doing shadowing outside, if you're shadowing that same PA that you're working with outside of your business hours, then you can use it as shadowing, okay? But you can't double dip. You can't say, oh, I'm shadowing and I'm getting patient care. It does not work like that. Okay, so what is the best way to record clinical hours and shadowing? The best way to record that is to keep a log yourself and have the PA sign it that you're with. The same thing goes for clinical hours. You also want to keep all your pay stubs if you're being paid, all right? And make sure you have that there as well. Okay, so let's keep going. So what do PA schools look like and look for in the application process, right? So we just talked a little bit about this. GPA, prerequisites, your experience, your shadowing, your volunteer work, your standardized tests, right? I didn't talk about this. There are three standardized tests right now that you might have to take for PA school. The GRE, the PA CAT or the CASPER exam, okay? More programs are moving away from the GRE yet still half of them in the country require it. So you might have to take it. There are currently only about 10 to 12 programs in the country that require the PA CAT. I would not take this exam right now in 2024 unless your dream school requires it, okay? Because very few programs in the country require it. The CASPER exam is a situational judgment exam. You can only take that once per cycle and again, very program dependent. CASPA is the Central Life Application Service for PA school. That's where you do your entire application process, you enter your personal statement, all the things. And what does this all lead to, right? Confusion, frustration, time, money, stress, imposter syndrome, right? Because you're trying to navigate what is essentially this maze, right? So how do you go from frustrated and this is never gonna happen for me to, hey, I got an acceptance, right? So we'll talk a little bit about that and then I'll be more specific about things you can do. So in order to apply to PA school, I talked to you about the components of the application that you need. In my opinion, after working with hundreds and thousands of pre-PA students and helping them get in, the other thing you need to do is overcome these four things, to be accepted into PA school. One, confusion, trying to navigate the application, the maze of this, this school requires what? I need this test, I don't need this test, I need this many hours for this place, I need this many hours for this place, right? Very confusing. The stress and the pressure to stand out and excel, the overwhelm and sheer volume of requirements for all of these programs and the confidence. You need to overcome these four things in order to be a successful applicant and get invited to an interview for PA school, all right? So when we talk about confusion, right? It's really important to try to engage somebody that's been through this before, you want some guidance, right? You want to know your GPA breakdown. If you have a lower than average GPA, what can you do to improve that? That is a very personal recommendation. I cannot recommend the same thing for every patient, every person, right? Because I don't know the backstory, I don't know what you've done since college, right? So post-bac programs, post-bac programs may be the way to improve your GPA, but it might not be, right? If you're somebody that has taken all of your prereqs and you did great and you don't need to take more prereqs then a post-bac might not be for you. If you're somebody that did not do well in all your prereqs and might need to retake them all, then a post-bac might be necessary for you. So it's really only necessary if you need to improve your GPA and if you need to retake coursework, okay? Post-bacs are also really good for career changers. So if you're somebody that had a totally different major in undergrad and you decide you wanna go to peace, well, post-bac is probably a good idea for you, right? Because you can get all of that in. So it's a very personalized decision. So you need to have somebody with you that's gonna highlight your applicant profile that's gonna save you time, money and stress. Again, stress, while you're under this pressure to get your applications done and get all the components, what are you doing to manage your stress? Because this is a huge part of the application process that I feel like a lot of people ignore. And what happens is when you can't control the stress, you really start to crumble and you really start to feel like you can't do this. And once you start to feel like you can't do it, that's when you don't do it. So, and you're not putting your best foot forward. So I really try to work with my applicants to make sure we're engaging mindset strategies and wellness strategies to present your best self through the process. And not only this, overcoming overwhelm, right? Googling everywhere late nights, like how do I do this right? Find somebody that you can say, this person is gonna help me break this down, whether that's me, whether that's someone else to just really say, hey, like this is what you have to do. This is your timeline. This is when you have to start, okay? So you don't get lost. And then confidence, right? You want somebody that you're gonna work with that, and if you're gonna do this on your own, that's fine too, but you have to find the ability to, you know, harness that inner superhero and cultivate this confidence that you are doing this the right way, that you are on time with what you need to do. And I do have a free PA school application timeline you can get from my website. I have a free personal statement starter kit, all these free resources for you out there because its timeline is really, really important in this process. And I'm gonna talk about, I don't