You submitted CASPA and thought you were done. Then the supplementals showed up.

Supplemental essays are not a formality. Programs use them to figure out whether you actually want to go to their school or whether you just added them to a list. And you can tell the difference in about two sentences.

So tailor them. Read the program's mission, look at what they say they care about, and connect it to something real in your background. Generic answers with the school's name swapped in are obvious.

We also talk about the prompt everybody dreads - the one asking you to explain a weak semester or a bad grade. Answer it directly, own it, say what changed, and stop. Don't spiral and don't blame anyone.

And I built the Supplemental Library on The PA Platform so you can see real prompts from programs ahead of time and stop being caught off guard.

What I cover:

• Why supplemental essays carry more weight than people assume
• Tailoring answers to a program's mission without sounding like a brochure
• Explaining academic weaknesses without over-explaining
• Reusing material across programs the smart way
• Budgeting time for supplementals during a busy cycle
• Using the Supplemental Library to see prompts in advance

Resources:

Supplemental Application Library: https://www.thepaplatform.com/supplemental-library

Pre-PA Essay Review: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-essay-review

PA School Personal Statement Guide: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-school-personal-statement-guide

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

Mentioned in this episode:

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At this point in the cycle, your.

Applications should be making progress and it's.

Time to think about supplemental essays and get those submitted.

Let's talk about it 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.

I want to take a minute to address this week's sponsor of the podcast, Picmonic.

If you've been around a while, you've.

Heard me talk about Picmonic before.

If you're new, let me explain a.

Little bit about what it is.

So if you are getting ready to.

Start PA school, trying to figure out what resources you want to use, how you want to study, I highly recommend looking into Pigmonic to see if it's a good fit for you.

So what Pigmonic is is it's videos.

They're quick and effective two minute videos that help you to connect difficult to remember facts with unforgettable characters.

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Did I do that?

How does my brain remember that?

And I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.

That's what Pigmonic does.

It ties all the facts together into these ridiculously memorable stories.

So it's kind of fun.

Like, can we say studying is fun?

I don't know, but it's kind of fun.

And then you can test yourself through quizzes and make sure that you are retaining that information and understanding it.

So it's a really cool way to study that makes a lot of these concepts fit together in a way that you're not going to get from staring at a PowerPoint.

So I'll put the link in the description so that you can check that out and see if it seems like something that would work for your study methods and your learning style.

But highly recommend Picmonic as a great option to get you through PA School.

Use code the PA platform for 20% off at checkout.

All right, let's get into today's episode.

If you are new to the podcast, welcome to the Pre PA Club.

We have a Facebook group by the same name that we would love to have you in as well.

And I'm Savannah, your host, a dermatology PA who is currently on maternity leave and the founder of the PA platform.

So my goal is to make this process easier, less confusing, and hopefully just give you some guidance along the way.

I know not everyone has that advisor or person to kind of help them through the application process and figuring out what you need to do.

So it's been my goal to kind of be that for you if you don't have that person.

Today's episode comes from a webinar we did a while back where we talked about supplemental essays.

Now, these are very important.

I will talk about that.

But I want to reiterate that these are the questions that schools will ask you specifically, whether they're in caspa, some of them are, or they're sent to you afterwards or through a different website.

These questions are things that are important to the programs and so they should be important to you to answer.

And spend some time making sure that these are school specific and very thought out because the schools are really looking at these.

So we'll talk about supplementals.

We do offer supplemental essay editing.

Turnaround time is four days.

We're happy to help make sure you're on the right track.

We'll put the link to that in the description.

And all of the information on everything we have is on the paplatform.com we also talk about supplementals in the PA school personal statement Guide.

And we have some cool stuff coming up.

Speaking of which, our next webinar will be a live mock interview webinar, and that will be on July 27, if you're listening in real time.

So next Thursday at 8:30pm and these are really fun.

This is where we have volunteers come up and practice their questions and answers.

