Application season makes smart people panic. Let's bring the temperature down.

This is a Q&A on CASPA and personal statements, answering the questions I get asked most this time of year.

First, the shape of the thing. CASPA has four sections: personal information, academic history, supporting information, and program materials. That's it. It feels enormous because it's tedious, not because it's complicated. Work through it one section at a time.

Then personal statements, with a focus on reapplicants. If you're applying again, your essay cannot be last year's essay with a new opening line. Programs remember, and some of them keep your old application. Show what's changed - new hours, new coursework, a clearer sense of why you're doing this.

Growth is the whole story for a reapplicant. Tell it.

What I answer:

• The four sections of CASPA and what goes where
• Where people get stuck and lose weeks
• How much a reapplicant should rewrite
• Demonstrating growth since your last cycle
• Which experiences to log and how to describe them
• What to do when you're not sure you're ready to submit

Resources:

Free PA School Application Timeline: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-application-timeline

Free Personal Statement Worksheet: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-personal-statement-worksheet-download

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

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

Mentioned in this episode:

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We're bringing in some Q and A about CASPA and personal statements to make sure you feel prepared and have all of your questions answered and can get your application in asap.

It is time.

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.

Hey guys, I want to tell you.

About a resource that you need to.

Know about if you are going to.

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So you can go to rochereview.com and I'll put all the links in the description.

But from the pre PA side you're looking at resources for the PA cat for refreshing your knowledge before PA school and then once we get into PA school, amazing qbanks for Didactic year, making sure you're on track.

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And then one of the new things that Roche is doing is a pants review course, which is live and extremely helpful for anyone getting ready to take their boards or recertify, which is what.

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So Roches are fantastic.

So check out the Raash Review, QBANX and all of their [email protected] if you.

Have any questions, feel free to reach.

Out to me and all of that information will be in the description as well.

All right, we're still moving on with this webinar series that we've been doing and if you missed our interview webinar it will be up on YouTube.

If you'd like to watch that before it hits the podcast.

But we are into June, we are into application season, interviews are going out, and I want to make sure that we are all on track.

Today's episode will be part of our webinar on CASPA and personal Statements where we just answered questions and it was a little bit wild.

There were lots of questions.

But I think this episode should help give you some direction, especially if you're just feeling stuck, stuck right now.

This is an overwhelming process.

It can be stressful.

It can feel like it's hard to find the information you need.

So I hope with this insight, it gives you a little clarity, answers some of the questions you have.

And this is part one.

We'll have part two coming up in a couple weeks.

And this should give you that boost you need to get your application done, your personal statement done, get it submitted, and then enter that waiting game of waiting to hear back about interviews.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out on Instagram.

We are happy to answer and happy to try to point you in the right direction.

And we love hearing when people get interviews, get acceptances.

It's very exciting to get to kind of celebrate together.

So keep those coming as well.

All right, let's jump in to.

To hearing today's episode.

If you are a reapplicant, what should you be doing in your personal statement the second or third or whatever time you're applying?

This is tough because we have to look at, there's some gray area there of was your application ever looked at?

Did they ever read your personal statement?

If you did not get any interviews, then chances are maybe they didn't.

You want to recheck the requirements, make sure that you kind of met all of that when you applied the first time.

If you did get interviews, that's a great sign.

And it does mean they read your personal statement and that it was on track and good.

But as a reapplicant, you do want to be able to show what's different in your application.

What you've done done, how you've grown, how you've matured, what you've learned.

And that doesn't mean that your reasons for wanting to become a PA will have changed, because they probably won't.

You probably have those same overarching reasons you're choosing this.

But if you can show what's different, if you can maybe use different stories, different examples, that may help.

In most cases.

I do think your applications will be compared.

And if you, if you just submit the exact same essay that looks a little lazy.

And it's kind of like, if it didn't work the first time, why would you just do the same thing again and expect it to work?

So I do recommend changing it, editing it, modifying it, get some different eyes on it, but you don't necessarily have to change the entire thing.

Okay, so that's like a lot of the personal statement questions are about that.

