Part two of the Q&A, and this one gets into the weeds of CASPA coursework entry.

This is the tedious part that quietly costs people. How you categorize a class changes which GPA it lands in. A course called "Human Biology" and a course called "Biology of Humans" might get sorted differently depending on the subject you assign it, and your science GPA moves with it.

So be accurate, be consistent, and use your transcript's own language. Don't creatively reclassify things to make your science GPA look better. CASPA verifies, and getting flagged is worse than a lower number.

We also cover AP credit, which confuses everybody. Whether it counts depends on the program, and some won't accept AP for prerequisites at all. Check each one.

And send in your grades. Waiting on one transcript stalls verification for the whole thing.

What I answer:

• Categorizing coursework and how it changes your GPA
• Which classes count as science on CASPA
• AP credit and whether programs accept it for prereqs
• Submitting grades and transcripts on time
• Common CASPA entry mistakes that trigger delays
• More personal statement questions from listeners

Resources:

CASPA GPA Calculator: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-school-caspa-gpa-calculator

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

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 back with our part two of the pre PA Q&A, going over CASPA and personal statements and answering all of your questions.

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.

Welcome back to the Prepa Club Podcast.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry and I'm so glad you are taking some time to join us to go over some of the questions that we didn't get to in the last episode.

So if you missed out.

A couple weeks ago, part one of this podcast episode went live and the webinar is on YouTube if you'd prefer to watch it.

But we just go through and answer a lot of your questions about CASPA and personal statements.

This webinar, to be honest, was a little overwhelming because there were so many questions.

But that's okay.

That's what we're here for.

Trying to make the process easier and we know that it can just be a lot.

So I hope that this helps to, you know, curb some of your fears, take away some of the stress and, and answer some of the questions you have.

If you have more questions, we do have a new resource called the Pre PA Workbook, which is quite a large book, it's like the size of a textbook, but it goes through every single question you could have about CASPA about the PA school application process and just tries to make this a lot easier for you so that you can hopefully get through it without quite, quite as much stress.

That is available on Amazon and you can, you know, get it, use prime shipping and all that fun stuff.

So we'll jump into these questions as always.

We have so much, so much, so many resources on the PA platform available to you beyond this podcast.

So make sure you're taking advantage of that.

Be on the lookout on social media for any upcoming webinars and events.

Get on our email list so you don't miss out.

We're going to have some live mock interviews coming up as well as some new resources we'll be sharing later on in the summer and just some cool stuff planned.

And then if you would like to attend an in person event, I've mentioned it, I think on the podcast before, but in October I'm planning on being in Baltimore for mappedcon, which is a pre health conference and there are really great pre PA talks.

We'll link that in the description so that you can check that out and see if it works with your schedule.

I would love to meet you in person there and hopefully make some connections with PA school programs and test prep people and all these different exhibitors that are coming.

If you've never been to a conference, it is a great place to network and meet people and kind of get face to face versus some of the online kind of info sessions.

But we'll jump into today's episode and I hope you enjoy it and we'll do more of these in the future, so be on the lookout.

Our supplementals just questions portions in Casper.

Entirely different apps.

Sometimes they're entirely separate, sometimes they're just in caspa.

Okay, this is important for us to talk about.

So when you are inputting your classes in your academic history section, how important is it that your subject matches the class and how do you decide?

So I have a YouTube video where I walk through this because it gets really confusing and this can be very, very important for your science versus non science GPAs.

So you want to make sure it's correct.

And there are some cases where you can use a little leeway with this and then there are times where you cannot.

So CASPA has an entire list of course subjects and that has all these different titles listed.

But it's important to note that CASPA goes by the title of the course first, so it's listed on your transcript as the title and then the subject.

So, so if the title doesn't have something that fits, then it goes to the subject.

CASPA does not care what you actually learned in the class.

If it says psych, it is a psych class and that is a non science.

If it says biostats, that is a non science.

So when you're assigning these classes, you want to make sure that you're going by that title first.

So when I do a GPA calculation and I'm putting stuff in, I have that core subject list up and if there's one that's questionable, I search for the title and see if there's anything that comes up.

If there is, then I use that.

If not, we move on to the course subject.

There are some that are like other, other health professions, other health.

Other course like that are a little bit general.