have a slide on this, but I am gonna talk about the application cycle and timing because I feel like that is the one thing people really struggle with in this process. If you are planning to apply to PA school in 2024, the application cycle opens April 25th, 2024. That means you start APA program if you are accepted in 2025. It's in a year long process and sometimes longer for some school, right? So if you're somebody that is, you know, like, oh, I'm gonna apply to PA school in 2024 and I'm gonna start in the fall, no, it's the following year, okay? Either January or the summer. All programs have a little bit of different timeline like that. So when you are planning things out, particularly if you're still in college, then you gotta say, okay, I want to apply as I'm going into my senior year so that I don't have to take a year off to start PA school. Because if you apply at the start of your senior or end of junior year, you do your whole senior year, you graduate and then you start a program. There's no gap there, right? These gap years are when you're applying after college, you know, you've been out of college for a year or two, you're getting your patient care experience and all of that and you want to apply, just know that if you graduate in 2024 and you plan to apply in 2025, you're not gonna start a program to 2026. So just so you know that, I also really want to get away from the idea of gap years, you're not backpacking through Europe, you are working, I call these work years, right? You are working on your application in order to be able to apply and successfully get into PA school, right? So I hate that it's like, you know, gap year, right? What's so great about work years? You get the time to work on your application, you get the time to get your patient care hours and shadowing and all of that. So it's really, really important to think about that in a different way, all right? So just know that you have time, all right? I'm somebody that didn't graduate from PA school until I was 28 years old. I've been working for 18 years, I'm 46, right? It's a long time. So even if you graduate when you're 40, you're still gonna work 20 years until you're 60, right? You have time, use the time to your advantage, all right? And just so you know, like, I really truly believe that with the right guidance, hard work, determination, time, effort and energy, you can overcome any obstacle and get into PA school. This is my acceptance letter from 2003. Oh my God, I just dated myself. And if you are looking for somebody to take you along this journey and hold your hand the whole way, I have my PA admissions accelerator course which is enrolling now. And you have tons of access to PA school admission experts. You get one-on-one intro call, one-on-one personal statement review, bi-weekly group calls, Jerry prep course if you need it, an application timeline and checklist, literally a community basically having an expert in your back pocket as you go through this process. So just wanted to mention that, you can find all of that information on michelnesky.com and on my social media, michel.papacheba. So I'm gonna go ahead and start answering some of these questions. I know I answered some of them, but I want to kind of go through some of the nitty gritty of the questions that we're having here, starting with the Q and A. So as far as a foreign medical graduate from Columbia, is there a special route that you need to follow to get into a PA program? So it's a little bit different for you, okay? So you need to get your transcripts evaluated by the World Education Services first. That's the very first thing that you have to do. And you have to make sure that your degree obtained in Columbia is equivalent to a US bachelor's degree. That's number one, which it probably is, but you need to have that documentation. Number two, you need to then look into PA programs that accept international medical graduates. Not all of them do, okay? Not all programs accept international applicants. So you need to look at those because most PA programs are still gonna require you to take credits in the United States. So there is a very good chance that you are gonna have to take more coursework in the US. So those are the first two things that I would do. I think I answered this 1,000 of clinical hours from 10 years ago, you do need recent clinical experience. How many hours are recommended to shadow a PA to be a competitive applicant, minimum of 40? I would say competitive applicants have like 75 plus. Would you say having a higher GPA would help boost your application if your hours are on the lower side or would you say hours? So I get this question a lot. Having a higher GPA is definitely going to help you, okay? However, in the last two years, in the past I would have said, yes, if you have a 3.9 having a lower amount of hours you'd be okay. In the last two years, that's not necessarily true. They want both, right? They want the high GPA and the hours. I don't think the hours are number one. I don't think the GPA is number one. They want all of it. So I think you should still apply with the 3.9 and a lower number of hours and give it a shot. That's what I would do. But I think it's really dependent. And on the flip side, hours do not outweigh a low GPA, okay? So I think that's really important to know too. Okay, so would volunteer firefighting experience be good on my application as well as working as the CNA EMT? Absolutely, that all looks amazing. Those are all great options for that. Okay, is it important to be certified or licensed in something? Such as a CNA EMT or MA, a PCT, which is not a licensed position, but still gaining valuable experience. So if you are a PCT and you don't have a certification you're still gaining the hours, it doesn't matter, okay? Getting a certification is important