JohnnyM2 Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 It has recently been reported that the SAT Is being revised (again) because it doesn't correlate with college performance. Big surprise! College students have known this for some time. Who thinks GREs have any correlation with PA school success. What do the rest of you think PA schools should use in their selection criteria? Sent from my Kindle Fire HDX using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taotaox1 Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 Most schools do not give it any real weight. It is a usually a formality of grad school. Just don't bomb it. Anyone capable of pa school can get passable grade on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 8, 2014 Moderator Share Posted March 8, 2014 GPA and quality/duration of HCE are better predictors. GRE is just a check box required for some grad school programs. I am almost done with a doctorate and have never taken the gre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wjm7 Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 The GRE is MOSTLY meaningless in regard to PA school, in my opinion. I do believe that there are realms of higher education in which a higher GRE score likely corresponds with a higher likelihood for success in terms of grading, but PA school is not one of them. It's certainly not a predictor of who will prove to be the better clinician (I'm still in PA school, but I still feel confident in that statement). I scored significantly above average on the GRE, but I'm more or less average for my PA school. My significant other, however, scored significantly below average on the GRE, and has emerged as one of our class' best performing students. And she'll clearly be a wonderful clinician. In summary: In certain situations, the GRE is meaningful. In others, nearly meaningless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted March 8, 2014 Administrator Share Posted March 8, 2014 I suspect higher GRE scores may correlate with PANCE scores, in that people who do well on one arbitrary standardized test can do well on another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 8, 2014 Moderator Share Posted March 8, 2014 I suspect higher GRE scores may correlate with PANCE scores, in that people who do well on one arbitrary standardized test can do well on another. too bad pance scores don't correlate well with practicing clinical medicine( I would say the same for most usmle exams )....it was a much more meaningful test when it had graded practicals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maynard Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 I have to question some of the assertions being made in this thread because: 1) There are no citations for them 2) They don't make complete sense 3) In general, I've noticed that people love to complain that standardized tests have no value, even in the presence of compelling evidence that they work. I don't believe that the SAT is being revised simply because it "doesn't correlate with college performance." I don't have the numbers on hand, but I'm willing to bet that people who score well on the SATs generally do better than people who score poorly. I imagine that high school grades are the better predictor, but I don't think the vast majority of college admissions committees are giving weight to a test which has no predictive value. When it comes to PA school (and I'm speaking from hearsay rather than first-hand experience), the demands are much greater than with undergraduate school. Being willing to study four hours a day makes less of a difference because most students are now willing to study four hours a day since their future is on the line. Certainly some people were lazy undergrads and will be lazy graduate students, but for everyone who is working their tail off, natural aptitude is going to play a bigger part in determining who flunks out and who doesn't. Those are my speculations, but again, I'd like to see hard numbers. I know I've seen numbers demonstrating the MCAT's value in predicting med school success, but I haven't seen a breakdown of GRE performance vs. PA school performance. Having said all that, my crappy results in applying to PA school would seem to support the idea that admissions committees don't give them much weight. I got an 800 quantitative and 740 verbal and now I'm on two wait lists and have gotten six rejections. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 8, 2014 Moderator Share Posted March 8, 2014 Having said all that, my crappy results in applying to PA school would seem to support the idea that admissions committees don't give them much weight. I got an 800 quantitative and 740 verbal and now I'm on two wait lists and have gotten six rejections. :( what kind of prior hce and gpa do you have? pa school admissions is a balanced whole package kind of deal. you can't be strong in several areas and weak in others and hope to get in at most places, you need to be at least "average" in all aspects of your app. compared to the current applicant pool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z PA-C Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 I don't think GRE's correlate with PA school success whatsoever. It's just another hoop applicants have to jump through. I did not take the SAT and graduated Summa Cum Laude at my university. I also did not take the GRE and I am sure I will do just fine in PA school. The program I will be attending has a 100% PANCE pass rate and does not require the GRE as a prerequisite. I think GPA, HCE, and having a well-rounded student are better predictors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maynard Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 