Provisional and probation sound similar. They are not the same thing, and confusing them can cost you.

Provisional accreditation means the program is new. ARC-PA has reviewed the plan and approved them to start, and they'll be evaluated again as students move through. New programs are fine. Some of the best-run programs I know were provisional once.

Probation is different. It means an established program isn't currently meeting standards and has to fix things. That's the one worth asking hard questions about.

Why this matters: your accreditation status affects whether you can sit for the PANCE and get licensed. Before you apply anywhere, look up the program on the ARC-PA site and know exactly what you're looking at.

What I cover:

• What provisional accreditation actually means
• How probation differs and why it's a bigger deal
• What ARC-PA reviews and how often
• How accreditation affects PANCE eligibility and licensing
• Questions to ask a program about its status
• Whether to apply to a brand new program

Resources:

PA Program Map: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-platform-map

Free application timeline: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-application-timeline

Pre-PA counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

PA School Interview Guide: https://www.thepaplatform.com/physician-assistant-school-interview-guide

Mentioned in this episode:

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In today's episode, we're breaking down the PA school accreditation process and talking about what it means if a school is provisional or on probation and what that means for you as an applicant.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club Podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Before we get started, I just wanted to quickly mention a sponsor of the podcast, MyPA Resource.

If you've never heard of MyPA Resource, it's a website, www.myparesource.com.

And while I offer services like mock interviews, I work with mypa Resource as a personal statement editor.

So mypa Resource has been around for a while now, and I would say just based on everything that's out there, they are the most trusted and most thorough pre PA personal statement editing service.

So with MyPA resource, like I said, I'm an editor, so I help them edit proofread personal statements for PA school applicants.

We'll talk more about personal statements in the future, but I cannot stress the importance of having your essay proofread by a PA. And that's what makes my PA resource different, is that they only use PAs to do their editing.

And so you want a PA who's familiar with the interview process and the application process before you submit to caspa.

So all of the editors, we've been trained, we do a lot of essays, and we know what to look for, and we know what the admissions committees are looking for.

And so I know when I edit, it's very thorough.

I mean, you're going to get a lot of read back, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

So.

So you can use actually a discount code that they have provided to the Prepa Club podcast listeners exclusively.

And you can get $15 off any service when you use the code future PA, all in lowercase.

So I'll put that in the description as well.

And if you have any questions about that, please feel free to reach out to me.

You can send them an email, too.

But yeah, a great resource that I.

Want you guys to know about.

Don't forget that you can use the same code at the PA platform and at PA School Prep if you're looking for some help with getting ready for anatomy and physiology before you jump into PA school.

Now let's get into talking about everything to do with accreditation.

And you can find this on YouTube and Instagram TV as well.

If you'd rather watch than listen to this one.

Hey guys, today I Wanted to talk a little bit about accreditation because this is something I've seen popping up in questions pretty much everywhere, but specifically in the Pre PA Club Facebook group a lot.

And what that has to do with is, is a program accredited?

Do I need to go to a program that is accredited?

What is probation?

What is provisional status?

And I wanted to break those down for you guys.

And I'm going to be pulling information directly from the Accred Crediting Bodies website to make sure that you're getting things that are accurate.

Because a lot of what I see and a lot of the answers I see are not accurate.

And so I think that is pretty common in the world of PA stuff just because there are so many facets.

But I want to make sure that we're getting the correct information.

So I have my computer here with things specifically from the arcpa, which I'm going to explain that in a second from their website.

So if you see me looking over here, I just want to make sure that you get the right thing.

So I'm going to actually be reading you definitions and then explaining them.

All right, so what is accreditation?

First of all, accreditation is a peer review system that has been set up to make sure that there are specific standards between PA programs and that each PA program lives up to these standards.

So what that means is that I could not just upgrade and start the PA platform's PA school online.

I mean, I could, but it's not going to be accredited, which means you wouldn't be able to sit for boards and it would be really weird.

And I don't need to be doing that.

It's been going on for a long time.

This isn't a new thing.

They know what they're doing.

And so arcpa, that stands for, let's see, Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant.

So ARC PA, or ARC pa, whatever you want to call it.

I don't really know the official accepted term for this, but if you are looking at a program's website, what you'll see is that at Circle somewhere on their website, they have to state their accreditation status.

So they have to say that they are either fully accredited, provisionally accredited, probation accredited.

