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Hey Everyone,

I hope everyone is doing well.

So by May of 2020 I will have finished my Bachelor's degree at Northern Arizona University. (BS - Health Science: Diagnostic Medical Imaging and Therapy). I graduated my local community college in 2017 with an Associate in Science: Radiology. I have been a Radiologic Technologist pretty much full time since I graduated there. I did 2,000 clinical hours as a student (unpaid) and about an additional 2,000-3,000 as a tech (paid). I got married in September of 2018, and me and my wife had our first baby (little girl) and so between supporting them and school I haven't been able to go as fast as I would like. I recently got hired part time at an Urgent Care as an x-ray tech and medical assistant (I figured it would help because its more diverse in what I am doing and I would work alongside MD's PA's and NP's) My cumulative GPA at my community college including my 2 year radiology program was 3.8. My GPA since I started at NAU has been a 4.0. All my radiology courses  (which count as science per CASPA) have been straight A's. At the time of my early college years becoming a PA wasn't my goal and so my grades were decent at best. I didn't realize I wanted to be a PA until near the end of radiology school. I got a B in Gen Bio I, an A- in A & P I, and a B+ in A & P II. (On my transcript however there is a withdrawal from A & P II from the semester prior - I had to withdrawal after 3 weeks in because my brother died suddenly, and this was all right before I entered the radiology program so I was a mess) Do you think that "W" on my transcript will hurt me? Its from 2014. Also I recently took Microbiology  last semester and got an A. My radiology program only required an into chemistry course which I took back in 2014 and got an A. The classes I still need to take are Gen Chem 1 (Spring 2020), Gen Chem 2 (Summer 2020), Statistics (Summer 2020), and Organic Chemistry (Fall 2020) and maybe Genetics (Fall 2020). However, the Organic Chem I have to take from another community college, as my school doesn't offer it. Would multiple transcripts weaken my application? I plan on having applying to PA schools in early 2021. My wife's friend's husband is a Neurosurgical PA and so he is willing to let me shadow whenever, as well as the PA's ill be working with at my new job. I have also done some community service here and there in the past and am hoping to serve the homeless again at my towns local soup kitchen. I am in the process of deciding whether or not to take the GRE. There is a lot of material I would really need to refresh up on. One one hand, it will give me the option of applying to more schools, but on the other hand If I do poorly my application might not even be looked at and obviously those scores have to be reported. I am applying to some schools where the GRE is not required. Also, If i didn't take it, I would not have to study for it and where do I squeeze that in? I guess I also want to find out how long other people studied for and their thoughts on the exam, etc. I recently got the Kaplan 2019 GRE prep book for when I make that decision.  Should I take the GRE? Any tips, or feedback on my stats etc also would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for reading this. 

 

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I only applied this cycle, so I may be speaking out of turn, but from my perspective as a recent applicant who took most of their post baccalaureate prerequisites at a community college, had multiple "W"s on their undergraduate transcript, and had about 5 college transcripts that were verified by CASPA: none of this was an issue for me in terms of securing interviews. The question of whether or not you should take the GRE is entirely up to you, but if you do not, it will limit your choices.  I took it even though my top choice did not require it. You will see that there are folks on this site who had sub-par GRE scores (under 300) and were still accepted. If you take it, and don't get the score you hoped, you can either retake it or figure out another way to round out your application to offset the score (more community service, PCE, HCE, stellar LORs, etc). As for "squeezing in" time to study for it, I managed to study for and take the GRE while I was working full time and doing my post baccalaureate. Most PA school applicants juggle competing demands during the application process; it can and has been done by many nontraditional students. I echo MT2PA that I'm sure you'll find all the answers you need in other threads as well!

 

Edited by CGM717
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