when you're looking for a job. So if you've already found a job that doesn't require a certification, that's the main thing, right? But a lot of jobs like EMT and MA and all that are now requiring certifications. And that's where advanced clinical training comes into it where you can get a quick MA certification and go out and get a job, all right? So you are one of the lucky ones that didn't have to get that, right? But that's not very common. So keep doing your PCT hours, they totally count. It doesn't really matter for the application process but getting a certification does matter for getting jobs. It helps you be able to apply to more jobs. From the experiences in the CASPA section, okay, hold on, wait, hold on. All right, like this one first. Is the post-bac a best way to go for prereqs instead of retaking individual classes? That's very applicant dependent. So you may be able to take all these classes at your local college and not need a post-bac. So I think it depends on your budget and if your local college has all the classes that you need. So there are two different ways to do that and neither of which is wrong. From the experiences in the CASPA application, would the description portion resemble more of a resume format or should we highlight key descriptions? Okay, here's my go-to for experience descriptions. I don't care what format you have if it's paragraphs or it's bullets. Pick one and stay consistent. You always want to put what you did so the hard skills that you did. Vital signs, you don't have to write blood pressure, heart rate when you know what vital signs are but like vital signs, blood sugars, whatever you're doing, right? I also think it's really important to say something you learned. Write something you did, write something you learned. That's what I would do in the experience description section. Letters of recommendation. Okay, this is when we haven't answered before. Look at your programs. Some programs have letter of recommendation requirements, okay? So some programs require a PA or an MD letter. Some programs require an education letter, right? A teacher or a professor. So be sure to look at that. I would say if you can always, if you can get a PA, it's always amazing, okay? You need three minimum to apply to most programs. So if you have a teacher and you have a doctor, you need one other person. You wanna pick somebody who's gonna write you a good letter, okay? So if you're not sure and you're like, oh, pick the person that's gonna write you the good letter, it's better to have a letter than a good letter than just a random letter from somebody that doesn't know you so well. If you didn't do well in certain classes, but it got your degree, should you retake them? If they are prerequisites, if you have a C right now and any prerequisites, you have to retake that class. That's how competitive it is right now, okay? What would be considered a grade that would necessitate? Okay, so yeah, C. So most schools have like a C or below. Most programs are moving to be minus or better on your prereqs. So if you have a C in your prerequisites, not your other classes, your prerequisites, you need to retake them. Does your bachelor's have to be completed before applying? No, you can still be in college and apply. You just need to make sure that the prerequisites and the programs that you're looking at will allow you to apply with prereqs in progress. So just make sure of that. Do people take out loans for PA school? Yes. Can you work during PA school? Absolutely not. It is not recommended and usually not possible. I know some people do like kind of remote things on the side a little bit, but nothing where you like actually have to go to a job. You should start your application at at least six to nine months in advance of when you think you're gonna apply working on it, okay? You don't have to do it in CASPA because CASPA is gonna close and open and whatever, but you should start working on the, if you're applying this cycle right now and it opens April 25th, you should have a lot of this stuff already done and or somewhere else on a separate document. The amount of classes you can have pending when you apply is really dependent on the PA program they were applying to. Some say one, some say two, some say none, okay? So check your programs. I've been working as a medical strive and scribe trainer for two years. Would it be beneficial to become an MA to be a more competitive applicant? Not necessarily. So most programs are accepting scribe as patient care experience. If your programs are accepting scribe, then you don't have to get a different job, right? So if you are applying to schools that that's like a gray area, then yeah, you might wanna change your job and get something a little bit more hands on, but most programs are accepting scribe as patient care. Are schools more understanding for having less patient care hours if you're coming straight out of college? I'd love to say yes, but the answer is no. They're not. I mean, I'd love to say yes, but just honestly the answer is no. Okay, what's a good way to reach out to a PA and ask for shadowing? The best way to find shadowing opportunities is to use your connections, family members, friends of friends of friends, cousin. If you're working in a clinical setting, which you might be, if there's no PAs there, you need to ask the people you're working with if they know any PAs, right? And then the last way that you can do that is to join your state PA organization. Every single state has a PA organization or academy, right? So lots of times they have pre-PA memberships and pages and they have local events where you can actually show up and like meet PAs. So I always recommend people do that. What post-bacc programs that people usually go into, they're usually called pre-health post-bacc programs, pre-med