So that's a lot of options.

There are actually even more.

There's actually eight different accreditation statuses.

These are just the ones we see the most.

As of right now, there are 246 accredited programs in the US that have been evaluated by the ARCPA and told that they are okay to continue having classes and starting school.

So this just is what ensures that your degree means something when you graduate so that you have the correct credentials to practice and take boards, which is really important.

Another thing I just want to explain really quickly is what are all of these different letters and organizations and how do they all work together?

So the arcpa, like we said, is the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant.

So this is who goes into a school.

It's kind of a non.

They're not necessarily the people in education, but there's a lot of crossover.

But they go into a school, make sure it's qualified for continuing with having PA students.

Now you also have the aapa, which is the American Academy of Physician Assistants.

And this is, you know, our society, our group of PAs who get together and help to further the profession, make decisions about the profession.

It's led by pas.

It's got a house of delegates, a board that's elected, that's all physician assistants.

Then we have the nccpa, and this is the certifying body for the PA profession.

So what that means is these are the people who come up with how often you have to take boards, who create the boards, and who make sure that you're doing everything you can.

So, like, every year I have to go in and enter my CME through nccpa.

I have to pay them a lot of money, which is kind of controversial, but they are who essentially says that you are nationally certified once you pass that test, and then you get licensed by your state medical board.

The other group is the paea, and this is the Education Association.

So these are your teachers, your faculty, the people who are trying to make sure that the education of PAS is good and consistent and progressing and doing what it needs to do.

So all of these organizations to some degree, work together.

They also sometimes have their differences, but they all work together.

And so depending on your interest, I mean, there are different ways you can get involved, but you just need to understand that no one, no one is solely making decisions at this point.

It is definitely a joint effort between a lot of different bodies.

But the A RCPA does work with all of these other people.

So if you see me hear me throw something else out, that's who I'm referring to.

Because essentially what the ARCPA is trying to do is make sure that you can sit for boards based on what the NCCPA says.

And again, they're your certifying body.

All right, so accreditation.

So what, first of all, goes into a school Becoming accredited.

There is a lot.

When I talk to College of Saint Elizabeth who just got provisional accreditation, they were kind of explaining this to me and how it's like a three year process if you go online.

So all of this information is on the ARCPA's website and I will link to that.

But if you go online, you can look at what they call their standards.

And right now they're on their fourth edition of standards.

But this is a 73 page document with all of the requirements for a program if they want to become accredited and maintain accreditation.

So accreditation happens initially and then once every 10 years for a program.

It used to be seven and they recently switched it to 10, which goes along with how often PAs have to recertify too.

They have a huge flow sheet on their website and I'll show that, but it talks about everything they have to do.

I mean, they've got to have a program director for at least 12 months before the start date of the program.

So that person is just getting the program ready.

They have to have multiple visits.

So an initial provisional visit, a provisional monitoring site visit, a final provisional site meet site visit.

So this initial visit occurs 6 to 12 months before they would want to start students.

And then they're reviewed, they're given some feedback on maybe things they need to work on.

And then they have to work on that and submit it three months before, two to three months before the students start.

And then they have their monitoring meeting which happens within six months of graduating the first class.

And then their final provisional site meeting is 18 to 24 months following the second provisional review by the committee.

This is a process.

It's not something if you see a school that's provisional, first of all, they put a lot of work into that.

They've also put a lot of money.

There's a $30,000 fee for them to apply for provisional status.

And then they have to pay $15,000 every year to keep that up.

You multiply that by 246, that's a lot of money.

But they're doing a lot of stuff.

So these provisional schools, I mean, they have a lot of stuff that they're having to make sure is in place before they are considered just regular accreditation or continuing accreditation.

But we'll talk about the accreditation statuses.

So when you look at a program they must display on their website what type of accreditation they have, it should be very clear.

This shouldn't necessarily be something you have to search for.

That's one of the ARCPA'S actual requirements.

But if we look at the categories of accreditation and this will be linked as well, continued accreditation.

So accreditation continued is this is and I'll read it, a currently accredited program that is in compliance with the standards or in the case of a program point accreditation probation, the program has demonstrated it is once again in compliance with the standards or when a program holding accreditation provisional demonstrates compliance with the standards after compliance completion of the provisional review process.

So you are either continued like you're doing everything right, great, keep going or you're provisional and you get bumped up to continued or you're probation and you get bumped back to continued and you're fine to continue.

