Dental school applicant transitioning into PA applicant, chances?

[BRONJ]

Neurosci B.S. undergrad gpa: 3.0, 1 year post bac gpa: 3.8, Medical Science M.S. gpa: 3.2

I was a dental school applicant that is now more interested in P.A than dentistry. I have over 700 hrs of various volunteering in hospitals, school's clinic, and a geriatric home.

What are my chances of getting into any PA programs in California?

What do I need to do to be a better applicant?

What can I start doing immediately to improve my chances?

I have solid letter of recs from science professors but none from any P.A or M.D. Well I have two letter of recs from DMD-MD (oral surgeons) but those were for dental schools. Would I need another letter of rec from a M.D or P.A?

I assume I should start shadowing P.A? Any advice on where to start?

Thank you in advance.

Good luck to everyone here.

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[deleted6669]

paid health care experience? most programs want 1000 hrs+

 

[BRONJ]

About 500+ hrs of paid experience

 

[Starpower]

If you're hell-bent on only applying to California schools, I'd say a good place to start would be to research the programs to determine if you satisfy their pre-reqs. I'm from California, and ended up schooling in Philadelphia (I wanted a Masters, first-time pass rates on the PANCE were important to me, caliber of the program, etc) ... I'd expand your horizons a bit, if I were you. Many applicants come from out of state, to all schools. Find your best fits. With only 500+ paid hours, you're an automatic 'no' for Stanford, so you can cut that one out from the get go.

http://pcap.stanford.edu/admissions/prerequisites.html

I would think a letter from a DMD-MD would be a great start, although optimally you would want others. What you can do immediately is become licensed in a paid health care position, as well as start surrounding yourself with Docs and PAs (volunteering in your local ER is a good place to start, although I see you've already volunteered in Hospitals). But you may need to put some time in, if this is really what you want ... you'd only be up against other applicants who have the paid experience, right now. That being said, there were a select few in my class who didn't but their GPAs were very high. They certainly weren't the norm (most of the class had the paid experience in addition to the high GPA).

 

[BRONJ]

Thank you Starpower for your inputs!

I am still assisting in the geriatric home which is building more hours. When you are recommending a paid licensed health care position, that scares me a bit. Assuming I would have to undergo further schooling for licensing which would further delay my app to PA programs.

I guess I shouldn't be too bent on going to a Cali school. I've just got back to cali from completing my masters out of state. Which Is why I rather stay in CA if possible.

I have been looking into hospital med tech positions but with the economic recession, it's so hard to even get an interview.

Thank you again for taking the time to reply. Good luck in Philly! Philly is a fun city.

 

[Starpower]

Thank you Starpower for your inputs!

I am still assisting in the geriatric home which is building more hours. When you are recommending a paid licensed health care position, that scares me a bit. Assuming I would have to undergo further schooling for licensing which would further delay my app to PA programs.

I guess I shouldn't be too bent on going to a Cali school. I've just got back to cali from completing my masters out of state. Which Is why I rather stay in CA if possible.

I have been looking into hospital med tech positions but with the economic recession, it's so hard to even get an interview.

Thank you again for taking the time to reply. Good luck in Philly! Philly is a fun city.

It is a fun city, but I'm graduated and back in Cali now. When you say you're "assisting in the Geriatric home", can you be more specific? Are you a CNA or a PCT?

As for furthering delay of application, again, you have to remember that you'd be up against people who have planning on being a PA for a quite a while and thus have acquired the experience that will make them competitive. And what about the pre-reqs? Many to most programs require Anatomy and Physiology, Bio and Chem series w/labs, etc ...

What makes you think you want to be a PA, may I ask? You might want to shadow one or two first, to make sure this is the right career choice for you.

 

[wutthechris]

I have been looking into hospital med tech positions but with the economic recession, it's so hard to even get an interview.

Being a med tech(short for medical technologist or medical laboratory scientist) means attending a 1-2 year program that results in a BS, a second bachelor's, or a certificate(after already earning a BS), or a master's in fewer cases, followed by passing the ASCP board exam.

Maybe you meant something else unless that's where your post-bacc or master's gpa came from.

 

[BRONJ]

It is a fun city, but I'm graduated and back in Cali now. When you say you're "assisting in the Geriatric home", can you be more specific? Are you a CNA or a PCT?

