VictorOfHungerGames Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 Hello all, I know there is a pre-PA section on this thread but I felt that this would be a better place to ask this question. I would appreciate any advice from those who has experience in school admissions. I am a practicing pharmacist who wants to become a PA. Just finished CASPA and was verified. The school I want to apply to states that applicants must achieve minimum of 3.0 overall gpa based on CASPA. My overall CASPA gpa turned out to be 2.9. I think this is because they are including all my classes such as a bunch of retakes in undergrad and pharmacy school classes (Most people in pharmacy school didn't care about grades since we just needed to pass unless you were a gunner. Had I known that my pharmacy school gpa will affect my life later on, I would've totally tried harder to get better grades haha). My grad school gpa (I have a MS in neuroscience) is 3.5, post-bacc, which include most of pre-reqs for PA school, gpa is 4.0. Based on this info, will the school even look at my application? The reason I applied to one school is because I already have a family and do not wish to leave where I live. I am debating if I need to be applying to other schools before it is too late. Thank you in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DizzyJ Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 My best guess....if 3.0 is the minimum gpa needed then your application will be weeded out for not meeting the minimum. I would reach directly out to the program director. If nothing more, it could at least get your name on his/her desk to perhaps look at your application. I would guess they couldn't consider you regardless or it would go against their published admission criteria. Unless maybe they have a clause where the program director can make exceptions. I would apply to more then one program. Back in my day I applied to 2 programs. Nowadays, students apply to like 10-20 schools in hopes to just get into one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorOfHungerGames Posted June 16, 2020 Author Share Posted June 16, 2020 2 hours ago, DizzyJ said: My best guess....if 3.0 is the minimum gpa needed then your application will be weeded out for not meeting the minimum. I would reach directly out to the program director. If nothing more, it could at least get your name on his/her desk to perhaps look at your application. I would guess they couldn't consider you regardless or it would go against their published admission criteria. Unless maybe they have a clause where the program director can make exceptions. I would apply to more then one program. Back in my day I applied to 2 programs. Nowadays, students apply to like 10-20 schools in hopes to just get into one. I may have misunderstood. There is no set gpa it looks like but it does state "Applicants must achieve a minimum overall GPA of 3.0 as calculated by CASPA" Not sure if this would be considered a requirement or just a guideline to encourage students with higher gpa to apply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cinntsp Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 Just apply anyway, but apply broadly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MT2PA Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 Frankly, no, you'll likely get automatically filtered out. No need to make exceptions for folks when each program has MULTIPLE applicants per available seat. This would have been perfect in the pre-PA forum. Post where the topic is relevant, not based on who you want to reply. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator True Anomaly Posted June 17, 2020 Moderator Share Posted June 17, 2020 5 hours ago, MT2PA said: Frankly, no, you'll likely get automatically filtered out. No need to make exceptions for folks when each program has MULTIPLE applicants per available seat. This would have been perfect in the pre-PA forum. Post where the topic is relevant, not based on who you want to reply. Agreed Have moved to the appropriate forum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PA-Candidate Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 One question.....Is the calculated GPA with the Masters degree or just undergrad? If Masters degree grades are there, then I would move on. They will not look beyond that. If 2.9 CASPA calculated only with undergrad, there may be hope. Reading this it appears its with the masters degree - If so, I'd move on.... Sorry but truthful... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorOfHungerGames Posted June 18, 2020 Author Share Posted June 18, 2020 Well turns out CASPA calculates gps unfairly. If a school has numeric grading system then CASPA converts in into letter grades without +/-. Even though my other schools have letter grades with +/-, my pharmacy school has numeric grades on transcripts and CASPA gpa scale totally screwed up the overall gap. i.e. if you have 88 for a class which should be considered B+ or 3.5ish, CASPA converts it to B or 3.0. Thankfully I was able to get a conversion chart from the pharmacy school and sent that to CASPA explaining how they need to recalculate my gpa. Based on my calculation, my overall gpa calculated by CASPA is off my at least 0.4-0.5 points on the 4.0 scale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorOfHungerGames Posted June 18, 2020 Author Share Posted June 18, 2020 On 6/17/2020 at 2:29 PM, PA-Candidate said: One question.....Is the calculated GPA with the Masters degree or just undergrad? If Masters degree grades are there, then I would move on. They will not look beyond that. If 2.9 CASPA calculated only with undergrad, there may be hope. Reading this it appears its with the masters degree - If so, I'd move on.... Sorry but truthful... I believe it is calculated with everything I ever took. Undergrad gpa is 3.2, MS gpa is 3.7 and pharmacy school gpa is 3.4. My post-bacc gpa with 50 credit hours was 4.0. There is no way my gpa drops to 2.91. As I explained above, the way CASPA calculated my pharmacy gpa is what's causing the problem. Waiting on their response so we shall see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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