So this remains in effect until the program closes or withdraws from the accreditation process or if they are withdrawn for failure to comply with the standards.

That's the majority of your programs.

Now a new program, those are the ones that are going to be provisional.

So provisional I'm going to read it is an accreditation status granted when the plans and resource allocation, if fully implemented as planned of a proposed program that has not yet enrolled students appears to demonstrate the program's ability to meet the standards or when a program holding provisional status appears to demonstrate continued progress in complying with the standards as it prepares for the graduation of its first class of students.

So I want the main thing I want you to hear here is that provisional is an accreditation status.

Okay, because we'll talk about what that means in just a minute.

For provisional status, they can be on this for five years from the matriculation of their first class.

If you remember, they're going to get reevaluated after they've graduated that first class or when they're graduating.

So it's going to take a while for that provisional status to switch to continued.

So that's the goal.

So then we have probation and this is one that people get really worried about which is valid.

So probation is a temporary status of accreditation limited to two years granted when a program holding an accreditation status of provisional or continued does not meet the standards and when the capability of the program to provide an acceptable educational experience for its students is to threatened once placed on probation, a program that fails to comply with accreditation requirements in a timely manner as specified by the a RCPA may be scheduled for a focus site visit and or risk having its accreditation withdrawn.

So again I want you to hear that this is a status of accreditation.

So this still is an accredited program.

Now there is an administrative probation, which means that a program has not complied with an administrative requirement such as failure to pay fees or submit required reports, you may see that then there are a few that we don't really talk about.

So withheld.

This is if a program pulls out of the accreditation process, that's going to be more of like a new program withdrawn.

If a school decides they no longer want to continue, they can withdraw their accreditation.

And then an inactive program is a program that temporarily suspends instruction and stops matriculating students.

So we don't see those very much.

So you're mostly going to see continued provisional or probation.

So what do those mean?

What does that mean for you as an applicant?

Should you be applying to these programs?

Should you apply to a provisional program?

Should you apply to a probationary program?

Will it affect your ability to sit for boards to graduate to get a job?

Well, let's visit the ARC PA FAQ next.

So they have a great FAQ with a section specifically for students.

And I think by reading what they say, that is going to give you the most accurate information.

So with provisional, let's talk about provisional first.

So these programs, like I said, are working towards continued education.

They're putting a lot of work into this.

Sometimes they don't get accredited.

And I have heard of people who get accepted to a provisional program that or a school that's applying for provisional accreditation and doesn't get it.

And then you may be out that application fee.

So if you've applied to a program that has already received their provisional status, you're fine.

If you're applying to one that is applying for their status, that's a little more risky.

And these are new programs, so that's something to keep in mind.

So if the program I'm considering has provisional accreditation, what happens to me as a student if it does not receive accreditation?

So if you are in the program, if you, if they have received provisional accreditation, you start the program, you're in the class.

This is the answer from the arcpa.

Provisional accreditation is an active accreditation status.

In order to be eligible to take the pants, students must successfully complete a program that was accredited at the time the student matriculated or started.

It is best to check with NCCPA concerning exam eligibility criteria.

So if you if the day you start your program they are provisional and then they continue, maybe your second, third year, they lose that status or go to probation, you're fine.

Provisional is an accredited status.

You can take the boards, you can practice as a pa. Now, will your job care about any of this?

Probably not.

They probably don't even know.

They probably have no idea about any of this.

So I mean, every once in a while you'll have a preceptor or someone who has had students from certain schools and they'll say, well, these students do really well and these don't do as well.

But that has nothing to do with accreditation status.

So that shouldn't be a concern.

As far as getting a job with your accreditation status, let's talk about probation for a second.

The program I'm considering is on probation.

If I enter that program, will I be graduating from an accredited program?

So this actually has the exact same definition.

Probation is an active accreditation status.

And those entering a program that is on probation are entering a program that is accredited.

In order to be eligible to take the pants, students must successfully complete a program that was accredited at the time the student matriculated.

Same thing.

You're fine to sit for boards, you're fine to take your test if a school is on probation.

So one thing I wanted to say about a probation status is you can actually on the ARCPA website, look up exactly why a class or a school is on probation.

There is a section and I'll link to it in the comments where you can see it'll have the school listed.

And if you're, if you want to watch on YouTube, I'll put a screenshot in there.

