Courtesy of Courtney Southard, Class of 2006 Currently at Helpful Websites The American Academy
of Physician Assistants (AAPA) is generally a good resource for some basic
information. This link http://www.aapa.org/pgmlist.php3 gives you a list of all the ARC-PA
certified programs in the The Accreditation Review Commission on Education for
the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA) is the standard for PA education certification. A
program that you are looking at needs to be ARC-PA certified. The ARC-PA site
is and it gives you more information on them. Central Application
Service for Physician Assistants (CASPA) is a very very important tool for when you start to apply to PA
programs. It is an online service that many if not all of the programs are
using. This allows you to fill out one very long and in depth application that
you can send out to as many schools as you like (for a price of course.) You
wouldn’t start to use CASPA until the end of your junior year but their web
site is incredibly helpful even if you are not applying yet. https://portal.caspaonline.org/ On their site they have a link with FAQ’s, some helpful info in the
section ‘Before Applying’ and also a section entitled ‘Participating Programs’.
The CASPA ‘Participating programs’ link is especially useful because it lists
all the programs that accept applications through CASPA by state as well as
gives you a direct link to the program’s PA website. Furthermore, this link
will tell you what tests are required for application and the program deadlines
for accepting applications. Prerequisites It is important to know that every individual program has somewhat
different prerequisites than the next. The best way to learn exactly what
prerequisites you need for a PA school is to go to that PA program’s individual
web site and look under their admissions standards. However I can give you a
few things that are basically common among most of the schools requirements Academic prerequisites Two semesters of chemistry (one semester should either be organic
or biochemistry) Usually an Abnormal Psych class Calculus 16
semester credits of biology with labs (credits should be in mammalian or human
biology), including 3-4 credits of microbiology (with labs) and 6-8 credits of
anatomy and physiology (with labs) prior to application What kind of sciences you need slightly varies among schools
but generally for all of them you must have at least a 3.00 cumulative science
GPA. I found that the Biology Major at Furthermore, I’d say about 50% of the PA schools want you to
take the GRE General test (Graduate Record Examinations) to apply. I didn’t take them until
the summer going into my senior yr. They are somewhat like the SAT’s and you
can find some practice pages online and I just went ahead and bought a GRE prep
book which you can find at any bookstore. Healthcare experience prerequisites Besides the required classes you will find that most/ almost
all programs want you to have direct patient care experience. Schools will
usually require anywhere from 1000-2000 hours of direct patient care. There are
a couple useful ways to get this. You
can have a paying job or volunteer (it’s important to make sure that you are
actually working w/ patients) You
could get your EMT license, CNA (certified nursing assistant), Phlebotomy Certà
any of these you will have to take a class for, but if you are able to I would
highly recommend getting certified because it makes you look like a better
applicant and with these certifications you can get jobs or volunteer as an
undergrad where you can actually interact with patients. I got my EMT license
around my sophomore yr of college and did volunteer work around General Information