As for furthering delay of application, again, you have to remember that you'd be up against people who have planning on being a PA for a quite a while and thus have acquired the experience that will make them competitive. And what about the pre-reqs? Many to most programs require Anatomy and Physiology, Bio and Chem series w/labs, etc ...

What makes you think you want to be a PA, may I ask? You might want to shadow one or two first, to make sure this is the right career choice for you.

I don't have any license for the job I'm doing at the geriatric home. It's pretty simple stuff. I serve food, do housework, remind patients to take their meds, make doctor appts, drive pts to and from the appts, and general grooming - bathing and dressing patients.

I am interested in PA because I like the versatility of a PA's career. I enjoy studying medicine and I would love to be able to assist in surgeries. I am patient oriented person and I want to make a difference on a personal level.

You are correct that many ppl have been planning years to be a PA and I am just getting started. Regarding pre-reqs, I have all of those courses covered and beyond.

I'm 28 and I don't want to further delay getting started in a career. I have over 50K in schools loans which I'm barely making enough to repay. I hope to get started/accepted into a school soon to defer these payments until I have a better job.

I def will shadow a PA to see if it's fits me. Thanks Starpower.

 

[pamac]

yeah, if you apply to work in a hospital lab as a med tech, all you will get will be funny looks. you should have got a post bac in medical lab science rather than what you did. you'd have a job right now that pays pretty good, and it wouldnt have hurt your dental school chances a bit. med techs are specifically trained to do specific jobs around the lab, so just having extensive biology knowlege wont cut it.

i know how you feel though. if you want to pursue physician assisting, what you should do is maybe get a quick certification as a cna and at least have access to a job that will give you some paid health care experience. that way you can pay some bills and rack up some good experience. not every school requires really extensive health care background, but the great PA programs do. the ones that dont require extensive health care exposure do expect fantastic grades (think: the same grades you would see at the tough dental schools). you are in the middle.... so getting into a PA program is not going to come quick. you are feeling a time crunch to do something with your life and looking ahead to 4 years of school and thinking "man, i need to get something done". but PA isnt going to be the answer.

are you sure you dont just want to reapply to dental programs? the temptation is to expect a PA program to be easier to get into, but the reality is that i personally think its gettting to be harder to pull off than dental programs are. the reason i say this is that with dental schools, you can pretty much apply to each school as the same candidate and know how they are evaluating you. each PA program is a little bit different, and is looking for a thier own idea of a good candidate. that means that you have to broaden your appeal. you might spend a lot more time just getting into a position to look good to a broad swath of PA programs, when what you could do is just go on a dental mission trip to the carribean and be set for the next dental application cycle.

 

[Kahr]

I don't think 500 hours is going to be competitive. I myself was considering PA a few years back, but decided on dentistry; however, a few months ago when I started studying for the DAT, I had a little monologue about reconsidering the PA route, but I think this was just bred out of hatred for all the hoops dental schools make you jump through for admission.

You'll also want to take the GRE, don't know if anyone else mentioned that. I myself was very seriously looking at Cornell previously, as they have a surgical focused program, which was something I was interested in, noticed they required the GRE, and I think just about all of the graduate programs do anyway. I'd recommend going the RT route to rack up the patient care hours (and since it'd pay you pretty well, and be a good backup), BUT I think you're looking for the quickest way in, perhaps going EMT would do the trick? They even have extremely accelerated programs (as short as 2 weeks), though those are often of debatable credibility. You'll also have to assume that most PA schools will give preference to practitioners like RNs, RTs, PTs, Paramedics, etc.

Regarding Stanford, seems kind of annoying, 3000 DPC (we're talking around 1.5-2 years of full time employment here, definitely going to set back anyone like the OP tremendously on time to application), 21 months, and requiring you to get your masters through an associate college, I don't see why Stanford can't have you do the "3 online courses" or whatever with them instead and just award the degree directly; just seems weird overall. They also do not allow their PA students to use the Stanford dorms. Although I cannot deny that based on their class size to applicant ratio, the odds are pretty good to getting in compared to dental/medical school applicants (50 seats to several hundred applicants).

 

[BRONJ]

@pamac and @kahr

I def appreciate both of your time and inputs into my situation.

I gotta do alot more research and experience in PA to see if it is really for me. I was just seriously interested in being able to assist in specialty surgeries. I like medicine a lot but I gotta reconsider how much time it would take me to be a competitive applicant.

Thank you all.