or pre-health post-bacc programs. If you are in your last week of an allied health science course and you shouldn't be able to apply if you're done with all your prereqs, you can apply. Yeah, so you're a collegiate athlete, obviously you're not gonna be able to get a lot of patient care hours, right? So I guess it depends on how many hours you have. I really wouldn't apply with less than 1,000 hours. So I would think about that when you're doing your application. Does it matter if you're an EMT or an MA? Nope, does not matter. How would you advise one looking for PCE without having to get a certification? You can look for things like physical therapy aids, don't require a certification, medical scribes don't require a certification. Things like CNA, you can get a certification pretty quickly, advanced clinical training has like an MA certification, just like eight weeks, self-paced, whatever, that's fast. But otherwise you have to look for doctors' offices and places that are gonna be willing to hire you and train you on the job. Do PA schools care, prereqs or take it at community college or university? Again, I'd love to say the answer to this is it shouldn't matter, but it does. So here's my recommendation. If your only option from a cost perspective and a location perspective is to take them at community college, you have to do what you have to do, okay? So I'm never gonna tell somebody to go take classes at a university if they can't afford it or it's not possible, all right? If it's possible for you to take them at a university, take them at a university. If it's not possible for whatever reason, you can do it at community college. What type of people do you ask for letters of rec? I think we already did that. Definitely clinician, MD, PA and NP. You wanna, educational reference is always good and then someone else that you trust. You withdrew from a genetics class due to personal reasons and did not retake it. Not all programs require it. No, it doesn't look bad if you don't retake it. As long as your programs don't require it, it's fine. So I would leave it. Would schools that have contingent acceptances based on completing a class before matriculation or reaching a number of hours are the chances ruined when applying? I think I'm not really understanding. No, I mean, if they've accepted you, right? Like, so you're talking about you got accepted into PSL, but it's contingent on you completing these things. Well, you're accepted. You have to complete them. If you don't complete them, you don't go. So if those are contingent, you have to get them done. Did you see what I'm saying? All right, competitive score for GRE is 50th percentile on verbal and math and at least a four on the writing that's gonna put you out of 300 to a 310 total. Full-time work during the didactic year, I'm telling you right now, like any PA program is gonna tell you no, even a hybrid. It's really not possible for the amount of information, work, tests, I mean, it's like, it's the cadence of it really makes it ill-advised. Part-time you might be able to get away with in a hybrid program perspective, but I still think it would be really hard. Do schools like to see an increase or slope in the GPA? Yes, an upward trend is what you need, upward trend. Nursing school with the intent to apply to PA school, hoping it would provide a solid background and never thought it would look weird, but now I'm thinking it might. I will have two batches, one in nursing, graduate in May. No, it doesn't sound alarming at all. Many nurses go to PA school, you're totally fine there. What if we take classes through June as a post-bac? Would you recommend submitting our application after finishing or earlier in the cycle? All right, so here's the thing about CASPA. Once you submit your application, your GPA is locked. All right? So if you have classes that you're planning to take, you can list them that you're planning to take them in CASPA. But if you go back and enter those grades, they're not gonna be calculated into your GPA. Your GPA only gets calculated one time per cycle. So if you need those classes to increase your GPA, I would wait. I would wait. For example, if I apply with 1500 hours and they say 2000 before matriculation, oh yeah, because you're gonna get 500 hours before you matriculate, so I would say yes. I'm a freshman in college, it's the best major. There is no best major. The best major is the one you like best. That's what I like to say. Like it literally doesn't matter. You just have to pick a major that you like and that you're gonna do well in and that's gonna get you your prerequisites. So that's it, that's the best major. You input W's as W's on CASPA. They don't get calculated into your GPA unless they were WF's, then they get calculated as F's. If everything is done and complete, you should submit your final application by the end of May to be early. It doesn't, you don't have to be, like you can submit your application whenever you want, by the way. People always ask me when is early. So I would say end of May, but if you're not ready, then you submit when you want to. You just have to make sure that you submit at least a couple of weeks before your program's deadlines because you have to be verified and you need time for that to happen. Is your GPA gonna be calculated if you take pre-rex after graduation? Those pre-rex will be calculated when they're done, but if you said, if you graduate and submit your application, and you take those classes after, they won't count into the GPA calculation. So you gotta be done with the class and the grade has to be on your transcript in order for it to calculate into your GPA calculation in CASPA. So just know that. How much impact does GRE have? Listen, that really depends on the program. Some programs don't even require me. So I think it's