CASPA is not hard. It's just long, confusing, and unforgiving about details.

This is a full Q&A on the application itself. Not strategy, not essays, the actual mechanics that trip people up every single cycle. When to submit. How CASPA calculates your GPA versus how you calculated it. What happens when a letter writer goes quiet. Why "submitted" doesn't mean "complete."

The biggest thing I'll say up front: verification takes weeks, and it starts when your transcripts and payment are in, not when you hit submit. People lose their whole timeline to that one misunderstanding.

Also, check every program's requirements individually. CASPA is the delivery system. The rules are still set by each school.

What I answer:

• When to submit and what "early" actually means
• How CASPA computes GPA and why it differs from your school's
• Getting letters of recommendation in without nagging anyone
• What counts where in the experience sections
• Common mistakes that delay verification
• How to manage the wait once you've submitted

Resources:

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

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

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

Pre-PA Academy: https://prepaclub.thepaplatform.com/landing/academy

Mentioned in this episode:

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If you're feeling frustrated by CASPA and the whole PA school application process, today's episode should help you.

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.

All right, before we jump into today's webinar or replay of webinar talking about caspa, I want to make sure you don't miss out on any of our upcoming webinars.

It's going to be really fun, it's going to be interactive and check out the description for the link to register and make sure you're following along on social media.

The PA platform is where I'm at on Instagram.

If you want to make sure you don't miss out on any of these webinars, it is free to register.

The replay will be sent out to everyone who has registered.

It may end up on the podcast at some point, but it'll probably be a few months.

So make sure you're there for a chance to answer questions live and get some feedback and also get some interview tips for this cycle.

So link is in the description to.

Sign up and I'll be posting on social media as well.

All right, thank you so much for tuning in to the Pre PA Club podcast.

This is Savannah Perry, your Host and Derm PA and creator of the PA platform.com I'm so appreciative of you for listening and I hope that you find this helpful.

If there's ever anything I can do differently with the podcast or the website or social media, please tell me because I'm here to serve you and try.

To make your life easier and make.

This whole entire process easier.

So today's episode is going to be a lot of Q and A about CASPA you may have already submitted and in that case, awesome.

You may not need this episode right now, but if you're in the middle of applying, you're feeling frustrated by this whole very complicated process.

Hopefully this will help to answer some of your questions.

Or if you are planning on applying in the next few months or even next couple years, having this foundation of.

Knowledge will hopefully make things go a little bit smoother for you.

So we will jump into today's episode and as always, don't forget that you can use the code Future PA for anything on the PA platform.

Website, including the PA School Interview Guide, the Personal Statement Guide, if you're still working on that, and any mock interviews, I do recommend trying to schedule those ASAP to get the best times that work for you.

If you are planning on doing a mock interview, if you have any questions questions, then my way, as always, you can email me.

Reach out on social media and I.

Will try to point you in the right direction.

All right, let's talk about caspa.

CASPA is the subject where I feel like we get the most questions because I know it's confusing, it's the universal application.

But it's a very long, complicated process and I realized that.

And so we're going to try to make it as easy as possible and answer as many questions as possible.

So some of your questions may be school specific.

So I might say that a lot.

If there's something that really only applies to certain programs, and there are some things that you may have to reach out directly to CASPA for answers or directly to a program.

CASPA is surprisingly responsive, either on their Facebook page, email, or actually Twitter.

So if you ever have a question for caspa, I recommend reaching out to those areas.

Whenever CASPA opens in April, it does tend to get very busy.

Their response times get a little bit slower.

So just be prepared for that.

And I mean, you can definitely follow up if your question doesn't get answered.

And before we get into anything specific, the other thing I'm probably going to say a lot is use the CASPA faq and if you are planning on applying this cycle, go ahead and read the whole thing.

It will most likely answer a lot of your questions and make the whole process much, much easier.

If I ever have a question about anything to do with caspa, I Google exactly what I'm looking for.

I'll Google CASPA FAQ GPA or CASPA FAQ grade equivalence.

And I'll actually show you some of that as well.

Um, and I may pull up a Casper application.

Has everyone seen a Casper application?

Maybe, maybe not.

When it's all said and done, these documents are like 20, 25, 30 pages long.

They are extremely long.

And so there's a lot that goes into it, a lot that is generated.

And so it's, it's something that you, you want to kind of have an idea of what, what you're going into ahead of time.

So some people have, some people haven't.

In our poll, we most likely say that Casper scares you.

Okay.

Awesome.

91 Scares you.

That's so sad.

Okay.

All right.

Oh, also so this is exciting.

I.

Well, I'm excited about it.

If you follow me on Instagram, I announced a couple, like, maybe last week, and I'm really, officially announcing Tom.

So y' all are, like, first to hear it?

I don't know.

But I.

A few years ago, I put out a book called the PA School Interview Guide, all about interviews, just because a lot of the same questions come up over and over.

And so for the past few years, I have been working now on the PA School Personal Statement Guide, and it is now available.

So tonight it is on the website and you can get it for 15, which this is going to be for 24 hours exclusively, really to y', all.

And then for a giveaway, which is really fun.

If you take a picture of this offer and this webinar and post it on either Instagram or Facebook and tag the PA platform, we will choose a winner tomorrow to get a free copy of this book.

I will tell you before you, like, go get it.

If you order on the website and it says on there, I'm not expected to get my copies for a couple weeks.

So they will ship probably early April, assuming everything goes on the timeline.