If it just really doesn't fit with anything like that's a weird kind of like intern type class or freshman seminar kind of thing.

And so you do want to do this correctly because again it goes towards your science and non science gpa.

So there are a few cases when I've been doing GPA calculations where someone will have a course that's like, technically it's a public health class and it's like health management.

So like, management is non science, but then that title also says health.

And so in that case, like, you can decide and just know that they might change it.

So let's say you got a B in the class.

You could choose to put it under management and that's going to be a non science.

Or let's say you got an A in the class and you could try to put it under health and get that A as part of your science gpa.

So there is, you know, some deciding there of what needs to fit where, but essentially you want to go by the title first and then the subject and then sometimes you really can't.

I get emails that are like, oh, but this class was a science class and this is what we learned, like, Casper doesn't care.

And that's like going back.

If you can kind of choose your classes, you want to try to choose ones that you know are going to fit that science gpa, if that's what you're using them for.

Okay, now we have some coursework questions.

Okay, so this question is asking about prereqs in the program material section.

Some of the schools will ask you to assign prereqs to or assign your courses to the prereqs.

So if they do, most of the time you want to just assign the most recent class, the one with the best grade that best fits the prereq.

Some schools will tell you to assign every single class that fits that prereq.

So you want to go by what the school says.

But if they don't clarify, then I would just choose again that most recent with the best grade that you feel best fits that class that they're asking for.

Okay, so here's a question that is also important.

Do PA schools accept prereqs from AP classes?

The majority do not.

So most of them do want to see a grade for, for a prereq class.

And the same goes for pass fail kind of situations where they want to see an actual letter grade.

So if you have an AP class that fulfills a prerequisite, that's something you're going to want to check on with each program independently to see if that's something they accept.

Some schools will put that on their website, some don't.

Some are kind of vague about it.

But a lot of times those AP classes like AP Stats, Psychology, Biology, you're going to have to retake for a grade to be considered.

And that's actually a big Reason why applications get thrown out.

There's also caveats to that where depending on what it says on your transcript, like if it isn't clear that you got credit for a specific class on your transcript, then it's not going to count.

Like if it just says AP credits with a number and it doesn't say AP Psychology, that can be a problem also.

And that just depends on how your school did it.

So those are things to keep in mind.

We put a link in about AP credits in the chat because it is something that you want to look at ahead of time just so your application doesn't get thrown out.

Okay, if you have a reapplication and already submitted okay, if you have a reapplication.

So it's kind of the same question, how do we add or submit additional courses after we have submitted caspa?

So again, I can't.

I cannot go to Q A, Michelle.

Like, I just, I'm trying to keep up with these.

Michelle's trying to tell me to look in Q.

Put them here, I guess.

Or I'll try to look.

But yeah.

So after you've submitted caspa, you can add the classes, but they just won't be verified.

And then a lot of schools will only look at what's actually verified in caspa.

Unfortunately in the doc, what are down at the bottom.

Okay, if y' all want to.

This is me talking to Michelle and Emily.

If y' all want to, like, highlight ones that I have already covered or like bold them, then I can make sure I'm getting just the ones we need.

Because these are like, not about what we're talking about.

Okay, so can you.

I'll try to go from here.

Can you submit CASPER with courses in progress?

Will that be okay?

Some schools do accept in progress coursework and some don't.

Casper doesn't care.

CASPER will let you enter anything that you want.

So you want to check with the programs you're applying to to see if your classes prereqs major or degree.

All of that can be can be submitted in progress or not.

When adding grades, will PA schools automatically reject an application with only one C minus?

It depends on school.

If it's a prereq and they say you need a C or better or C or better, then yes, you won't get considered.

Seeing a few questions on when is the best time to submit your application.

So.

So in general, for rolling admissions, the earlier the better.

And usually shooting for like mid to late May, early June should give you plenty of time and be early enough that you are good to go for most programs.

There are a few programs that will start interviewing very early, like even in June.

So you want to check or, you know, try to get in as quick as you can.

And the one thing I would say is, like, figure out why you're waiting to submit.

Like, what is holding you back?

Is it your personal statement?

Because that you should be able to work on.

Is it a letter that you can follow up on?

Like, why haven't you submitted?

Okay, I got a message.

Okay.

Lots of questions, it sounds like, about the professional transcript entry.