And we talk about it, give some feedback, and you can kind of see what a mock interview is like, see what a real interview is like.

And it's really.

I love seeing the chat kind of lift each other up and encourage each other.

So it's usually a pretty good time.

So I'd love for you to join us for that.

It's free and we'll put information for that in the description as well.

All right, let's get into hearing about supplementals.

Okay, so this is what I was talking about that was very exciting about.

Supplementals is on the website on the PA platform, and we can put it in the chat.

We have a new supplemental library.

We're still polishing it up a little bit and updating since the application just opened.

But this should be a resource that will be helpful for, I mean, this cycle you should be able to see everything, at least in CASPA mainly.

But once the application closes, it gets a little tough because you can't see supplementals.

And then if you are trying to kind of work on stuff or get ideas for what you need.

It can make it hard.

So this is on the website.

It's under Resources.

If you go there, you'll find the supplemental library and you can, you know, find each program and click on it and then it'll show you the supplementals prompts most recently that they've had.

And again, we're kind of updating a few things that should be done this week, but wanted to go ahead and tell you about that.

And this is just a new reference for you guys?

Yes, hopefully it's helpful.

No, it's definitely something I've been asked about a lot over the years, so hopefully that is helpful to you guys.

Okay, so as far as supplementals, not every school is going to have a supplemental.

Some of them are going to be in the program materials on CASPA and some will be separate on the program websites.

Some schools will not send you their supplemental until you've submitted your caspa.

So you'll submit CASPA and then get your supplemental afterwards.

So just double check.

These should be very school specific.

I've been editing some this year that I would say my biggest feedback I've been giving is make it more school specific.

And I don't know if the reason they haven't been is because they're trying to use the same answer for multiple questions, which sometimes you can kind of do.

But in general, these should really, you know, for each school be tailored to what that school offers and has the character and word limits vary greatly, as do the deadlines.

And you'll see that in some of these examples, some of these will be extremely short, some of them will be a page and you'll have multiple.

It just depends.

All right, so here's a couple prompt examples.

And again, you can go on the supplemental library and see a bunch more examples now, but a lot of times they're going to be asking more about your experience, more about their mission statement, why you fit for a specific program.

And again, the character limit, word limit can vary a lot for these.

All right, so let's jump into one.

Seen a few questions.

So yeah, if a question is about explaining low grades or gaps in school, can you use the same answer for multiple programs?

Yeah.

Yes.

Ish.

So you can probably use some of the same answer for multiple programs.

You just want to make sure that it's asked, that it's answering the prompt the way it's asked.

So if it's asked a little differently, you want to tailor it to that and make sure you're answering all of that prompt.

And so, yeah, that's important.

If I'm a reapplicant, is it a good idea to write new supplementals?

I would revisit your supplementals and see if you have any new examples to add.

So here's my thing as a re applicant is you really have to decide if or look at, you know, is what I did the first time, like, was anything the reason I wasn't accepted?

So if you got a ton of interviews, that's a good thing.

That tells us your application was where it needs to be and you need to work on interview skills.

If you didn't get a ton of interviews, then yeah, you probably need to revisit a lot more in your application and figure out where your weaknesses are.

So it's just a gray area that it's kind of hard to say 100% and then I see.

Can you repeat things said on your personal statement in your supplemental?

I would not repeat anything directly from anywhere on your application elsewhere on your application.

So I would not copy and paste a anything from your personal statement from your experience details into any other part of your application.

You can expand on things that you've talked about, But yes, I would not copy and paste anything.

All right, so here we go.

How has your healthcare experience and or community service activities influenced your decision to become a physician assistant?

This has a 200 word limit and this person answered in 199 words.

Okay.

All right, here we go.

I have long desired the capability to, to serve underserved and minority patient populations.

Initially sparked by my studies in Spanish while volunteering at a free clinic.

Okay, I was further inspired.

This is good, like proof that they've already done it.

I was further inspired by watching colleagues assess patients entirely in Spanish, both then and now.

