Non-traditional applicant?

[FoxinSox]

Hi everybody!

 

So, I have been on the road to PA school for the past 7(!) years. I honestly didn't think it would take this long but life gets in the way sometimes. I am applying to programs this spring and I've turned out to be quite the non-traditional applicant, as I'll detail below:

 

-Massage therapist for the past 11 years, mostly working independently for more money but also in chiropractic and acupuncture offices as I do now

-Life science major at community college (mostly just knowing out PA pre-reqs, before the state of CA decides to get rid of all PA certificate programs at CC's). Did pretty well there.

-Transferred and got a BS in anthropology (GPA: 3.7), since I already had my pre-reqs done and just needed a bachelors, I decided to study something I felt would make me more well-rounded in my understanding of people (and boy did it ever!) without having to risk possibly not getting accepted right away due to impacted life science majors at my college

-Clinical care volunteer at a large hospital since May '16

-Quit a slave-like scribe job after 5 weeks in the ER to accept a job as a behavioral therapist doing applied behavioral analysis (ABA) with autistic kids. I wanted to be more "hands on", work with staff who bother to know my name, and a huge boost in pay didn't hut either. I had applied for physical therapy aide jobs as well but many of them seem to want people who are on the road to PT and have an exercise background, despite often wanting PT aides to do some massage therapy.

 

Maybe I'm just getting cold feet but I worry that my background will be too off the beaten path. I'd like to hear of any success stories from those who had non-traditional backgrounds yet still got accepted into PA progams, if there are any.

 

Thanks in advance!