program dependent. Preparing for the interview process, especially MMI, the best way to prepare for interviews is to practice out loud. I cannot say that as much as possible. A lot of people spend a lot of time reading books or watching videos and writing down all their essays. And then when I get on a mock interview, they can't verbalize, all right? You've gotta answer these questions out loud. Have people asking you them out loud. MMI type questions, same thing. You wanna go online. You wanna watch a YouTube video. You wanna see what types of questions you're gonna be asked, develop a strategy and try to be able to answer those questions on your own. Best website or place to calculate your GPA? CASPA has a GPA calculator embedded in their website. It's an Excel spreadsheet. You can use that one. There's also some online CASPA GPA calculators you can use as well. What if you take classes through June? Yes, we did that. Study tips, study tips is a whole other presentation. Literally I can do a whole, I have done a whole presentation on studying in PA school. And there are a lot of different ways that you're gonna wanna do that. Academic strategy for PA school is totally different than your undergrad. You are gonna be wanting to do that, like pre-test, post-test situation like questions. You wanna be reviewing material within the first 24 hours to increase your retention. So there are a lot of study strategies you can implement. Why does classes at community college versus university matter when applying? Some programs believe that community college or coursework is easier. That's all I can say about it. I mean, I don't think or know that that's necessarily the case, but that's what some programs believe. Wow, that was a lot of questions. Did I get everybody or there's more in the chat? Almost, wow, wow. It's a lot of questions coming in. Just wanna acknowledge a few in the chat, a question around how many PA programs should we apply to and what's the average cost of applying? Okay, yeah, good question. So average cost to apply, it's $179 for your first application and $56 for every one after that. So think about the number of programs, right? You wanna apply to because that cost is gonna add up quick. Not to mention, some programs have supplemental application fees. This is like, they're asking you to pay money to write more essays. I mean, what is this? What is this? Like pay me $75 and you can write more. I can't, but anyway. So you also have to take into consider that. The average amount of programs people apply to, this number is probably gonna surprise you, it's actually six, six to eight, okay? I recommend 10 as I do not let anyone who works with me apply to more than 15. It is too much. It is too overwhelming. It is too expensive. And so I think it's really important to find programs in which you are matching close to their class profile or demographic and be more intentional about applying to these programs. So if you're somebody that doesn't, that has a GPA of like a 3.4, let's say, right? And you're looking at this program and their average accepted person has a 3.8. I don't know that I would apply there because there are tons of programs that have people with averages of 3.5, 3.3, right? So we can find those programs and be more intentional. Same thing goes for hours. If you see a program that their average accepted patient care hours is 10,000 and you have 1500, maybe that's not the right choice, right? There's over 300 PIA programs out there. So eight to 10 is like kind of the sweet spot for a number of programs. Also, I see a question about breaks in PIA school. There are no summers off. It is straight through. So you get short breaks like a week here, week there. That's it. There's no months off. So once you've finished didactic, you got like two weeks, you start your rotations. So it's pretty quick. If you have one prereq left to take and you want to take it at a two-year college, that's fine. Financial aid for PIA school other than loans. So you want to maximize your federal benefits first if you're a US citizen. You definitely, there's the National Health Corps Scholarship in which they pay for your education and all of PIA school, but you then have to work in a rural area or a primary care or an underserved area for a certain amount of years after you graduate. So there's a little give and take there, but that is one potential option. You then want to maximize your federal loans. Your federal loans, there is one called a Perkins loan that you eventually don't have to pay back after years of service. And then there's private loans. So can we include estimated hours we have before matriculation? No. You can only include the hours you have. You can't include hours you don't have because you don't know what's going to happen. So you would have to literally say, I have this many hours. And then in your experience description, you can say, I will continue to gain hours and work here until matriculation, but you can't put those hours in it as if you actually did them. That makes sense, okay. I think we might have hit them all. Yeah, we have a few more questions in the Q and A. Michelle, they keep coming in. They keep coming. Okay, here we go. Best way to record hours, you have them on an Excel sheet. I think that's fine. There are some sites out there where you can log your hours for PA school, but I don't think that there's one that's trusted so buy a program. So I would just keep a log for yourself. Yes, a smaller state college is a four-year university. That's correct, yes. Is it easier to get into a program if they have rolling admissions? No, it actually can be harder because you have to apply earlier. Because they are rolling, they're constantly looking at applications. And so you wanna make sure if you're applying to rolling admissions schools that you're