One of the small joys in my work is the moment patients eyes light up when they realize that I can communicate with them in their native language.

I, I hate the word that, even if only a few phrases.

As a future pa, I strive to aid these patients by facilitating cultural competence, accessibility and navigation of the healthcare system.

Okay, let's take a break there.

So when I'm reading these, I constantly go back to the prompt and that's what you have to do.

Like am I answering the prompt directly?

So going back to that, how has your healthcare experience in our community service activities influenced your decision to become a pa?

So the.

So I think that's, that's right on, like they're telling us about their volunteering, where it was.

They're not reiterating you know, what they did there.

They're kind of telling more about what they saw with the patients and how that has influenced them.

So this one was actually interesting because this was somebody who had been in PA school before and was dismissed and is reapplying.

For months after my dismissal, I grieved the loss of the career I'd worked toward for five years, which suddenly dissipated within the last six months of my program.

It was only after I started attending a new church and serving in ministry that I took my first steps towards recovery.

I pushed myself outside my comfort zone by becoming a youth group leader and singing for worship in front of hundreds of people.

By finding and serving a community I could call my own, I regained the confidence and resolve necessary to continue pursuing a career as a pa.

So this part is a little bit not necessary so that this isn't to me, a community service activity as much, I guess kind of with serving as a youth group leader would be community service.

This is more about like finding community versus community service.

So I would probably try to either rephrase the focus of that and then think about how this has influenced that decision to become a pa, because that's what we're getting to is, you know, how has whatever experience you've had push you towards pa so I'd want to know a little bit more about that.

And again, this is a kind of specific situation, but overall kind of well, well written and on the right track.

This part could just use some polishing.

I.

Okay, so this one is a thousand character limit.

If you feel there are deficiencies in any part of your application as a result of life circumstances, please explain those issues and how you have effectively addressed them.

So when we're talking about deficiencies that can be pretty broad and that's, you know, up to you to determine what those weaknesses are.

I think the first thing everyone thinks of is grades, which it can be.

That can also be any, like, gaps in education gaps and experience that you may want to clarify.

Okay.

During my undergraduate career, I dedicated my time to helping patients in the training room.

I don't know what that means.

I would want some context there research and completing community service.

As a result, less time went towards studying and my grades suffered.

So we're getting into grades at Moorpark.

I was disciplined and my academic performance improved.

Great.

Great.

My focus was derived from envisioning how the information I learned would help future patients.

I like that.

That's positive.

This vision sustained me through my informal post baccalaureate and will continue to do so in PA school.

I'M confident in my ability to understand medicine and apply the information accordingly.

I love a good confidence statement and I like that.

So, yeah, I like.

I like it when essays show good confidence.

At Moorpark College, I maintained a 4.0 grade point average.

Great.

You could probably, for a supplemental, I would say, like, just do GPA.

Improve my academic abilities through the 35 units I completed.

Great.

That's huge.

PA school will be time consuming.

However, I'm confident I will remain focused on the courses and excel with the same discipline I learned at Morpor College.

Okay, so I like.

I think this was a good way of addressing this.

I would possibly want a little bit more in regards to the grade suffering and maybe having that stated, like, what that means.

Sometimes I feel like if you don't, it's a fine line because it's like if you don't provide enough information, your reader may assume that the worst.

And I tend to be that person where I'm like, assuming their transcript is terrible and they have all these issues when then I go and look at it and it actually isn't that bad.

So I kind of want to know, like, did they suffer the whole time?

Do they suffer just at the beginning?

Like, what is that?

What does suffering mean to you?

Is that like a few Fs?

Is that a rough semester?

Is that two Cs?

Like, this is just not, I wouldn't say specific enough or across the board.

It can vary a ton.

So I just want to know more about, like, what that means to you.

And, and I think especially in your supplementals, especially when there's a small character limit, just being very direct and concise is.

Is important.

So just being direct, like telling them what it is, kind of like with your personal statement.