So CASPA offers a service called Professional Transcript Entry.

If you.

If you've used in the past and you pull your application forward, or if you have had your application verified in the past and you pull it forward, all of those verified classes should pull forward and be the same.

If you are applying for the first time and entering your transcript information, you can pay caspa, I think it's per transcript to enter in your courses for you.

Personally, I would never do that.

I guess I like control too much.

And I've seen a lot of mistakes that they make.

And even if they make a mistake, it's really hard to get it fixed.

And so you want to.

I don't know.

I would rather do it myself.

But if that is something you want to pay for, that's totally fine.

It is an option.

It is a service that they offer.

All right.

Will miscategorizing.

Can miscategorizing courses cause a delay in verification?

Yes.

So things that can cause your application to be delayed and being verified include miscategorizing your classes, not sending a transcript from a school, leaving a school off of your application, name issues.

So if your name doesn't match and there's a place to put kind of like all your nicknames or maiden name or whatever in there, that can all affect you.

One thing to mention about transcripts that I actually haven't seen anybody ask about tonight.

If you have taken courses at multiple places, which most people have, you need to send an original transcript from each of those institutions to CASPA directly.

When you're sending transcripts, if your transcript has your transfer credit on it, that doesn't count.

You need it from that original institution.

You don't want to be using anything as far as transfer credit on your transcripts when you're doing your course entry.

And Casper will not accept that as a transcript.

So you'll have to get that transcript from the original program when you are submitting.

So for international applicants, especially from Canada, it's about the Same if you went to.

The only difference is if you went to a Canadian school that speaks French, it's considered a foreign program.

If you went to a Canadian school that speaks English, then it counts pretty much the same.

And you would do everything pretty much the same.

But the CASPA FAQ explains everything for like Canadian applications pretty clearly.

So a couple questions about how can a school tell if your class has a lab?

Some transcripts will list the lab separately, some list it with the class.

A lot of times they can tell by the hours.

So they'll want you to have a certain number of hours for the class.

And so let's say it's not included.

You'll have the lecture that's three hours in the lab, that's one or two hours.

And then if it's together, it'll be like four or five hours.

They know that by having that longer hour attempted that that included a lab.

So that happens.

Some schools, like, if it's not very clear, they will want you to send a syllabus or description of the course to them.

So they know that it included a lab portion.

If there's a question, my husband's playing video games.

So if y' all hear people talking, that's what that is.

Okay, if y'.

All, Let's see, let's see.

I don't know what Emily or Michelle, if y' all have anything specific, y' all are seeing lots of questions on.

Follow the questions from the list up top.

Okay, let's go back up top because I'm getting overwhelmed.

Okay, so questions about what should we put for the description of childhood residency portion?

Don't overthink this part.

It is a basically one sentence thing that helps them with demographics and statistics and it is very straightforward.

So, like, for me, I would say I lived in a single family home in a suburban setting.

That's it.

You could say I lived on a farm, a working farm in a rural community.

I lived in an apartment with my family in an urban setting.

Like, it's just very general.

Does not have to be anything too crazy.

Let's see.

Can you submit your GRE scores after submitting your application?

Yes.

So GRE scores are something that you can add to your application after it's submitted.

And so another question we get is, when can I submit to multiple programs at different times?

So, yes, you can submit to one program and then add more programs later to submit to.

And that happens a lot.

The thing to keep in mind is that you're only going to be able to actually change or Edit some parts of your application and again, those grades are not going to be recalculated or re verified.

So you want to make sure that you know everything's as good and full as it is the first time or as it can be the first time.

And then when you're resubmitting, hopefully not adding that much stuff.

So how does, how does CASPA calculate gpa?

This is an important one because CASPA will take into account every single class that you've ever taken and that includes repeats.

Community classes, college classes, classes from 20 years ago.

Any class you've taken at a college, university, community college, technical, college level will be included in your GPA calculations.

We actually have a blog post that like walks you straight through this that may be helpful to you.

And then we also.

I don't know, let me see if I can find my.

Here, I have it here.

So I have a link to what is called mapped.com and I can show you all mine.

But it is a very, very accurate and free GPA calculator and tracker.

And you can put in your experience.

It has lots of stuff.

And if you use my link, a lot of the pre health advisors, which I'm kind of working with them on the pre PA side of things, you can talk to an advisor free for I think two months or three months.

