I think it's encouraging to see the stats of other pre-PA hopefuls and see who actually gets in! Bhmbl from the Pre-Physician Assistant page on Reddit has graciously taken on the role of being the first one!
Overall GPA: 3.52 (3.82 for the last 45 credits)
Science GPA: 3.56
GRE: 149V/146Q/4W
Total HCE hours: 200 hrs volunteer work at a hospital
Total PCE hours: 1,448 hrs volunteer work as an MA at a primary care clinic and two medical mission trips to Latin America
Shadowing hours: 50 hrs Cardiologist; 50 hrs Electrophysiologist; 72 hrs ND; and 40 hrs PAs from different specialties
Other volunteer hours: 346 hrs community service
Extra: Native Spanish speaker, two summers of cadaver dissection, and 5 letters of recommendation
Age: 28
Gender: F
How many programs did you apply to? >30 but I withdrew them all as soon as I received my acceptance at my top choice school.
How many programs did you interview with? At 4 out of the 9 interview invitations I received. Was waitlisted at the first one, rejected at the second one, accepted at the last two, and did not attend the last ones.
Any red flags on your application? courses >5 years old, W on biochem lab (re-took it and got A+), D in college algebra (took pre-calculus later on and got an A and got a letter of recommendation from the professor).
Anything you found surprising about interviews? I was quite surprised that I was asked to write an essay about a particular heart disease since I had shadowed the Cardiologists two years ago.
Were there any helpful resources (books, websites, apps) you used to get through prerequisite courses, the application or interview process? I used http://www.coursesaver.com/videos/college/ to get through the General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry courses. I highly recommend those videos! Then I used http://paprogramsearch.com/search/ to find schools based on prerequisites. There are a few schools listed there that were not up to date so it is recommended to quickly double check them with the schools' websites. To prepare for interviews, I read the book "How to Ace the Physician Assistant Interview" along with many websites with interview questions.
Any other advice for other pre-PA students? I recommend everyone to visit www.reddit.com/r/prephysicianassistant as well as www.physicianassistantforum.com. In the reddit website you can ask any questions you may have regarding applications and you will find "Ask Me Anything" posts from accepted students as well as my own posts with advice and helpful links that I used.
I definitely recommend the reddit site, and there are a lot of active users who are quick to respond to questions.
If you've been recently accepted to PA school and would like to be featured in "Accepted!" send an e-mail to savanna@thepaplatform.com