what kind of prior hce and gpa do you have? pa school admissions is a balanced whole package kind of deal. you can't be strong in several areas and weak in others and hope to get in at most places, you need to be at least "average" in all aspects of your app. compared to the current applicant pool. HCE: 3,000 hours working as a CNA in a subacute care setting GPA was only a 3.11. However, all of my bad grades are from when I was a computer science major over ten years ago. Since returning to college, I've gotten an 'A' in every graded course, including all of my prerequisites. The last full semester I had I took 15 credits: A&P II w/ lab, Chem II w/ lab, Microbiology w/ lab, and Statistics, all while working part-time. Again, I got all As. I thought that, all things considered, I had a pretty competitive application overall. I don't understand the results I've gotten. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 8, 2014 Moderator Share Posted March 8, 2014 HCE: 3,000 hours working as a CNA in a subacute care setting GPA was only a 3.11. However, all of my bad grades are from when I was a computer science major over ten years ago. Since returning to college, I've gotten an 'A' in every graded course, including all of my prerequisites. The last full semester I had I took 15 credits: A&P II w/ lab, Chem II w/ lab, Microbiology w/ lab, and Statistics, all while working part-time. Again, I got all As. I thought that, all things considered, I had a pretty competitive application overall. I don't understand the results I've gotten. you sound well rounded. community service? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maynard Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 you sound well rounded. community service? Unfortunately, no. That is a definite weak point. There are a few oddities in my application that I'm leaving out. My point here is that my experience supports the idea that there is not a lot of weight put on GRE scores. My extremely high scores still left me high and dry, even though they were accompanied by a competitive academic record and healthcare experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted March 8, 2014 Administrator Share Posted March 8, 2014 Having said all that, my crappy results in applying to PA school would seem to support the idea that admissions committees don't give them much weight. I got an 800 quantitative and 740 verbal and now I'm on two wait lists and have gotten six rejections. :( Focus on your interviewing skills. Your scores (and the rest of your background) are very close to mine, and my GPA was good enough to get interviews, but at least two of my 5 interviews were mine to lose--and I did--by screwing up the interview. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted March 8, 2014 Administrator Share Posted March 8, 2014 The whole idea behind the SAT, GRE, MCAT, etc. is to gauge the ability to recall and disgorge previously learned information in a rapid manner--there's some analysis and computation, but the real emphasis of all of them is remembering simple rules, and then all the underlying knowledge, applying one's self, and discerning the right answer among 3-4 wrong ones. Those tests don't judge hard work, compassion, ethical behavior, ability to handle one's self in a stressful situation, teamwork, or any of a thousand other things that are required to be a good PA (or a good professional of any kind, really). Frankly, you don't have to be both smart and hardworking to succeed in most things, including undergraduate studies in most fields. Either one will suffice. In PA school, however, the information comes so fast and furiously that slow but dedicated learners who did just fine in undergrad simply may not have enough hours in the day to keep up with learning at their own pace. I've always scored ridiculously well on standardized tests, and loved the accolades that got me, but know that while my relative scores on the various tests haven't changed (much; my GRE verbal got substantially better from 1993 to 2009), my discipline and work ethic have. I do think it's easier to teach a smart person to be hardworking than it is to teach a hardworking person to be smart, but PA school works best if you're both. Smarts can be tested with the GRE; hard work... that's a mishmash of everything else in the application. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyM2 Posted March 9, 2014 Author Share Posted March 9, 2014 GPA was only a 3.11. However, all of my bad grades are from when I was a computer science major over ten years ago. Since returning to college, I've gotten an 'A' in every graded course, including all of my prerequisites. The last full semester I had I took 15 credits: A&P II w/ lab, Chem II w/ lab, Microbiology w/ lab, and Statistics, all while working part-time. Again, I got all As. I thought that, all things considered, I had a pretty competitive application overall. I don't understand the results I've gotten. The way CASPA calculates GPA is another interesting quirk in the application process. Let's say you attended college when you were 19 and stopped short of getting your degree in art appreciation to join the army. Assume your GPA was 2.5. Assume further that at age 26, having grown up, you went back to college and got a BS in microbiology, graduating summa com laude with a 4.0. CASPA forces you to report those earlier grades and averages them in with your more recent performance. I know this is an extreme hypothetical but it's illustrative of the GPA frustration expressed by many who post on this forum. My other issue with GPA is that a GPA of 3.8 in an easy major from an easy college is just not the same as a 3.8 in microbiology from a difficult