And then after that it's like three, seven dollars a month if you wanted to sign up.

But this is the perfect time to use that because it's free.

And then you can just ask your advisor all the questions and they'll point in the right direction.

And again, I'm kind of helping with that.

But the GPA calculator on there is fantastic.

It is very accurate, way more accurate than the one on my website, which I like have a huge disclaimer on there that it's not as accurate as I would like for it to be.

So I think that's a good way to like, see trends and see things that would be helpful potentially for you.

So if you're worried about gpa, I would say try to figure out what it is before you submit, just so you aren't surprised, especially when those like, repeats go in there.

Oh, so it's called mapped.

I put the link down there.

Okay.

I just put it in the Offers tab.

But it's just a link to that, so that may help y' all out because that's a good tool to use, like throughout applications.

You can kind of track where you're applying and it's got some cool stuff.

It's basically, if y' all have heard of my PA box, it's like a free version of that, which.

And.

And I think better because I've heard some issues with, like, the GPA calculator with my PA box.

So.

Yeah, good option for you guys.

Okay, let's see.

So when you.

The other thing about GPAs in Caspa is once you submit them or once they calculate them, it's a lot.

So they calculate a ton of different GPAs.

The overall and the overall science are the main ones that the PA school schools will really look at.

And so they'll look at everything, they'll look for trends, but they really are looking for those specific overall and overall science GPAs, which include all of your classes.

Okay, I think I did this one.

Okay, let's talk about letters of recommendation for a little while.

Yes.

This is recorded also showing me we need more of this.

So I will try to answer a lot of these tomorrow on Instagram too, just to make sure we're covering a lot of stuff.

Like this helps me know what you guys are struggling with and what you have questions with.

So I'll just do a bunch of stories, answering questions tomorrow and probably every day for the next month to try to make sure we're on track.

And I think we're gonna just do, like a weekly question box on there, too.

We have lots of old posts that address a lot of these things, but I know sometimes it's hard to find stuff.

And that's a tip too.

Like, if you ever can't find something, if you just Google, like, if you look up the PA platform, letters recommendation.

So the one of the first things will come up, actually, is a blog post that talks about what your letter writer should be including and how to ask them about letters and kind of some techniques for that.

So I think, you know, if you can, like, if you want to look up personal statements, you just look up the PA platform personal statement.

Okay.

And then go from there.

Oh, so I'm just the PA platform on Instagram, I'm physician assistant, or the PA platform on Tick Tock.

We're posting a lot of stuff on the PA platform.

Physician assistant has kind of turned into just me posting whatever I want and talking about Taylor Swift.

So, yeah, okay, let's tackle some of these.

Let's talk about large recommendation, because we haven't really done that.

So number one, letters of recommendation should be someone professional that, you know, in a professional setting.

Letters of recommendation.

I would try to ask people that, you know personally.

That's Always the best option.

And when you do, you can kind of say, hey, I'm like, if it's a professor, hey, I would love for you to write this letter of recommendation for me and talk about my.

How I've improved in your class and my study skills and what you've seen from me academically.

Like, how you think I would perform in PA school based on how I did in your class.

You can ask them for specific things.

So if it's a PA that you've shadowed, you can say, you know, I would love for you to write me a letter talking about how you feel like I would be, you know, good for the PA profession and how I am very interested in learning more about the profession and learning more about medicine when I shadow, you know, all of these things that you want them to kind of focus on.

Because it would be weird if your professor talked about your, like, ability with patients because they've never seen you do that.

As a health coach, would it be beneficial to have a client write a letter?

I wouldn't consider that a professional letter.

That would be kind of the same as, like, a patient writing a letter, which I would not recommend.

These are professional people who know you in a professional way.

Usually more like on the supervisor side, not on the patient or client side.

So, again, we're not going to request letters until CASPA opens for the cycle.

We've already talked about that.

And you can enter.

You can enter up to five letters in caspa.

You cannot choose which ones go to which schools or who looks at which ones.

If a school is asking for a specific letter, they will look for that specific letter because they can see who wrote what and like the title.

So they'll see professor or PA or doctor or supervisor or whatever.

So they'll be able to find your letters if you have more than what they're asking for.

And so it does not matter.

The order that you put your letters into CASPA is.