You can see exactly why.

And so when I was looking through this list, it was very interesting.

There are some schools who have two pages of things they need to fix listed out.

And then there are schools who have two bullet points, you know, so that may play into your decision a little bit too.

So one, like some of the things listed on here are, you know, the sponsoring institution supporting the faculty in program assessment, hiring faculty and staff, and providing the program with staff need to operate the educational program.

These are things that they should work on the program making readily available to prospective students the policies and procedures for deceleration.

So some of this is like things that should have been on your website that weren't.

And some of it is you didn't have enough faculty or the appropriate faculty or maybe people left.

You know, there's a lot involved with this.

Like this one was missing.

Current job descriptions for each principal faculty member seems a little nitpicky, but yeah, so there are all of these standards they have to meet and as they're kind of re evaluated, they're going to make sure that everything's in in line and a lot of stuff falls through the cracks.

So next, should you apply to these programs?

I think with either one they are fully accredited statuses.

So you are fine to consider applying.

You may want to, you know, going into the interview, take into consideration the accreditation status and just take it with a grain of salt.

You know, a probationary program should be very upfront with what they're doing to fix that issue and make you feel confident that they're there to support you and make sure that you have a great educational experience.

A provisional program, you know, they're gonna be really excited, and there's gonna be some bumps in the road.

You may need to be flexible.

There's gonna be some growing pains.

But it can also be very exciting to be one of those first classes and kind of help pave the road for other classes, kind of be those role models moving into kind of future.

Future PA or just helping the future PA generation.

I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

But, yeah.

So I have a blog post on my website from Spain who's in a provisional program, and I'll link to it because she had a really great insight.

You know, she talked about how the program was newer because it was provisional.

And so she had really great resources, great facilities, which was really, really cool.

And then with any of those statuses, I mean, just, you have to make the call, essentially.

But it is worth considering, in my opinion.

I wouldn't completely disregard them.

Now, you may have heard some horror stories of schools completely shutting down, and a lot of times that doesn't necessarily have to do with accreditation status.

I mean, it's possible for just a PA school program to close, but what also could happen is a whole institution closes.

So if you go to, I don't know, the PA platform university, and we have the PA platform PA school, if we just straight up lose funding for the university, every single program is going to close, not just the PA program.

But that is an issue that could affect you.

That is very rare.

I think I've heard about me, like, once or twice ever, but it's possible.

You can't predict that.

And so I wouldn't necessarily worry about that if you can help it.

So one other thing that I get asked a lot is, will applying to a provisional or probationary school increase my chances?

Are they going to have less applicants?

Will I get in easier and not necessarily.

So there is a chance.

Yeah, that they have less applicants, that they maybe only fill part of their class as they're trying to go through that accreditation process and then add more later.

Or like in the instance of College of St. Elizabeth, they actually got approved for more students than they had applied for.

And so they were able to open up some last minute spots for interviewing in August and September for a class that started in October just to get that first full class.

But these schools, so they may or may not get less applications that first time, just depending on their requirements and their timeline and how much time is between when they open the application and starting and due dates and all that.

So they may get less applications or they may get more because other people may have the same thought process of oh, they're new, maybe I can apply there and have a better shot.

So you can't necessarily gauge whether or not they'll get more or less applications.

And then on the flip side of that, so they want to fill their class.

So they're going to be looking for applicants, they're definitely going to be trying to find people who are qualified who would be great fits to fill that first class.

But they also are going to want to have great stats.

So being their first year, if it's a provisional program, they want those stats as high as possible for attracting future applicants.

And so it may or may not be in your favor if you have a lower GPA or kind of red flags to apply.

But I mean, I'm gonna stick by my phrase of if you meet the minimum requirements for a program, go ahead and apply because you don't know what's gonna happen.

And so I think it's definitely worth considering these programs, looking into them, researching them a little bit, checking out the reasons for any hiccups on the ARCPA website, and using all of those factors to make your decision instead of just completely discounting any and all provisional or probationary programs.

So I hope that helps you to make some decisions.

But I would love to hear your thoughts.

If you have had any experiences with these programs, if you have any insights or any other questions, please send them our way.

Alright, there you have it.

So I hope that helps to clear some things up.

If you still have questions, let us know and then we will see you guys next week.

If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure to leave a review and make sure you're subscribed on itunes.

Bye.