You will have a really hard time even getting an interview. PA programs have to weigh options, and they know there are folks like yourself that are eager to succeed despite what is on paper, but they have to make choices based on a number of factors.
Years ago when I applied, you had to have a 3.0 overall AND science gpa for them to even look at you, and with time I'm certain that has tightened up considerably. Rule of thumb (and even this has probably changed with time as well)... if you have a lower gpa, you need great healthcare experience to make up for it. And you still have to meet a threshold for grades. Your HCE might not even qualify at the schools that would be willing to bend the gpa curve down a little. I work with an ED tech/ US Army veteran who has >3.5 that will be applying to schools that look really hard at HCE, and that's the kind of candidate that HCE heavy schools will look at. But it seems that even some of the HCE centric programs are looking for folks with great HCE like his, and gpa's that are like his. He's the full package (good hce and good gpa), and those folks are becoming more common. It used to be that some of the folks with great HCE had more down to earth gpa's, but now I see so many folks that are incredibly motivated. They have kids and a wife that works, and they don't want to ride in an ambulance and make $15 an hour anymore, so they hit the books hard. Folks like that are easy to teach, and have the drive to succeed. Its very difficult for a program to see someone like that and turn them away to accept someone who isn't similarly situated. How do they tell this man who worked 2 jobs after he came back from a war, and had a young family that he didn't get into their program, even when he got great grades. What more could they want from someone than that. Or why would they not want the girl who got A's while going to college on scholarships, did research, and went on mission trips to South America.
I'll highlight some additional things for you so you see what an admissions committee is thinking: A 3.0 is a B average. All the courses you will take in PA school will essentially be science courses at the graduate level, and will likely be as hard (or much harder) as the hardest courses you took as an undergrad. They would be taking a huge gamble to pick up someone that is pulling around a B minus average in a smattering of undergraduate science courses. Most programs probably have a stipulation that to pass a course you have to pull a 75% or better. That would give you very little room if you struggle because your best so far is a B minus average. They are doing you a favor by evaluating you this way because PA school is expensive, and you don't want to be out for the $20K plus that your semester would cost you if you failed. They also often have 10 or more people applying for every seat they have to offer. Generally, most of the applicants can be expected to have their acts together academically. Those folks may still struggle, but A minus average students tend to have a large cushion beneath them to land on before things start to get concerning. Students like that already know how to study, and are used to doing all nighters to make the grade. But they are kids who "got it" in undergrad, and had good study skills, and probably weren't pulling all night study sessions to get by because they dove into the material as soon as they could. Each student that flunks out is very expensive for a school. Programs know how upsetting it would be for you have to leave them if you struggled and couldn't meet the standards.
I've been both kinds of student, and now that I'm in the better category, I can see how stark the difference is. I don't know where you want to go from here, but I think you should save your money until you have better options in front of you. Even if you were to accomplish your current dream in the short term, I think you'd discover a nightmare waiting for you when you realized you weren't prepared for what you obtained.
