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Hi PA Forum community!

 

I stumbled on this website during my research about the PA profession about a year ago and would read through these forums on the daily, but I never had much courage until now to actively seek out some help! 

 

I really want to get into PA school but I don't have the most stellar GPA. I will be graduating Stony Brook University next week but I had a first 2 years in college, unfortunately leaving me with only a 2.7 GPA :( My grades did, however, increase my last two years of undergrad.  

 

I have been a pharmacy technician for almost a year and a half, but I know that doesn't really count towards HCE. I will be starting work as a medical scribe in the next few weeks to help me get HCE for the next year or two. I've also been on a medical mission during my undergrad as well, and I've been shadowing one of my professors

who's also a PA.

 

I can't decide on how to help myself raise my GPA. Some forums say that applying to post-bacc programs are not worth it, but some say they are. Some forums say that I should just take non-matriculated classes. I just really want some solid guidance as to how I can pursue the next few years of my time to gear myself up for PA school, academically. If you guys also know of any programs that would be helpful for me on Long Island, or NYC that would be really helpful as well. 

 

I'm really determined and I work really hard. This is something I really want for myself and I just want the best advice. Please don't tell me not to pursue this career path. I've shadowed PA's and I really can't see myself doing anything else. 

 

Thank you so much to everyone in advance for your help! 

 

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The minimum GPA for most PA programs is 3.0 and the average is close to a 3.5 now. If you really want to be a PA, you can do it, but it will take some serious time and commitment (2-3 years).

 

As far as raising your GPA, you can do the post-bacc program or just re-take classes you have not performed well in as well as upper level science courses. It really doesn't matter as long as you are raising your cumulative and science GPA UNLESS a post-bacc program has ties with the PA program. I have heard that some programs guarantee an interview if you meet their minimum GPA requirement in the post-bacc program. You may want to do some research on it.

 

As far as your HCE goes, your may want to contact the programs to make sure that "Medical Scribe" qualifies as direct patient care experience. Some programs may not accept that (or only accept some of the total hours) as direct patient care experience.  Good Luck!

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An upward trend in GPA is a positive in your application so doing better in your last two years vs your first two years is definitely a talking point for either interviews or your personal statement. As far as meeting the minimum requirements, check out what pa_hopeful_1 was talking about with the PA specific post-bacc programs as I think that would be most beneficial. If you can't find anything like that around you, I suggest retaking any of the PA prerequisites that you didn't do well in as those will be most important to adcoms. For the other classes that you take to build up your GPA, try not to go for easy A classes. Even though this may be the easiest route to raise your GPA, adcoms realize that too. They want to know that you can be challenged academically and still succeed. Try to take more science classes or any that may be a little more difficult but still make sure you get A's in them otherwise it won't help your GPA.

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The minimum GPA for most PA programs is 3.0 and the average is close to a 3.5 now. If you really want to be a PA, you can do it, but it will take some serious time and commitment (2-3 years).

 

As far as raising your GPA, you can do the post-bacc program or just re-take classes you have not performed well in as well as upper level science courses. It really doesn't matter as long as you are raising your cumulative and science GPA UNLESS a post-bacc program has ties with the PA program. I have heard that some programs guarantee an interview if you meet their minimum GPA requirement in the post-bacc program. You may want to do some research on it.

 

As far as your HCE goes, your may want to contact the programs to make sure that "Medical Scribe" qualifies as direct patient care experience. Some programs may not accept that (or only accept some of the total hours) as direct patient care experience.  Good Luck!

 

I was trying to look at some academic enhancing post bacc programs like the ones that you mentioned in your post but the only resource that keeps popping up is the AAMC finder for post bacc programs. However, that's only geared toward medical school post bacc programs and not so much PA. Would you happen to know of any schools like you've mentioned or how I can better my research?

 

Thank you for your reply!! I really appreciate this! 

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An upward trend in GPA is a positive in your application so doing better in your last two years vs your first two years is definitely a talking point for either interviews or your personal statement. As far as meeting the minimum requirements, check out what pa_hopeful_1 was talking about with the PA specific post-bacc programs as I think that would be most beneficial. If you can't find anything like that around you, I suggest retaking any of the PA prerequisites that you didn't do well in as those will be most important to adcoms. For the other classes that you take to build up your GPA, try not to go for easy A classes. Even though this may be the easiest route to raise your GPA, adcoms realize that too. They want to know that you can be challenged academically and still succeed. Try to take more science classes or any that may be a little more difficult but still make sure you get A's in them otherwise it won't help your GPA.

 

Thanks so much for your advice!! How do you think schools will view my grades if I'm re-taking these classes after I graduate? I know the grades won't factor into my GPA after I graduate, but how will they be taken into account when I apply to schools? Do you know of any post bacc PA programs? As I mentioned before in my post above, most of the post bacc programs I'm finding are geared more for med school and for career-changers, rather than for academic enhancers. 

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The classes won't change your GPA on your Stony Brook U transcript but you'll be able to report them in CASPA and obtain transcripts from the other university or community college that you retake these classes. Your CASPA GPA will be cumulative of any and all classes you take, no matter which school they were at so any classes after graduation will still increase your CASPA GPA. Also research the schools you are interested in because some schools don't go based off of CASPA but instead calculate GPA a different way (for example some of them allow grade replacement so they will only use your highest grade in the class you retook) and in that case retaking a class can be very beneficial. Even if they do not allow grade replacement, the prerequisites are there for a reason because those are the things that the school thinks you should have some background in in order to be successful if you are admitted to their program. Taking the class over again and getting a better grade not only indicates that you have that appropriate general knowledge of the subject but it also shows dedication and proves that you will not just give up if you don't understand a certain subject. 

 

Personally I'm not very familiar with post bacc programs so I'm not the best person to ask. If it were me, I would just try to take more classes at a local university or community college but I haven't done any research on post bacc programs so I don't know the pros and cons.

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I was trying to look at some academic enhancing post bacc programs like the ones that you mentioned in your post but the only resource that keeps popping up is the AAMC finder for post bacc programs. However, that's only geared toward medical school post bacc programs and not so much PA. Would you happen to know of any schools like you've mentioned or how I can better my research?

 

Thank you for your reply!! I really appreciate this! 

I just know that Mississippi College and Thomas Jefferson University has one of those programs, but I am not sure if they are affiliated with the PA program and will guarantee an interview. One other thing to keep in mind is that most of these programs are one year long (approx. 30 credit hours) so you cannot raise your cumulative GPA more than a 3.0 and that will require you to keep a 4.0. Plus, these programs are super expensive.

 

@Woodlingj I am not sure any PA programs will replace grades unless maybe they are not part of CASPA and do a separate application. PA programs (unlike DO programs) average the grades and will look at cumulative GPA and science GPA, but I agree with you that meerah.shah. should just take classes at a public university. It would even save her some money.

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From Western U's website:

 

"If you had a low grade, especially in a science course, you should consider retaking that class, since we will recalculate your GPA with the new higher grade when we receive the new transcript." (http://prospective.westernu.edu/physician-assistant/faqs-14/)

 

This is in reference to reapplicants so I'm not totally sure how they would handle it with first time applicants but it sounds like even then they would take the higher grade. Western U definitely uses CASPA as well. I would imagine that your application must be very competitive in all other sections in order for them to even consider recalculating your GPA since they get so many applicants but at least it helps!

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