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Grrr! My undergrad GPA is haunting me.


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I graduated in '98 with a BS but I screwed up big time in college. My current GPA after I retook and aced the prereqs bumped up to 2.79 and BCP GPA 2.91. I've got 10+ years of a solid professional career (not health-related) and current HCE as a medical scribe, yet this number is holding back schools from even looking at other aspects of my application. One of the programs stipulates that successful completion in 15 hours of graduate level course work in a related field could help. Is it possible to get 15 hours of graduate level course work but not be in a master's program?

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I graduated in '98 with a BS but I screwed up big time in college. My current GPA after I retook and aced the prereqs bumped up to 2.79 and BCP GPA 2.91. I've got 10+ years of a solid professional career (not health-related) and current HCE as a medical scribe, yet this number is holding back schools from even looking at other aspects of my application. One of the programs stipulates that successful completion in 15 hours of graduate level course work in a related field could help. Is it possible to get 15 hours of graduate level course work but not be in a master's program?

 

hi just wondering, where are you scribing at?

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Molly, I would say it depends on the specific school. Here at the University of Idaho, one can take grad courses without actually being in a master's program. (Of course, they charge extra for being in both undergrad and grad classes!) Another possibility is taking other science courses. That would help you out with the science info later and help your gpa.

 

I don't at all mean this in a judge-y way, but if you didn't do so well in school and you've spent 10 yrs in an entirely different field, why do you want to join the PA profession now? You don't have to explain yourself to me, but I'm pretty sure that the adcoms are going to want to know. Additionally, the rest of your application will have to be stellar; there are hundreds of applicants who have great GPAs trying to get into a program.

 

What does BCP GPA mean?

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Don't worry too much about the BCP, that's mostly a medical school prerequisite, all of the schools I've applied to only require an overall and science GPA, so you may be in better shape than you think.

 

BCP (Bio/Chem/Physics), aka "science" - CASPA clearly indicates this in your GPA calculations.

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I don't at all mean this in a judge-y way, but if you didn't do so well in school and you've spent 10 yrs in an entirely different field, why do you want to join the PA profession now? You don't have to explain yourself to me, but I'm pretty sure that the adcoms are going to want to know. Additionally, the rest of your application will have to be stellar; there are hundreds of applicants who have great GPAs trying to get into a program.

 

l.a.lewis, that is a totally reasonable question. I explain it in my personal statement on CASPA, but unfortunately they didn't look any further into my application than the GPA. Long story short: I was in pharma sales, so the money and the benefits made it really hard to leave. Changing careers is a scary thing but eventually I had to start asking myself the hard questions. I realized that I wasn't interested in making a corporation richer and where my true passion lies.

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You need to take more than just the pre-reqs. Take a couple semesters loaded with upper level science to show that you can handle the material and have overcome whatever led to the low gpa in the first place. Your gpa won't move a ton but even a tenth of a point is useful to a low gpa candidate. Every bit closer to 3.0 that you can get will help you out.

 

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

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I'm not sure how it works at every school... I took grad and undergrad courses concurrently at Loyola University Chicago, but my situation was kinda weird and I would never recommend that avenue to anyone. But maybe you can apply to the graduate school without specifying a program? Not sure. I'd make some phone calls of that's really what you want to do. You might do just as well with the suggestion from wutthechris though.

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Hey molly, I very much sympathize. I've been taking classes for 4 semesters now to pull my overall GPA up to a 2.77. Luckily I didn't take any BCP classes the first time around, so my BCP GPA is great. A couple of things that can help:

- short or weekend classes at community college: Take a Friday night, Saturdy, Sunday afternoon course at community college and there's another 3 hours. Take a 4 week online course and there's another 3 hours. Those help your GPA a lot.

- take upper level sciences: like others have said, that is the most relevant demonstration of what you will be able to handle in PA school.

- Find a graduate certificate program: many schools offer a 1 year degree or certificate program that will allow you to get 15 hours. You'll have to dig, but there are programs out there.

 

Good luck!

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I graduated in '98 with a BS but I screwed up big time in college. My current GPA after I retook and aced the prereqs bumped up to 2.79 and BCP GPA 2.91. I've got 10+ years of a solid professional career (not health-related) and current HCE as a medical scribe, yet this number is holding back schools from even looking at other aspects of my application. One of the programs stipulates that successful completion in 15 hours of graduate level course work in a related field could help. Is it possible to get 15 hours of graduate level course work but not be in a master's program?

 

I would suggest you look at doing a graduate certificate through Philadelphia University's Disaster Medicine and Management program. (See the brochure here: http://www.philau.edu/disastermed/downloads/DMM%20factsheet.pdf) It looks like the certificate is only 9 hours actually, but I expect that they would not have a problem with you taking two more courses after (or even going on slowly to work towards the full MS). It won't be cheap, but it is a good program and is something that could end up being applicable to your future PA career depending on what area you end up in.

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