Does not matter.

I recommend waving your right to see the letter.

Sometimes a letter writer may show you your letter outside of caspa, and that's fine, but it just looks a little fishy or like, you don't, like, trust them if you don't wave that right to see the letter.

Okay, let's get into some PCE questions.

We're going over a little bit, but that's okay.

We'll do some of these.

And then, like I said, I have a list of, I don't know, like, 500 questions to answer tomorrow on Instagram.

So it's good it's good.

This helps me.

This will help for the next cast one to know kind of what we need to cover.

Also, Emily just put a link in the chat with some email templates we have too for like asking for letters and following up with letters.

You don't have to use these verbatim, but it gives you a good start if you need that.

All right, so do programs verify your experience?

Well, they could and they might.

But do they?

Most likely not in many cases.

So let's think about this.

Like if each applicant, let's say they get a thousand applications and each applicant has three experiences, they're have more that they run like 10.

That's like a ridiculous amount to try to verify.

So the only time they may verify this is if there's a question about it or if they want more information, they may just verify it with you first.

So in most cases this is on the honor system, but there is always a chance that they could use that contact information to get.

Get more information if need.

Okay, for the experience details section, should you use paragraph or bullet points?

It does not matter.

I've seen both done well and I've seen both done not well.

But it is about consistency.

So whichever one you choose, I would keep it the same throughout your entire application.

So whether you go paragraph, whether you go bullet point, I don't think one saves on space more or is easier to read or better.

Personally, I'm like a paragraph person because I like it to be kind of like a little story.

But bullet points can do the same thing.

But yeah, personal preference does not matter.

Just keep it consistent.

And I saw somebody say, like, what is MAP DAP for?

So one thing you can do in there is actually write out your experiences.

So if you, you should not be saving those in caspa.

So if you need somewhere to save those, you can actually go ahead and put them in there and then you can just pull them over into your application and kind of have those descriptions.

Yeah.

So somebody said they saw a school ask your job to certify that you worked with them.

Yeah.

So they may ask, they may ask your job and they may not do that until after you're accepted either.

So, for example, like in my program, you had to have 100 shadowing hours.

And this is kind of interesting.

I don't know if they still do this, but if you had 100 shadowing hours by the time you actually applied and were interviewed, then you didn't have to verify them.

But if you didn't, then you had to have this form signed by everyone you shadowed before you started.

But, like, not everybody did.

So if you had not enough hours, then you had to do it, but if you already had enough hours, you didn't have to do it.

I don't know.

Yes, I said you should not ask for letters until the cycle opens in April because they will get deleted.

Can you upload your resume in the experience section?

So there are.

Some schools will ask you for a resume in there, and there is a place to upload documents so you can upload copies of, like, certifications, your resume, anything that needs to be uploaded in there.

Okay, we are over on time.

I know we did not get to nearly as many questions as I wanted to.

So we're gonna have to figure out a better way to do this, and I don't know what that is.

That might be limiting.

How many people do we.

I don't know what.

I don't know how to do that, but we'll figure it out.

And I'm going to try to get as many of these questions answered this week again on Instagram as possible.

So tune in there.

Stories.

Watch out for question box.

But if I keep talking, I'm gonna lose my voice and not be able to talk to patients tomorrow.

So thank you all for watching.

This was a little overwhelming.

We haven't done a big Q A this much in a while.

Yes.

I think we're gonna have to be, like, even more specific.

So, like, last year, I did two webinars a month, and they were very specific as they were a little bit different, which y' all can still access those.

So if this is something you need help with, we'll put that link.

I'll put it in the replay email, actually, because it's all still very valid and y' all can get access to that if that would be helpful to y'.

All.

We called it, like, our all access webinar pass.

I think there's like, 25 webinars that are very, very specific.

So I think that could be something helpful if you feel like hearing about things is helpful in presentations.

We did a lot of presentations and some Q A, but they were, like, much smaller.

So maybe that would be something that y' all can check out.

And I'll put that in the replay email so y' all can get that.

But thanks for tuning in, and I hope everybody has a great week.

And again, I will.

Am I gonna bring the podcast back?

Yes.

Hopefully, April, that this is, like, the sign that I need to bring it back.

Yes, I am hoping April will bring the podcast back, so.

All right, thanks, guys.

Sam.