sushithefish

I agree in that PA work hours will depend on specialty, location, and yourself. Same goes for MD. Where I work, the PAs pretty much work the same hours as MDs. However as a PA, school will only take 2 years and there's no residency, so in a way you are getting more personal time. Have you done any direct patient care, volunteering, shadowing PAs/MDs, GRE? If not, I would start there. You probably have taken many of the pre reqs, but most likely you will need to take anatomy and physiology I and II, medical terminology, a psychology class, etc. Schools vary in pre-reqs so you should look up some PA schools you may be interested in and check their pre-reqs.

This is based on reading the topic title. From reading the student doctor forum (has some useful, applicable advice when you dig deep), it's recommended that you don't mention mental illness or health problems that make it seem like you are a high-risk student. High risk meaning a student who might not be able to finish the program. Although it can show strength of character, it may cause some doubts of what would happen if you were placed in a stressful situation such as PA school. It's why some interviewers ask about your support system, your hobbies, what you do for fun, how you deal with stress, etc.

I've noticed that schools vary in how they interview and give out seats. Some are truly rolling and give out seats to the earliest applicants. Others pick a few at each interview, reject a few, and then reevaluate all other interviewees at the end. Others save some spots per interview. If it's the last two, then you have a chance. I recommend that you go if you haven't received any other interviews.

You should ask in the PA student general discussion or Professional PA general discussion.

If you were second guessing yourself on getting a MPH because you have never taken a public health class, then you should be second guessing yourself on becoming a PA since you never had real healthcare exposure. I recommend shadowing a PA or getting more healthcare experience to make sure you want to be a PA. How much you work as a PA will depend on the specialty, where you work, and yourself. If you were to apply to the 2018-2019 cycle and get accepted, it would be 2 years from now before you start PA school, and then PA school itself will take about 2 years. The main things to focus on would be HCE, pre-reqs, volunteering, and shadowing. Volunteer or paid direct HCE experiences are fine. A common volunteer HCE experience is EMT-B at a firestation. A few schools are more lenient than others and accept hospital volunteering as HCE. However, it's generally recommended to have more direct patient care. You will need to gain a lot of HCE before applying, especially with a slightly below average GPA. A year of HCE will give you about 2k hours, which is a good amount. IMO, I would rather do paid HCE, but one pro of volunteer HCE is that you can usually volunteer as much as you want to rack up those hours. There may be some jobs that will train you on the job, such as medical assisting (which is what I did). Connections may help you get a job without a lot of previous HCE. There are some direct HCE jobs that require relatively little training like CNA or EMT-B. Besides HCE, volunteering in general is recommended. Volunteering at the hospital is a good start. You can make connections and may be able to talk to the PAs there and see what different healthcare professionals do. You may need to take additional classes to fulfill pre-reqs. Your school may have a pre-health website that explains common PA pre-reqs. You can google PA schools and look at their pre-reqs as well. Your major likely covers most of them but not all. You should also calculate your CASPA GPA, which may be different from your transcript GPA. Also note that different PA schools have different pre-reqs, so if you're missing one or two non-essential ones, you still have school options. Most PA schools strongly recommend shadowing PAs/doctors but usually there is no minimum required. You can google PAs/doctors in the area and call/email them to see if you could shadow them. Sometimes the pre-health advising has a list of available PAs/doctors that are willing to allow shadowing. If you know any healthcare professionals, you can contact them and ask if they know of any PAs/doctors to shadow. Your GRE scores are fine and you do not need to retake them.

For the amount we spent for applications, they could at least provide some update. Some schools didn't even contact me yet. It's like saying, "Thanks for your money, k bye."

Some schools post their stats on the websites. Sometimes they make it easy to find, and sometimes it's well hidden, so you would need to go through the whole PA website. Other times, schools don't post stats. They don't want to discourage people from applying if their stats don't match. If that happens, then you can usually get the info from contacting the program. If they don't give an exact answer by email, then calling may be better.

Most employers want longer than 5-6 months. Most wouldn't be willing to train you for a few weeks just so you would leave that soon. However if they're desperate and/or have high staff turnover, then they may be OK with 5-6 months. Agreeing to a pay cut can help as well. I work in a large office that has high staff turnover since most of the MAs are young and end up leaving within 2 years. You could also just not tell them that you only want to work 5-6 months.

Option A! The price difference is huge. An extra $45k is not worth it, even if it's closer to home. 750 miles from home isn't really that close. You will meet new people and make new friends. An older program will also have the benefit of better clinical rotations and more experience teaching students.

Working as a CNA counts as HCE

Your biggest problem is your GPA, like many of the posters mentioned. I suggest spending time taking (preferably) science classes. Although it may not make that much of a dent in your GPA, it will at least show an upward trend. Your verbal is also slightly lower, so I recommend retaking the GRE to at least get 150 unless you want to apply to schools that don't require the GRE or be willing to find schools that accept a V148. Although applying broadly is good, it might be better in your case to further research schools and narrow down your list to up to 10-15 schools. It can be overwhelming to write all those supplemental essays and writing that many in a short period of time may decrease the quality of each one. Although many people focus on stats, essays are very important, especially if you don't have stellar stats. Schools often reuse the same supplementals as the previous cycle. I recommend doing in-depth research on schools, pick which ones you want to apply to, find the essay questions on CASPA while it's still open, and perfect your essays in advance before the next cycle. Apply to schools that accept both pharmacy tech and scribe as HCE. Applying late June/early July is ok but applying earlier always helps. Again, try to prepare your application before the cycle starts. Once it opens, you can just fill in the blanks and submit.

I'm in a PA friendly state. The PAs in my workplace are overall happy and have good autonomy, though some restrictions here and there. They are well respected by the staff and doctors, but not as respected as the doctors. Sometimes I see the staff bending over backwards for the doctors but not for the PAs. There's a PA who has worked in that specialty and at that practice longer than some doctors but she doesn't get the respect she deserves because of her title. There is an overall sense that doctors > PAs. However, I've also seen management and staff disrespecting the doctors as well. So you will get more respect as a doctor, but you're not immune to disrespect. I also think that it's hard to predict if you'll be happy with being a PA when you're 40. Healthcare was so different 20 years ago and big changes will continue to happen. The PA profession went through a lot of changes. Some MDs are unhappy because medicine isn't what it used to be. Maybe PAs will get more respect and autonomy. Maybe not.

Wow, that's very short noticed. Think of all the students who took off a few years to replace grades and suddenly faced with this news.

Thank you whoever canceled their January spot yesterday.

The best time would be when you're ready. It will take about 2 weeks to get your official GRE scores after taking the test. Once it's sent to schools, it will take another few days for the schools to process it. So you could theoretically take it about 3 weeks before finishing your applications. That way, the school will have everything when you submit. You can take it close to the time of application or even after you start the application but the schools will unlikely look at your application after submitting until official GRE scores are in.