Let's see.

Okay, I clearly need to address that more.

Like, I think we actually have a blog post about writing your personal statement as a reapplicant.

So that may be helpful too, if you're in that situation.

Okay, so, Okay, should I explain what I did to improve my low GPA in my personal statement, even though my secondaries also address this?

So the way I think about it is, if there's any type of red flag that you think could hold you back from getting an interview, it is worth at least briefly addressing in your personal statement.

You don't have to dedicate a lot of space to it, but if you can just put a little bit about that in there, that may give you enough so that they read your supplementals.

Because if it's a low GPA thing, you know, they may not even get to the point where they read your supplementals if they're questioning whether or not academically you're ready for PA school.

So if you can include a little bit about that in your personal statement, then you can use your supplementals to expand on it and provide more details and description of what happened and what you've done and what you've learned and how it won't be a problem in the future.

So there's a little bit of both there, not necessarily an either or situation.

Okay, I like this one a lot because I think I get asked this a lot.

In your personal statement, is it okay to briefly mention a negative healthcare experience that led you to wanting to become a pa?

So, yes and no.

Yes and no.

We all have had positive and negative medical experiences and different providers and different people we've interacted with.

The one thing you have to be a little cautious of is throwing an entire profession under the bus because of your experience and elevating another profession because of your experience.

There are great doctors, there are great PAs, there are bad doctors, and they're bad PAs.

There.

You know, there's a lot of different types of providers out there.

And so you can't say from one experience that everyone in that category is the same.

So in this case, I think, yes, like, you can discuss what happened, I would focus on the positive.

So if what came out of that was you found out about the profession, you were introduced to PAs, focus on that.

Don't be like, oh, the doctor just wouldn't listen to me and gave me the wrong diagnosis.

And so all doctors are terrible, and I could never be a doctor because of that.

Like, that's not right.

Like, if anything that make you want to be the doctor, to be the one that is the one doing the right thing, but not necessarily.

Same thing with PAs, like, you know, it just.

You don't want to.

In general, in your personal statement, you don't want to be negative.

You just want to keep it positive as much as possible.

So it's all about how you focus it.

So I think that's a lot of.

When we're editing, we kind of have to shift that perspective a little bit to, like, yes, I fully understand you had this terrible experience.

I've had some of my own, I can tell you.

But, you know, focus on the good that came out of it and, like, what you learned and how it's brought you to this point and how it relates to the prompt.

So we're not going to, like, rant about whatever happened.

We're going to focus on the outcome.

Okay, Quickly, let's address the COVID essay.

Will it be on this application cycle?

We don't know.

We won't know until it opens again.

I could see it being on this application cycle.

I think it probably will, but I could also see this being the last year that it's on there.

Do schools look at the COVID essay?

No one knows.

Some schools probably do.

Some schools probably don't consider at all.

Some schools haven't really considered.

And so it just depends on the program.

They may or may not kind of disclose that.

That being said, if the COVID essay is an option, I do typically recommend keeping most of your discussion about COVID in that essay and not making your personal statement about it.

So it's like they're giving you the spot to talk about how your application was affected and what it changed, if anything.

So you don't want to take up that space in your personal statement unless it's extremely relevant to you wanting to become a pa, which at this point, I think it definitely could be.

And I was like, this is a little weird.

Because it just happened not even six months ago.

And you're making it this big focus, but you probably should have.

It seems like you decided before then, and so it just was weird.

So if it's a big part of your story, include it.

But you may have that other opportunity to talk about it.

Also talked about that.

Okay, couple more here.

Do you need to answer why PA vs NP in your personal statement?

Not necessarily.

So if that was a big part of your decision and you were kind of deciding between the two and for some reason decided to go pa, then yes, explain that thought process.

But if you didn't really consider a nurse practitioner or nursing, then you don't need to explain that or validate that.

I don't think I talked about nursing at all in my personal statement.

For me, it did not make sense.

And by the time I kind of finished freshman year and decided pa, like, I would have had to change a lot of stuff to become a nursing major and kind of backtrack some stuff.