Same with supplementals, in that you can't assume that that person has your application in front of them or that they're going to go back and look through it for stuff.

CASPA application is like 25 to 35 pages long.

So they may not take the time when they're reading through hundreds of these essays to go back through and look at your grades.

By the time they're reading your supplementals, they have most likely already decided that you have kind of met the benchmarks they're looking for and the requirements.

Your application hasn't been weeded out, that kind of stuff.

So just the more information you can provide, the better.

Yeah.

So someone said, can you say, I have no deficiencies I want to address?

That's an interesting question because I just feel that there's always.

Unless you have every single experience category filled out and your grades are perfect, then I would expect you to address a weakness.

And I think that just shows self awareness to be able to do that.

So let's see.

Okay, I'm seeing a lot of questions.

Okay, hold on.

I'm trying to go back.

Should we mention mental health if that was a reason for deficiencies?

Can we mention a family medical emergency?

Okay, so this is where you have to decide how.

How open, vulnerable you want to be.

We want to just be very direct with what happened and explain it without making any excuses.

And I've read essays that do this well and I've read essays that don't.

So I think if you just kind of state the facts of like this is what was going on at that time, that tends to be pretty, you know, straightforward versus if you like, start going into a bunch of details or like too much detail can kind of make it seem like you're making excuses.

So which isn't.

Isn't necessarily the case.

You just have to like walk a fine line of like stating facts and giving enough information versus going too far.

So I think it's going to be on a case by case basis.

And also, like, it's just hard because it depends on like, I just have people who feel like one C means that their application is doomed and terrible and that they need to address it when really that's probably not going to keep them from getting an interview or be that big of a deficiency.

And then other people have like rougher semesters or years or whatever that they do need to address.

And we just want to do that very, very tactfully.

So that is a case by case kind of, kind of basis.

I saw another one.

I don't know where I went.

Okay, okay, we're gonna.

Yeah, this is tough because this is gaining like we're talking about how to use supplementals, not necessarily like deficiencies on your app right now.

So this is showing understanding of the PA profession.

So let's see what we did here.

Okay.

Trained in general medicine and to take medical histories, perform physical examinations, prescribe medications, diagnose, order diagnostic tests, educate patients and assist in surgery.

PAs can serve a diverse patient population in various medical specialties and settings.

That was a lot.

I probably try to start a little more tactfully with like some type of little intro there, like move that I would probably switch some of that wording around.

With the increasing healthcare demand, aging population, and physician shortage, PAS generalist training equips them to work with the supervising.

We want to use collaborating to help increase access to care by taking on specific responsibilities and handling more common and routine patient cases so this collaborating physician can focus on addressing more complicated patient cases.

We need to talk about that.

As PAs gain more clinical experience, knowledge, and skills, they can take on more complex patient cases and responsibilities as delegated by the collaborating physician.

Their dynamic collaboration with physicians and other healthcare professionals allows more patients to be seen promptly, treated effectively, and highly satisfied with their care.

Okay, that was a lot of words.

Okay, this sounds to me.

And I don't know this, I don't know this, but this almost sounds to me like somebody plugged this into chat GPT and like, spit this out.

Like, this does not sound personalized at all.

So we said, why collaborating instead of supervising in general?

Just with the way the PA profession has changed, collaborating is the more accepted term.

A lot of PAs don't work, like, under a supervising physician.

Like, I work in collaboration.

My doctor is never, like, like, watching what I'm doing.

She's just there if I need her kind of thing.

So it's just semantics, but some academic people can get caught up on that.

Okay, so let's see if we think first, if they've answered the prompt.

So describing the role of the PA as a provider and as part of the healthcare team, those are the two things we're looking.

We also, yeah, we're not using physician associate yet.

We're using assistant.

Until all of the states and schools that you're applying to adopt associates.

Like, if you're only applying to Yale, you can use associate.

If you are applying anywhere else, we want to stick with physician assistant and we want to go with whatever the school is using if they, like, use a specific term.

Okay,.

So.

