JD2012

Last year they stopped doing interviews about this time, end of Jan maybe early Feb since they already had chosen the class. When I was accepted two years ago they still held some interviews into early February. If you are on the wait list don't feel too discouraged, the list gets quite a bit of movement as it gets closer to May.

Physical therapy aide supplemented by being a volunteer interpreter at a free clinic for patient/doctor dialogue. I was lucky with the PT Aide position and it doesn't require any certifications besides BLS for healthcare providers. I had hands-on patient experience.

I applied the first time to 13 schools and got ZERO invites! I had a 3.1 GPA for both science and cumulative. I took some post-bacc classes got A's and got my averages in to the 3.2 range, as well as continuing to get more hours. The following year I applied to 11 programs and got 6 invites including UF which was a reach school for me. I was able to get an acceptance on my 2nd interview at my dream program by October and was able to cancel the rest of my interviews. Keep improving your GPA, and keep accruing hours. My first cycle really hit me hard and made me question if I was even on the right path, but at the same time I knew my GPA wasn't the best and had a feeling that I was probably in the boat of having to apply multiple cycles before I would get an acceptance. Also, I made sure to totally revamp and improve my application, from the letters of rec, personal statement, more volunteering, and improvement of my GPA the 2nd time around. PS- Now I am less than 8 months away from graduation.

There's already a thread for this cycle.

If I remember the count, it was just shy of 90 exams for the first three semesters, 39 of them in our busiest semester alone. It was 60/40 between 8-5pm or 8-3pm. Our busiest semester was 31 credit hours.

It's all about prioritizing your time. I made Fridays my day off from studying or if I had to really study maybe light studying for 1-2 hours. Saturdays I would study from 10am - 5 or 6pm so that my GF and I could have a date night afterwards. But weekends is where I was able to get a lot of studying done and even better if you start early in the morning, so that you can have the evening available. Weekdays after leaving class at 5pm, I'd go home take a break for an hour and eat dinner within that time and then study for about 3-4 hours depending on my mood. I wasn't much of a lecture person so at times I would just be reading notes for whatever exam was coming up. You'll notice some lecturers are better than others, and the good ones can make the topic they're teaching interesting.

If that's just tuition then definitely run away! That's more than a 100k over the average cost of tuition.

Just curious how much is the tuition?

I interviewed at UF with a 3.2 cGPA as well as science GPA, but had well over 4500 hours of PCE with a leadership role and implemented new operating procedures at my clinic, over a year's worth of volunteering as a Spanish-language interpreter at a free clinic for dialogue between providers and patients, started my own business, the only one in my family to graduate high school as well as college including socioeconomic disadvantages and being an immigrant to this country. I had to apply two times, and killed it the second time with my letters of rec as well. I can't tell you what they're looking exactly for but some of the other interviewers I talked to, not only had 4.0 GPA's, but amazing backgrounds and extracurricular activities to boot. It was a reach school for me, but in the end I was denied after my interview, but am very happy attending my current program because it was always my top choice since I knew I wanted to be a PA as well as being local. In the end, it worked out for me, and my interview at UF was like a cherry on top of the experience especially after having a REALLY BAD first cycle applying to 13 schools without one single interview invite. The application process is such a bumpy ride you never know who's going to send you an invite and sometimes it works out. All in all, I knew my GPA was low, so I continued taking some classes to get A's to show initiative, and knew had to really beef up the rest of my app to make up for it. Good luck!

I say give it a shot especially if you're going to be adding more hours in the meantime until application time. Maybe start small this cycle and get a feel for the process, you never know you might get a bite and get an interview.

It has been discussed plenty here but Magoosh and ETS GRE book are very popular. I would go in to this test trying to score as high as you can in all parameters of the GRE. You wouldn't want to be compared to someone with similar stats and lose out because you got a 3.0 and they got a 4.0 on their writing section. 3 months is plenty of time. I studied hardcore for a month, had to relearn the math and scored a 309 with a 4.0. I was aiming for a 310 minimum score but was still happy with what I got.

You're going to notice as the semesters pass you're getting repetition of the major concepts. It'll start to click around rotations time when you can finally tie real life experiences to stuff you've read about in books.

Typically around May 20'ish.

Most rotations at least in our program have been okay with scrubs with tennis shoes. I wear adidas i5923's and they have adidas' BOOST sole which is like walking on clouds. My vote is any Adidas with their Boost sole.

You might be able to accomplish this as a PA with also an MPH. Some programs will have dual-degree programs.