Low Overall GPA, High Last 60 High Science GPA. Chances??

[karpjustin]

Hi Everybody,

Im a 30 year old non-traditional applicant and I would like to see what my chances are of getting into a PA program.

I graduated undergrad in 2010 with an accounting degree and my GPA was very low. During that time I did not take any science courses thankfully.  At that time, I was young/immature and really didn't know what I wanted to do at the time. I've now been working as an accountant the past 7 years. 

In 2014, I went back to school and did a post-bacc for 2 and a half years in pre health and achieved a 3.87 GPA over 73 credits. Due to the high number of total credits (over 220), my 73 credits has little weight on my overall GPA and my GPA is approximately a 2.8 (with the undergrad + post-bacc), with over a 3.8 science GPA.  

I have the following experience:

I am currently enrolled in an EMT course and will have many hours (Around 1,000) of direct patient hours as an EMT by the time I apply.

I'm taking the GRE this year.

I have 2 semesters worth of research in a molecular biology/genetics lab

I am in the Golden Key Honour Society

I was the bursar of my fraternity for 2 years

I have 7 years of accounting experience

I have 100 hours shadowing a PA

112 hours shadowing various physicians

In my post-bacc, I was on President's List 3x 

Please let me know if I have a chance of acceptance anywhere with below a 3.0 overall GPA because I feel that after my 2010 graduation, I have demonstrated a consistent and high level of success and that I am a different person today than I was when I was 18-21 years old.  Also, please let me know any programs you think are a good option for me to look into.  Thank you.

[Hopefulpagirl77]

Some schools are willing to look at the last credits, and take that into the big picture. I would research those schools. You are surely not the only one who has this problem. I would also look at the PA statistics forum (where they post all stats and what schools they got into) and look for someone with a similar background to you, then look at what school they got accepted into. Best of luck! 

[Hopefulpagirl77]

Read this one :)

[karpjustin]

3 hours ago, Hopefulpagirl77 said:

Some schools are willing to look at the last credits, and take that into the big picture. I would research those schools. You are surely not the only one who has this problem. I would also look at the PA statistics forum (where they post all stats and what schools they got into) and look for someone with a similar background to you, then look at what school they got accepted into. Best of luck! 

Thank you so much!  I appreciate the response and I will look at the page you sent me. :-)

-Justin

[rev ronin]

My take:

No, there's really no realistic chance right now.  Unless you want to spend the money to practice CASPA, I'd actually wait a year out. You're not going to make it past the filters with a 2.8 cumulative GPA.  You need to raise that to 3.0, take whatever classes you need and can get A's in.  Psych, communications, and other soft skills classes are actually helpful in medicine and typically easy A's.

You have TOO MUCH shadowing.  Don't do any more.

You have TOO LITTLE patient care experience. The time you would have spent shadowing? Do patient care instead.

Research is not important for PA school admission or practice.  It is for MD/DO school.

Extracurriculars are tiebreakers. You're not even in the ballpark.  DO do at least some of your patient care experience with an underserved population.

It may take a year or two to get into the "zone", but you need to keep doing patient care, keep raising your GPA (Patient care accumulates, GPA averages, prioritize accordingly) and the rest of everything will sort itself out.  I doubt you'll have any problem getting a reasonable GRE score.