Sophomore needs advice on PA preparedness/competitiveness

[MMBHeartsPeds]

Hi,

I am a sophomore in college studying biology and I am looking for advice on being prepared and competitive for PA programs. I would like to attend PA school right after graduation. I believe this means that I would apply during my junior year-- is that correct?

My college is pretty well known for its science and healthcare programs, and our PA program is the one I am by far most interested in pursuing. My school's particular PA program does not technically "require" patient care experience, but the most recent cohort had a median of 1031 patient care hours, so obviously they are needed to be competitive.
Since I am aware that patient care hours are needed, I am currently working as a ophthalmic patient tech. This involves direct, hands-on patient care.

My overall GPA is a 3.59. I am a biology major and last semester organic chem 1 killed me with a C... I am planning to take organic 2 at a community college to fulfill my major requirements and get a better grade. I'm not sure whether it is worth stating that organic chem is not a pre-requisite for my school's PA program, it is just a major requirement for me. I know my GPA is not stellar and I am doing everything in my power to make sure it improves this semester and in subsequent ones.

I currently have 51 hours of shadowing doctors (over 40 of them primary care, if that matters). I have yet to shadow a PA but am currently finding a way to do that.
I have lots of volunteer experience with the Girl Scouts of my region, and by the end of this summer I should have well over 200 hours of volunteer experience. While this is not healthcare related, our PA program website does not indicate that volunteer experience must be medical. To be sure, I have sent an email to admissions asking for clarification.

Also not sure if it counts for anything, but this summer, I have been accepted into a month-long program on plant genetics run by my old genetics prof. While this probably seems out of the ordinary, she really piqued my interest during her class on how things like GMOs affect human health. This is something I really feel should be better understood to improve health.

For what it's worth, I also have some unique hobbies and activities I'm involved in. I hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trial with my best friend and her dog last year, I am a Lifeguard and camp counselor, and work as a model. I feel these are things I could potentially talk about in an interview, although I know they're not as important as academics and patient care experience.

I would really appreciate any advice on what to do to continue to prepare to apply and how to make myself a competitive applicant, especially coming straight out of college. I am currently 20 (will be 22 when I graduate) and the average age of the most recent cohort was 24, while the average age for the 2015-2017 cohort was 27. My goal is to stand out to admissions as a younger student coming straight out of college.
Thank you!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Noisewater-TDX]

I would maybe take Ochem 2 and then Biochem (I guess that might already be in your cirrculum plan) - but the C might ding you on your application. If you take Ochem 2 and then a more advanced Chem/bio and kill it they won't care too much about the ochem 1.

I think the big thing with PA is patient contact. Talk with your local EMS about shadowing.

Maybe look at your local CC to see what it takes to get your EMT-Basic, some have accelerated programs. That would really boost your app.

Just me 2¢

 

[pamac]

1000 hours is less than six months of work. That hardly constitutes more than a token requirement. If that’s the average, keep in mind that lots of folks had much less. So being as your desired PA school is not at all interested in health care experience beyond enough to basically orient you to healthcare and communicating with patients, I wouldn’t stress too much. The key is grades. Get good grades. Grades mean everything to PA programs, and everything else is a distant second place. You can go get some token healthcare experience in a heartbeat, but you can’t change a GPA without significant effort. Find something like volunteering that you can do that will get you in front of people and not distract you from your schoolwork.

 

[MMBHeartsPeds]

1000 hours is less than six months of work. That hardly constitutes more than a token requirement. If that’s the average, keep in mind that lots of folks had much less. So being as your desired PA school is not at all interested in health care experience beyond enough to basically orient you to healthcare and communicating with patients, I wouldn’t stress too much. The key is grades. Get good grades. Grades mean everything to PA programs, and everything else is a distant second place.

1031 was the median hours; the mean for patient hours was ~3400.
The average GPA for the most recent cohort was 3.66 overall (with most previous years being closer to 3.54), which I don't think is beyond my reach at all.
That being said-- should I just aim to exceed the average GPA (especially since that seems totally do-able since I'm not far from it already) and continue to get patient hours?

Maybe look at your local CC to see what it takes to get your EMT-Basic, some have accelerated programs. That would really boost your app.

Thanks for this advice! I will definitely see if they have a program.

 

[pamac]

Median... I thought I read Mean.

3400 mean hours could indeed be significant, and respectable. But the fact that there is such a positive skew suggests that the mean is probably due to a few folks with very high reported amounts of health care experience. This is even more heavily suggested by the fact that not only is the mean slightly higher than the median, but significantly higher. No, your average successful applicant does not have 3400 hours (or even close to that). For a moderately sized class you could be looking at a rare few folks with tons of HCE, a bunch hovering around 1000 hours, and plenty of folks at the bottom with little to none. I wouldn’t be surprised if the first day of school revealed two old folks sitting in the corner questioning why they decided to spend a year in class where half of the students have 6 months of work experience at a nursing home, and slightly less than half have never touched a patient in their life.

I think you can be more confident that you can get by with less rather than more health care hours, especially if you are sitting on good grades.

To answer your question, health care hours are a distant second to academics. If academic performance is represented by New York City, and everything else is represented by Los Angeles, then wiping butts as a CNA or lifting fluffies into an ambulance is Las Vegas (crazy stories come from being there, but nobody wants to miss their flight out). If you have enough time to spend pursuing token health care experience, then you have enough time to skip that BS and take an extra science class and get an A. If you can become an EMT in your downtime at your college or volunteer in the student health center, then sure... round out your appeal. But grades.... it’s all about grades. Grades are the currency most covetted.

And apply to a handful of schools because even the kids with everything going for them want options and a backup. They get turned down too.

This is the kind of math that law students would be well served by considering when they are looking at what schools they want to attend to get the highest starting salaries... or whether it’s worth it to go to law school at all. When yiatches are talking about medians, it’s because they don’t want to tell the truth about the mean. It all comes down to the skew, my friend. The skew is what gets everyone in the end.