So, you know, some people that will be the case.

Same thing with med school.

It may have been a consideration for you.

Totally fine if it was, but also totally fine if it wasn't.

So you have to decide where your focus is going to be.

And I think of these, I talk about it in the personal statement guide here.

So if you are still, you're still trying to work on your personal statement.

I talk about in the personal statement guide, like these pivotal moments of what pushed you.

I think I've talked about this in every webinar.

What pushed you to the PA profession or away from it.

And so you want to think about like, I like visualize them as kind of these paths that you take.

That's kind of a fork in the road.

And you can either go towards the PA profession or away from it.

And you know, you may have not really like a straight path, and that's okay, but those are the things you want to focus on.

So don't think.

You don't have to do anything forced.

Okay.

And then some questions about supplementals which we will absolutely get to later on.

So.

Okay, I see some questions from the chat about personal statements, too.

We'll stand this for a couple more minutes.

Should.

So in your personal statement, should you explicitly state that you're a re applicant?

You don't have to say I'm a re applicant, but you can say, you know, since applying last cycle or whatever, and allude to it in some way.

A school will only see you as a reapplicant if you have previously submitted an application to their program.

So when you log into CASPA in this cycle, if you have entered information, it will give you an option to pull it forward.

And technically, CASPA will call you a reapplicant.

But the schools are not going to consider your reapplicant unless you've applied there previously.

Now, if you've applied to some schools before and some not, then I think it's still fine to talk about being a reapplicant in your essay.

You just have to be able to explain why you didn't apply to their program before and why you are applying there.

Now would be my thoughts.

Okay, another good personal statement question here.

What should you be referring to PAs as in your personal statement?

For now, we are still using Physician Assistant.

Until every state or the states that you're applying to and will work in, and every program you're applying to adopts physician associate, you will stay with Physician Assistant.

Now, the caveat to that is if you're working on a supplemental for a school that uses physician associate, then use that terminology.

So, like, for example, Yale Online uses that.

So you would want to use physician associate in their supplementals and applications, but otherwise just stick to physician assistant mpa and that's totally fine.

Can you just write pa?

So in your personal statement, the first time that you write out physician assistant, it should be written out fully with PA and abbreviations.

If you go back and watch the live editing, we talked about that a little bit and the proper way to do that.

But it is a formal essay, so anything that you're abbreviating, you want to write out the first time, put in parentheses, and then you can use the abbreviation the rest of the time in your essay.

All right, I think that's a lot of these.

Cool.

Well, we can put the link in the chat for edit for pre PA editing.

Somebody asked about that because, yeah, editing we edit for content's the big one.

And then grammar flow, but really like content making sure that you're on track.

And usually turnaround times like three to four days.

So we get it back to you pretty quick.

And hopefully that will help you out with getting on track with your essay.

Okay, I'm gonna go back.

I want to make sure these questions from the chat really get answered.

So I'm gonna kind of go through these and look at them a little bit and then go into some cast ones that were submitted.

And all these links will go out in the email we send afterwards, too.

I think they may have gone out in the warning time email I'm not for sure.

We're going to cover a lot of these, actually.

Okay.

Okay, cool.

I'm gonna go back up to CASPA questions and then we will get to more of those, but I think we're going to cover a lot of them.

All right, let's talk about caspa.

So how many sections are in the application?

There are four different sections, technically, and then they all have little subsections.

So your personal information is like your biographic stuff, really straightforward contact information, not too hard.

Then you have your academic portion and this is going to be all of your schooling.

So entering in high school, college as you've attended, transcripts, and you do transcript entry where you enter in all the courses that you've taken into caspa, even though they have your transcript.

So you have to enter all that in.

Then you have your supporting information and that's where you'll put things like experience and evaluations, which is what they call letters of recommendation, licenses, certifications, your personal statement, anything kind of extra goes in there.

And the fourth section is program materials.

Not all programs have their materials through caspa, but some will.

So some will have their supplementals on there where you can put in your essays.

Some will have you assign prereqs for them.

Other schools will do that outside of caspa.

So you want to make sure you check the program websites and.