applying earlier, so you can be one of the first people looked at. Also, I'd like to point out that this is a little bit different than applying to college. There's no safety school here. There's no programs that are easier to get into. That's one that I get a lot too. They're all very competitive. I work full-time, taking classes, shadowing, and volunteering because of this I'm taking my pre-recs online at a community college. I could not manage switching my schedule. That's fine. Just taking classes online, hinder your application. No, except you want to make sure that the lab portion, some programs do not accept online labs, okay? The actual course itself is okay, but the lab, a lot of them require in person. And if they do take an online lab, they have specific requirements. Like you have to be sent a kit for the online lab. So just be sure when you're checking. Does being a student athlete help when they look at your academic? I think being a student athlete helps your application in general. So I think that's good. Does CASPA put in your grades? No, you have to individually enter all your grades from your transcript. They don't do it. You can pay someone to do it through CASPA, but I mean, it's not that hard. I'd probably do it yourself. If labs done online, done due to COVID, check the programs because programs sometimes are saying if you took an online lab during these years, it's fine. So you really have to look at your programs, but some programs, not. So just check. Provisually a crowd is waiting for this. I know what he asked me about accreditation. All right, here's the skinny on accreditation real quick. Accreditation means the ARCPA, which is the accrediting body for PA programs that says you can be a PA program. You have a stamp of approval. You can graduate the people. They come in twice a year to programs. They do a review. They see what's going on, right? So continue to accreditation means that program is solid for a while, okay? Once you're on a continued accreditation cycle, they don't come in every year. That's periodically they make sure everything's okay, right? So continued is always easy, always good to apply to. The two I get asked about all the time is provisional and probation. Provisional just means the program is new. That's all that means. They, excuse me, are in fact accredited by the ARCPA. If you enter that program, and for some reason they go on probation or whatever, you're still good. You can graduate from the program, sit for your boards, right? So provisional just means new. So what are pros and cons of new, being in the first two years of a program? Well, I think there's some pros in the fact that the faculty is gonna be very attentive. The program is gonna be very invested in your success. I think there's a lot of positive components to that. You're gonna be part of that process. On the flip side, may not be as organized as an established program, right? So I think, you just gotta kind of think of that, but I think applying to provisional programs is fine. In the past, I would have said applying to probationary programs is fine. I have changed my tune. Over this past year, the ARCPA is really cracking down on probationary programs, some of which were not allowed to matriculate their class. So I would hold off on applying to probationary programs on their website, it should say when their next accreditation meeting is, usually they are in the spring. So some programs, you'll know if they're off probation by the time you apply. Anyway, if you do get into a program on probation or they go on probation while you're there, just know that even if they lose accreditation, you can, NCCPA says that you can sit for your boards and be a PA, okay? So you just have to finish out your education somewhere. So just a little reassurance. When I went to Yale, I entered, I got there like two months later, they're like, hey, we're on probation. Really? That's why I got in. No, I'm kidding, but I was like, really? And, you know, going through that process was a little bit stressful, but also very eye-opening into the standards that ARCPA requires and they came off probation and everything's fine. So schools really work hard to not be on probation and not like lose accreditation. You're graduating your masters in public health, that healthy application stand out, absolutely. Plus all those grades get calculated into your GPA. So there's that. So that's great. All right, awesome. I think we have time for one more question because I wanna give you a chance to catch a breath, Michelle. So our last question for today's session is what exactly is CASPA and how do we study for it? Are you supposed to study for it like the GRE? No, so the CASPA exam is a situational judgment exam, it's only 90 minutes and it's scenario-based. So they actually say, if you go to the CASPA website, that studying does not help you. Like it doesn't improve your performance. And so it's not really an exam that you study for, but I do think it's important to understand what type of questions they're gonna ask you. So you can look on CASPA itself, I think has some videos, but also on YouTube, there's videos of what some of the CASPA questions are like, but it's not like the GRE at all, totally different. Awesome, thank you so much, Michelle. Such a wealth of knowledge you've shared with us. This will not be the last of Michelle, we're planning to host several webinars to again support you in your pre-health journey. I have posted the link to her website in the chat. I've also posted a link to ACT certification programs as well as a link to some of our upcoming webinars and we encourage you all to join us for the next session. Again, thank you so much, Michelle. This was a very informative session and we hope to see you all next time. Thanks everybody. Thank you so much. Bye, guys.