Pre Pa Major

[BeccaRenee]

I am a recent rad tech graduate with an Associates in applied sciences. I graduated with a 3.4, but have been highly interested in being a PA for the past year. The exposure I have had around PA's in my clinical rotations and their ability to specialize in a variety of areas in the field are appealing, as well as the one on one patient care interaction (setting up treatment plans, working as a team with the physician and staff). Although, my GPA is average, when I made the decision to get into PA, I made sure that an upward trend was apparent ( All A's the last 3 semesters) I know that I need my bachelors so that gives me time to improve my overall GPA 

I have worked as a receptionist as well as an aide in a hospital for 3.5 years, so I know that with those HCE included with what Ill be doing now, I can get a substantial amount. I have a friend who is currently in a PA program and she told me that I should Major in Biology or Interdisciplinary Health? With my degree, it would be much faster to transfer credits into a bachelors in Health Management and have a bachelors in that and then I could take the pre reqs required for whatever program Ill apply to. Anyone have any advice on if that would be good enough? At this point Im trying to organize a timeline of when I should shadow/volunteer and what to major in

[Potatolife]

Get the Bachelor's in Health Management. You don't need a biology degree. Just make sure you earn As in your prerequisites to prove to admissions that you can handle difficult science courses

[Guest HopeToBePAC]

Major in whatever you want. Doesn't matter. If it's faster to transfer credits into Health Management, do that. Just take the required pre-requisites and get good grades in them, and graduate with a bachelor's, that's all that matters in that aspect. 

[BeccaRenee]

@Potatolife @HopeToBePAC, thanks for the advice. I was also told that all the prereqs were completely different at every school? Is that what CAPSA is for? 

[Victory1322]

CASPA is simply a centralized application service where you will enter everything for your application and then send it out to any school you wish to apply to. You will need to send in transcripts from all schools attended (even if no degree was earned) as well as enter your coursework. So, yes CASPA will house all of your information but it won't tell you what each school requires, that's up to you to figure out by going to the school website. 

You are correct that schools vary in their requirements, but a majority have the same general core classes. I would research what schools you would like to attend to get familiar with what classes they would require. To get you started though, here is generally what is required by most schools:

• Chemistry with lab (Two semesters)
• Anatomy with lab
• Physiology with lab
• Microbiology with lab
• Statistics
• Psychology

Other frequently required courses include:

• General biology
• Genetics
• Biochemistry
• Organic chemistry 
• Medical Terminology

Other schools could also require English courses, foreign language, math, etc. If I were you I'd start researching schools as soon as you can to start narrowing down a list of ones you feel you would attend if accepted and go from there. Plus, it helps to take the more difficult upper level classes to show the Adcoms that you can handle that type of coursework.  

[fishbum]

CASPA is the centralized application system used by most PA schools. Pre-requisites do vary pretty widely so you'll need to check with each program you might be interested in to see exactly what you'll need. However, you can bet on some courses being required pretty much everywhere...2 semesters of chemistry, 2 semesters of a&p, etc. You'll notice these trends as you start looking around.

Good luck!