My Chances...Yikes

[mmm12]

Hola everyone, I found you all last night and figured I would post just to get some feedback. I am going to apply to several schools (7 to be exact) for the 2014 admission year and was hoping to get some feedback about whether or not I will actually get in. I alternate between confidence and terror pretty regularly.

 

Age at application: 27

BA in History, cumulative GPA 3.2 (complete waste of time)

MS in Health Care Admin GPA 3.85ish (I graduate in Decemeber), Thesis: Best Practices for Culturally Competent Care in Oncology Settings

7000+ hours of HCE, mostly in clinic administration areas, foucsing on underserved populations, I've worked with several mid-levels in family practice and onc.

3 month internship at an academic medical center, specifically within an NCI designated cancer center. Rounding several clinical areas, including the OR.

Multi-disciplinary service trip to Nicaragua focusing on the public health care system including trauma, women's care, rural health, OB, and primary care

Med Term through my employer

I will start my pre-reqs next month

I took the GRE a million years ago and will be taking it again early next year. I haven't established my goal for that yet.

I'm willing to work on my Spanish to increase fluency before admission-if it matters.

 

Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks so much!

 

-Meg

[marktheshark89]

If you plan on applying ifor admission in 2014, then I think your chances are great. You should have a solid gpa combining undergrad and grad, and assuming you do well in your prerequisites, as you have in your master's program, your science GPA should be impressive. You have tons of healthcare experience, and diversity within that experience. One thing I would suggest is find a few PAs, or atleast one, whom you could shadow. This will further show your interest in the profession and probably give you a bit more insight aswell. Though you have been around mid-levels, it will be helpful to devote some time to solely learning about the PA role and shadowing, rather than working along side of them but having your own responsibilities. Plus, Adcomm's are awlays look for this.

[cinntsp]

Check out the accepted students thread(stickied) to compare your stats with others.

[GatorRRT]

By clinic administration what do you mean? If you weren't touching patients, it's probably not HCE. All of your other stats look promising, just depends on how well you do in the prereqs. Depending on how many you have to take, you could be looking at another 2 years before applying.

[mmm12]

Thanks for your thoughts. I'll have my prereqs done by next Sept, which works with all of my app deadlines. My brain might explode, but it's all part of the fun. My HCE will count. I may not have been touching patients but I was directly involved in several aspects of patient care.

[suzpa]

^ :( Make sure you really research that because most schools define healthcare experience as direct patient contact. You can have 10K hours of experience as a front office medical assistant and be involved with patients... But if you never even touched the patients it would be hard to count as HCE or weigh it as much as someone who had 2000 hrs of hands on experience.

 

The scenario I posted above was very similar to one of my friends who applied for PA school. They "capped" her HCE at 500.

 

But I think you definitely have a chance! Your background seems very diverse/unique! It will make you stand out. Good luck! Rooting for you! ;)

[GatorRRT]

...I'm assuming that you've verified it with the programs you'll be applying to?

[mmm12]

The majority of the programs I'm applying to do not have an HCE requirement and those that do use a broad definition.