But that's kind of the four areas of CASA that you'll need to focus on.

It is a bit time intensive to enter everything in.

It'll take you a little while.

Please do not feel like you have to submit day one, day two, even day three or four.

Give yourself a moment, like, work on the application, set aside time.

Great.

And then take.

Take a step away and come back to it.

So I see a lot of mistakes made and I get emails where people are freaking out because they put in a placeholder for an experience and they forgot to fix it and they submitted or they forgot to add something in.

And once you've submitted, a lot of CASPA kind of gets locked and you can't edit it.

There are things you can add, but you can't change things.

So that would be one of my biggest tips is just, you know, start it, work on it early.

Yes.

But take a step away for a couple days, like give yourself a minute and then get back to it.

Okay, Let's talk about timing because this is also an area of getting a lot of questions about, especially on Instagram right now it is mid March, so should you be sending in documents like Test scores and transcripts and things like that.

So there is a time.

Let me see if I can find the actual date.

There is a time where CASPA stops accepting any documents.

And so if your document does not make it by that time, there is a higher likelihood than not that it will not get connected to your account and then you'll just have to resend it later.

So this happens with sending GRE scores and with transcripts.

So let's see.

April 7th is the last date that your transcripts and official test scores are matched to your application.

So if they are not in by April 7, then they're not going to be in.

So GRE scores take about two weeks to get back.

Transcripts vary a lot.

It can be a few days up to a few weeks, depending on how it's requested through your school or registrar's office.

So.

So this is a little bit of a risky time.

If you are sending things to caspa, you also have to have a CASPA account for those documents to be sent.

So you want to have a Casper account set up and then you can send your documents.

But just know that there is again a chance that stuff does not get connected if it's not there.

So somebody said if we send in transcripts now to be verified, will they roll over to next cycle?

Your application is only verified when you submit to a school, so pretty much all the school's deadlines have passed.

I actually don't even know if they would let you work on anything now, because you have to be able to choose a school to work on your application.

There may be one that you can do, but.

So the only way you actually get verified is if you submitted to a program.

So your application should still be there next cycle in your application if they do make it in time, but they will not be verified until you submit to that first program.

If you have submitted in the past and have verified transcripts when you pull forward, if you decide to pull everything forward, the transcripts will still be verified.

And then if you add any coursework, that will just be verified when you submit for the second time.

Sorry, I feel like that was confusing.

I said verified a lot of times.

So can you make it a Casper account so you can make a Casper account at any time?

I believe you can still make one right now.

Again, like, you have to be able to assign a program, so I'm just not for sure how much they would let you work on it.

I haven't tried to sign in lately to my CASPA account, but you can make A casting account if you just kind of want to, like, check it out, see what's up.

This is that weird limbo period right now where I just would not.

I just wouldn't do a lot in there because you just.

It may or may not.

Well, there's stuff that'll stick, but, like, I wouldn't send a lot.

And I don't recommend saving stuff in Casper.

Like, it should be saved elsewhere, not in caspa.

Okay, so getting some questions.

There's some confusion.

I thought you cannot pull over new.

I thought you cannot pull over information from the previous cycle into the new cycle.

Doesn't it get wiped clean?

No.

So when you go into CASPA the second time or like with the new cycle opens, you'll be given a choice to wipe your account clean or pull forward your information.

And then you can choose which sections too.

If you do that, there's going to be usually about a 24 hour period where you cannot access the application.

And they will email you when it's ready and when you can sign in so you can pull stuff forward.

Letters of recommendation, do not pull forward.

Personal statements, do not pull forward.

Experiences, transcripts, grades, that stuff, personal information, all of that should pull forward.

And then someone said, I thought transcripts couldn't be sent over until the application opens.

They can be.

They just have to.

You have to have an account and then they have to be received again by April 7 to be connected to your account and uploaded in your application.

So I'm taking the GRE this week.

Should I not send my test score to Casper right now?

We'll see how many, how long we have till April 7th.

If you're taking it this week, I would try to send it.

Just know that it may or may not work.

So you get those five free things.