university. Supposedly, ad coms take all this into account when reviewing applications but when you get 800 applications for 40 seats in the next class, does anyone really have the time to parse through all of that? Sent from my Kindle Fire HDX using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maynard Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 The way CASPA calculates GPA is another interesting quirk in the application process. Let's say you attended college when you were 19 and stopped short of getting your degree in art appreciation to join the army. Assume your GPA was 2.5. Assume further that at age 26, having grown up, you went back to college and got a BS in microbiology, graduating summa com laude with a 4.0. This is almost exactly what happened to me. If I could wipe off the grades that were over 10 years old I'd have a 4.0. I couldn't agree more with your post. As for grade inflation, programs do often take into account the difficulty of your coursework. Many are upfront that they frown on community college courses. I know one school I interviewed at said they "score" students based on a formula and the difficulty of program is one variable that gets taken into account. The problem here is that I don't see any way that programs can accurately assess the difficulty of every major in every college across the U.S. I've taken computer science courses at a top engineering school that were incredibly easy and I've taken courses at a community college that were incredibly difficult. Which one are the adcoms going to give more weight to? All regionally accredited schools have to meet the same accreditation standards, and schools don't necessarily make things harder just because it's a prestigious school that's tough to get into. I remember reading that something like 85% of Harvard students graduate with honors. While I'm sure that number reflects the quality of the student body (I certainly wouldn't interpret it to mean the courses are "easy"), I don't think their coursework is harder just because the students are smarter. I think we can safely say though, that certain majors like engineering are generally harder and more rigorous than certain other majors like liberal arts, and I agree that most admissions committees probably don't give these things their proper weight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
db_pavnp Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 I read a recent headline regarding suspicion of massive grade inflation at one of the "harvards" of this world. I feel most reasonable people will concede that any process where interest far outstrips supply will inevitably produce perversity. I recently retaught myself Orgo1 using a 'made simple' text in maybe 16 hours. It covered deeper and more nuanced topics than my top 10 school did. I did very well on the GRE. The company tossed my scores years ago because they are "expired". I never felt I did well because I am smart, but because I ran GRE practice tests when I got bored. I was embarrassed by my score. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UGoLong Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Standardized tests are meant to be one way for a program (PA, engineering, etc) to assess the academic potential of people who got different grades at different schools. I took the GREs in 1968 and again in 2003. The test will probably be there -- in one form or another -- long after we are all gone. And our descendents will be arguing about its validity then too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cinntsp Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Something else to consider is that the GRE may not necessarily be a requirement of the program by choice. It can also be a blanket requirement for all programs within the grad school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyM2 Posted March 10, 2014 Author Share Posted March 10, 2014 Something else to consider is that the GRE may not necessarily be a requirement of the program by choice. It can also be a blanket requirement for all programs within the grad school. Yep. I think you are right about that. Sent from my Kindle Fire HDX using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wilsonct Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 There was some research published last year by PAEA that I believe said that weighted GPA & GRE were best predictors for graduating & passing PANCE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
balsam88 Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 I did HORRIBLE on the GRE. Barely made the minimum requirement for my school, and my GPA is 4.0 in the didactic year (almost done with it)... so no, it doesn't correlate probably Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VT_UAB_PA Posted April 19, 2014 Share Posted April 19, 2014 There was a study published that showed zero correlation between standardized test scores (SAT, ACT, GRE etc.) and occupational success. I would say that applies for clinical professions as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted April 20, 2014 Administrator Share Posted April 20, 2014 Can people quoting studies please post links to the relevant studies, or at least as much as they remember so that people who want to read the original research have somewhere to start? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyfall Posted April 22, 2014 Share Posted April 22, 2014 GRE seemed like SAT's to me. Just had to study a bunch of vocab and review your math. I got an average grade, but good enough to get into my school. In short, the test is nothing like the rigors of PA school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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