'Career changer' PA, and GPA questions

[Ihateregistering1]

Hey all, new to the forums and I had a question regarding PA admissions, PA school, GPA, etc.

 

To give a little background, I'm not your typical applicant.  I graduated from college in 2004 with a BA in Economics and Business, and then spent 8.5 years in the Army as an Officer.  I got out a few years ago and went private sector, but realized the business world wasn't for me.  I had long been interested in PA (mostly due to my overwhelmingly positive experiences with them in the Military) but I thought that without having a science or medical background, I was just too far off the beaten path.

 

Enter my cousin in law, who is older than me but has a very similar background: Commissioned Army Officer straight out of College, had a BA in a decidedly non-science or medical major (world history, I believe), no medical experience besides combat life saver (CLS) courses in the Army, but he got out of the Army, went to school for his pre-reqs, got into PA school (with basically no HCE besides shadowing), and is now a practicing PA.

 

Here is my question: I'll be the first to admit I wasn't the greatest student when I was in College 11-15 years ago (I sometimes joked that my major was "I need a degree to become an Officer"), and although I graduated with about a 2.87, that was because I re-took several courses and my school took the higher grade (and I know CASPA will factor in both grades).  However, now that I am back in school taking pre-reqs, my grades have been excellent (all A's and B's for science courses).

 

So my question is: considering that my academic performance right now is excellent but it wasn't 14 or so years ago, how badly is that going to affect my chances?  I know much of it is automated, but wouldn't admissions offices pay attention to the fact that I'm a significantly better student now than I was over a decade ago, or is it all the same to them?

 

Thanks for everyone's help!

[MedServ60Driver]

I am in almost the exact same boat, except that I'm a current military officer and working on my prereqs with night classes. I'll be watching this thread very closely.

[Ihateregistering1]

Well, if you don't know any Ex-Military folks who are now PAs, the news from my cousin is actually pretty good.

 

He said they are HUGE on Veterans (like I said, he had basically no prior HCE except for CLS and they basically just waived it off), and they are big fans of people who are not just trying to go PA straight out of college.

 

Don't know if this one applies to you, but he also said they are very big about getting more male PAs (most classes now are about 75% female, 25% male), so being a guy actually helps you quite a bit.

 

I've also started a thread on a pre-PA board on Reddit, and some have said that although some schools have extremely strict GPA cut-offs, most are going to care far more about the fact that you got an A in Anatomy 4 months ago than that you got a D in Principles of Macro-Economics 13 years ago.

[cop to pa]

You HAVE to be above the minimum GPA cutoff or you will be auto-rejected.  However, past that, memorize the following two words: "holistic review". Look for them on program websites.  That is your key to being looked at as a whole picture, with low GPA low HCE, and real world experience. Not every program is as military friendly as it could be. 

[MyNameWasUsed]

Get over a 3.0 GPA if you can. That's usually the cut off point. If that's not a possibility then do a post-bac program to demonstrate that you'll be able to handle the rigors of PA school. To answer your question, admissions will look at your more recent grades and see the upward trend if you can get pass the cutoff point. Lots of people get in with 3.0-3.3 GPAs and with your decade in the military I think you'll be able to show them that you're a well-rounded applicant! 

[Glorious_Ignoramus]

You're not atypical - all of the career changers come to pa school rather than med school because of the time constraints among other factors.

 

Prior military is a good bullet point for your application, but gpa and standardized test scores are still trump.  It is critical that you understand the incredible competition you are up against; out of every school I applied to this past cycle, the average acceptance rate hovers around 3-5%.  As in, 3-5 out of every one hundred applicants is accepted.  For perspective, the most competitive medical school in the country, the Mayo clinic, had a 3% acceptance rate a few years ago.

 

So, grades, grades, grades.  I applied with stats good enough for many med schools, have years of experience as a combat medic, have created positions within student societies and spent 1000s of hours volunteering with kids and homeless folks, and I still find the competition incredibly stiff.  US News and World Report et al have flooded the applicant pools with plenty of really bright students who would otherwise have went to med or law school, and trends are, unfortunately, creeping towards stats and away from experience for many schools.

 

CASPA allows no grade forgiveness or replacement.  If you can stomach the med school pipeline, then it may be worth knowing that the D.O. school application does grade replacement.

 

Best of luck, from one veteran to another.