Five free sins.

So I would use those.

Just know, like, if you're taking it on Friday, there's a chance that it may not be in.

In time to be connected.

And then do not ask for letters right now.

Do not request letters until the cycle reopens in April.

If we pull forward, it can't be edited right.

Parts of it can and parts of it cannot.

I believe experiences can be, but the transcript stuff, if it's already verified, it cannot.

Why would I need to enter the courses I took manually if I have my transcript sent to them from the school?

Because they do not do it for you.

You can pay them to do it, but otherw you have to do it.

Ask them why.

I don't know.

Okay.

After April 7th we can't send transcripts or GRE scores correct.

So if I'm taking the GRE after April 7th for this cycle, it won't count.

It'll count.

You just won't be able to.

Actually, you can try sending your scores, but there's a chance that you may have to pay to have them sent later.

Are you referring to this cycle for the deadline to send scores?

Yes.

So Emily put the link in there to look at.

So CASPA has all of these dates listed in their faq.

I'm going to put it in there again.

So I recommend everyone looking at this so you can see.

So nothing?

Not for the upcoming cycle, no.

So this is all this is for people who want to get ahead again.

If it were me, let's say I'm applying in this upcoming cycle, I would not be sending anything right this moment.

If I happen to be taking the gre, I would try to send those scores, but I would know that there's a chance they wouldn't get connected to my account and I'd have to send them again anyway.

But I would not be sending my transcripts right now.

I would be waiting until CASP opens in April.

Or if you still have classes in progress, you need to wait until those are done if you want them to be verified on your application.

So this is something I say, I feel like a gazillion times every cycle, if you.

The first time you submit your application in caspa, they will verify your application, verify your transcripts and calculate your GPAs.

That is done one time per cycle.

And if you add more courses or send more transcripts, they are not going to verify those classes and they will not change your GPAs.

So if you want your spring classes included, if you're taking a summer class that you need verified for school because it's a prereq or they require it, you need to wait until those classes are complete on your transcripts to enter them in and send them to CASPA and to submit for it to be verified.

So there you go.

Okay, so.

So it says.

Okay, so it says you.

The last date you can create an account for this cycle is April 3rd.

But if you have an account, you'll still be able to sign in after April 14th.

You won't be able to sign in anymore.

But again, like, none of this really, like, I wouldn't even worry about this if you're not applying right this moment.

No, if you clear out your psych, if you clear everything out, Casper will not mark you as a reapplicant and even if Casper marks you as a reapplicant, schools do not see you as a reapplicant.

Like, all this kind of, like, makes sense.

No, we're.

No.

When you look at the dates and look at everything and when you sign in.

So we're gonna move on with questions, but I recommend everyone, too.

Like, I don't think I've said this.

This webinar.

Read the entire CASPA faq, the entire thing, from start to finish.

Read all of it and then read it again.

And then anytime you have a specific CASPA question, go straight to the faq, because most of the time, it explains it.

So when you email me or message me a question, I'm going to the CASPA FAQ to find the answer.

Usually I know it, but I want a reference for you.

And so go to the CASPA faq.

And then CASPA is actually really responsive.

Twitter calling, Facebook, you can talk to them, ask questions if there's any.

Any issues.

So you should not send any letters of recommendation until CASPA opens at the end of April.

I don't know how to say that differently.

If you send a letter right now for next cycle, you will have to ask for it again because it will be deleted no matter what.

So you can't save letters.

You can't use interfolio.

They have to be directly entered by your letter writer each cycle through email.

Okay.

Okay, I think we covered that.

Let's go through some, like, quick ones.

Is there a word count for extracurriculars?

So experience details.

The character limit for experience details is 600 characters, including spaces.

So that's about a paragraph.

Gives you enough space to explain kind of what your role was, what the setting was, what you did, what you learned.

And really, I think of these as, like, mini personal statements so that you can relate it back to why you want to be a PA essentially.

All right, that's part one for today.

Next week we have a faculty interview, and then we'll be back with part two.

And don't forget, they are on YouTube if you want to check everything out there.