As a provider, we are told what PAs do as a provider, kind of getting into being in the health care team here, I would just like, like, this just doesn't.

Like, this doesn't seem like if I asked you this question in an interview, I don't think this is what you would tell me.

And so I would want a more humanized answer about what this is.

And this is where pulling from your personal experience will help you make this answer better.

So if you have worked with a pa, if you've shadowed a pa, being able to talk about that incorporating an example or a story of what you've seen is going to be much more dynamic and much more memorable than this.

So I think, you know, I, I, there's a, there's just a lot of jargon here without anything personal at all.

Yeah.

So the stuff is there, but I would not say this is a strong or personal answer, is like a cookie cutter answer.

So we want to make it more personal with using your own experience.

All right, since our last example,.

What.

Will you bring to the Sacred Heart University PA program in the PA professions?

This one didn't, they didn't say what the limit was.

And this one specific, specifically asking about a specific program.

So let's get into it.

I feel I have a lot to offer to the Sacred Heart University PA program.

So first of all, I love that they're starting with addressing the program.

I read one of these recently for a program that they didn't even mention the program to like the last sentence and it just seemed very general and not specific to the program, which is a problem.

I am a Sacred Heart alumni.

That's great, like huge plus who is very determined and hard working.

Something I've had to learn from a young age.

I've always enjoyed learning and take my studies very seriously.

So just compared to the last answer, which was asking for more of a definition, but still, like this is already such a more like personal, real response.

Through my healthcare experiences, I've gained many skills which include integrity, honesty and compassion.

There's a lot of listing here.

I don't really like listing, but it's asking what you bring and I get that you're trying to show these strengths, so it's okay.

We just want to think about like trying to show versus tell as much as possible.

I'm fortunate to have many direct patient contact hours through volunteering with the EMS and working as a medical assistant in a dermatology practice.

Great experience that you're bringing with you.

Through these experiences I developed good communication skills and I'm empathetic towards patients.

My mission is to provide the best care to those who are in pain and suffering.

I've also received a lot of hands on training such as basic life support, phlebotomy or sutures, and much more, which I would be thrilled to teach and help my fellow classmates with.

Love this.

Love talking about your classmates and it just feels genuine.

I really like it.

Okay.

1200 Characters.

Somebody helped us out.

Thanks, Jamie.

I've always believed that teamwork is better than working alone and that much more can be accomplished when people work together.

Therefore, I have many qualities to bring to the SHU PA program and ultimately to the PA profession.

So I just.

I think this is a great answer.

Like, this is just very personalized, very genuine.

I think focusing on what you bring to the class, focusing on skills, focusing on specific knowledge, you bring strengths.

I think this is a great answer.

And I think, you know, the focus is more on what they bring to the program than necessarily the profession.

But they kind of tie it in here, and that's good.

There's not a ton I would change here.

I'd probably say, like, try to avoid the listing.

Try to show those things a little bit more, which I think they did through talking about examples.

But overall, this is on the right track.

Just needs a little polishing and a little bit more specifics.

The program material section on CASPA is where a lot of supplementals are, but then some will be on program websites as well.

So you kind of need to check both if there's not anything in caspa.

All right, so we're at an hour.

I know y' all had lots of questions that did not get to.

But we will work on those this week.

We'll post in the stories on Instagram, try to answer as many as we can.

And then we're working on putting together kind of a blog post, too.

And there's stuff in the workbook, but I'm gonna call it for tonight.

I don't know how to turn my screen off or get rid of this presentation.

There we go.

We're gonna call it for tonight.

Hopefully, that was helpful and not too overwhelming, but we'll keep talking about experience details and supplementals and just the application process in general.

If you've missed our last webinars, they are up on YouTube, and this one will be as well, and you'll get the replay, so you can kind of review that.

And hopefully the supplemental library will be helpful for you.

And we'll just keep on.

Keep trying to make it easier.

Right, guys?

All right, thanks, guys.

Hope you have a good week.