Chances of getting into Physician Assistant School

[lmarsee]

I am currently a senior at Indiana University in Bloomington majoring in neuroscience, with minors in psychology and biology. I am an Indiana resident, and have applied broadly to multiple schools, but fear my lack of healthcare hours may hurt my chances.
CGPA 3.76, SGPA, 3.72
Health care hours medical technician and patient care assistant ~511

Shadowing MD/PA's ~26 hours

CNA training ~80 hours

some volunteer hours ~120 hours

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[pamac]

Your chances are good. Apply broadly. Grades are king, not HCE. Extensive HCE is the ticket for a rare few programs. Heck, in a few years Yale is going to churn out 350 PAs per year through an online program. No joke. Then everyone will be doing that. You can't tell me they will care a bit about HCE when they have that many seats to fill.

 

[deleted6669]

Apparently they have changed the proposal for a normal sized class with the same prereqs as the on-campus program. those who do on campus will be physician associates(they already are there) and those who do online will physician assistants.

 

[torshi]

Your chances are good. Apply broadly. Grades are king, not HCE. Extensive HCE is the ticket for a rare few programs. Heck, in a few years Yale is going to churn out 350 PAs per year through an online program. No joke. Then everyone will be doing that. You can't tell me they will care a bit about HCE when they have that many seats to fill.

No, he most likely needs more HCE hours for sure to be competitive with other applicants, those hours of HCE prob put him past screening. Would it hurt him if he applied, no, but will need to be more reasonable in which schools to look at. HCE > Grades for PA school. As for the Yale program, the online idea was shut down, but maybe some day - def not a good idea.

 

[Makati2008]

Apparently they have changed the proposal for a normal sized class with the same prereqs as the on-campus program. those who do on campus will be physician associates(they already are there) and those who do online will physician assistants.

Why the name difference?

 

[pamac]

I went through the application process several years ago and hce requirements haven't increased since then, especially with newer schools. I know several people that have decent hce and couldn't get in. My experience was that if I had had better grades at the time, I'd have had way more options for schools than if I had had more HCE. I had interview invites to schools that wanted to see hefty levels of hce. I had zero invites anywhere else. My gpa was around 3.2 for both science and cumulative, so I wasn't too far in the red academically. People I knew with gpa's >3.5 and little to no hce had plenty of options, provided they had a smattering volunteer hours to show they were service oriented. These days, many more schools are less interested in whether you slogged through 6 months at an extended care facility to get your 1000 hours of hce. They want to know if you can keep up with the rest of the class and pass the pance.

Yale will try out the online format. If it works, they will open the floodgates. Besides the rabid opposition among current students and alumni who understandably didn't want their Yale diploma and career field immediately diluted by Yale's attempt to serve humanity (by increasing provider numbers substantially), the accrediting body shot it down because it was a separate format from what they had approved. They said they would have to get it approved as a separate program. It will be back after this trial run proves successful. NPs made it work (and got a lot of flack for it). Yale caught on. They probably looked closely at Yale's DNP program for pointers.

In any event, it's clear Yale saw a way to make some serious cash from a distance option of a class of 350. They also work to fulfill a mission of what they see as improving healthcare access by flooding the field. Then everyone else catches on and does the same thing. A lot of people will be fine with that because they feel like the profession is still in huge demand and plenty of places still have jobs posting for $100k. In my town, PAs are starting out at $74k. There's a couple PA programs here now.

 

[pamac]

But yes, with a 3.7 gpa, and nothing to do until April when the application process opens, you'll have built up 1000 hours of basic health care experience (3 months should get you 500 more hours). As long as you don't have your heart set on a school like university of Washington or university of Utah (who want 4000 hours or more), you'll have quite a few options. There are the schools who want a ton of hce, and of the type you aren't going to achieve without going back to become a nurse or paramedic. Then there are the schools that don't care about hce, or those that have a minimum threshold you have or will have already met by the time you apply. Those places are more common. Just do your research and don't waste time or money on heavy hce schools. The more hce you get, the better because it gives you more to talk about in an interview, but more of everything good helps you. The question is what your chances will be. Write a good application essay, volunteer and work more while you wait for April to apply, and you'll be fine. Buy the book "how to get into the PA school of your choice" by Andrew rodican so you can learn how to make a compelling essay. You are good.