I've been told if you feel like you need it sooner, then go straight to Amazon and we can put that link in the chat for you.

And then there's also a Kindle version.

And if anyone has any questions about the book or what's in it or what it's about, I can definitely help you with that.

So, so make sure you use the code.

The code is in the offer.

It is book launch, so use that code at checkout.

And that code actually will work on the personal or the interview book, too.

So you just have to purchase them separately, but we'll make sure you get set up.

And to enter the giveaway, just take a picture of the offer and post it on Instagram or Facebook and tag the PA platform.

And that can be in your store.

You don't have to do, like, a real post.

Okay, cool.

Let's get into questions.

I have lots of questions already in the chat and I have a lot on my document here.

If you need a link to anything, let us know.

Okay.

So when does Casper open?

What is the official day?

It is always in April.

So you're.

You're good.

We're still in March still, like, let's see, about six weeks until Casper opens.

It is scheduled right now, I believe, to open on April 30th.

The other day I looked it up.

I think it's April 30th.

Right now, or maybe 29th, but I think it was the 30th.

And so Caspa, the whole cycle is kind of strange.

So it's.

It's technically open most of the year.

It's still open right now, but there aren't any schools that you can actually apply to.

And so you can sign into CASPA and start working on your application.

But I want you all to know, okay, it was the 29th, but then some people say the 30th.

I've heard.

I've been hearing mixed things, but I think I had the 29th.

Okay, 29th.

Thanks, y'.

All.

But if you start your application now and it closes and let's say you've sent a transcript or a test score, there is a chance that that information is not going to be saved to your account.

At the same time, if you do not have an account set up already, and let's say you are waiting until the end of April to open your account and you go ahead and start sending stuff ahead of time, it also will most likely not get connected to your account.

So at this point, it's really best to just kind of wait.

You will not be behind the game.

Like, you'll be so fine as long as you kind of get stuff going.

Once Casper opens, someone on Instagram asked for a specific CASPA timeline.

And I think that's a really great idea and I think I'll work on something on that for social media, because I would say the very first things you want to do when you open your CASPA account is request your transcripts and send out your letter, a recommendation request and notify your letter writers that those are coming.

Because letters are the one thing that holds people up the most.

It just takes, you know, usually the people that are writing it are busy and it takes them a while to get them in.

As far as information, that should carry over, because I'm seeing that question come up a lot.

Hypothetically, everything should transfer over except for your personal statement and your letters of recommendation.

You will have to re upload your personal statement and you will have to request your letters again.

As long as you've had an account set up and you've been able to see your transcripts or your test scores in there, they should, again, hypothetically transfer over.

There have been times, including the cycle I applied, where the they like, reset everything.

And so that will kind of make it so that your information does not carry over.

And so that is a risk you take.

And that's why you don't Want to save all of your information in caspa, you should have a backup somewhere.

You can download your CASPA as a PDF even if you have not applied yet.

If you just Google CASPA PDF, it'll show you in the FAQ how to do that.

And that's a great thing to do.

If you have started inputting information, especially before you know it closes for the cycle, you'd want to do that because there is going to be a period of time where you will not probably be able to sign in.

So I hope that's clear.

I know this is all confusing, but again, I'm going to work on kind of a timeline to help, you know, step wise what you should be doing.

Because after you submit letters, then I would say what takes the longest is transcript entry.

And so then you're going to want to start going through your transcripts.

You can go ahead and for yourself request an unofficial or official transcript, ideally an official one.

But I know sometimes this costs a lot of money to go ahead and have for yourself because you'll enter all of your information and all of your transcripts in caspa.

I usually don't recommend the whatever they call it, transcript entry, paid entry or whatever.

Last year in particular, there were a ton of mistakes coming up in the pre PA club on Facebook, our Facebook group, people were just having a lot of issues with stuff being entered incorrectly and then it's hard for them to correct it.

You know, you could still enter it incorrectly and they may change it, but there are some crazy mistakes.

So I would say unless you have super complicated transcripts or tons of transcripts, you can probably do it yourself.

You just have to stay organized.

When I do GPA calculations with our prepa assessments, I mean I enter everything in and it usually doesn't take that long, but you do have to enter a little bit more information.

Somebody asked when it comes to transcript entry, if the class is called Zoology 412 but the class is called Human Physiology, how or what do you enter as the category or subject?

That is a great question, Emily.

If you Google the PA platform, YouTube, what is it?

Assigning courses?

That's usually what I look up.

I did a video that actually shows you this and shows you how to do it.

And so what you'll find is that CASPA goes by the title of the class first and then the subject, which for this one you would.

It doesn't matter as much because they're both science.

But you would put this in as a physiology course.

That would be the subject.

Let me pull up the course subjects just to show y'.

All.

Okay, let me see if I can screen share.

I have not used this computer in a long time and see what it says here.

Okay.

If you're on a phone, this may be hard to see, but if you just Google CASPA course subjects, this is what comes up so you can use this list.

So if we're looking for.

So if I was looking at the class, you said I would look up first the title.

So I look usually up what exactly it is.

So Human Physiology.

That's not in there.

So then I'm going to type Physiology.

And so you have Anatomy and Physiology.

It's probably going to fall under that.

Unless.

Okay, so there's a separate one.

So this would be the more appropriate title here would be this Physiology.

And then let's say the class was called Make Something up like Turtles, and it fell under Zoology.

So if I type in Turtles, there's no class called Turtles or History of Turtles or whatever.

So at that point, then I would look up the subject, which would be Zoology, and that is going to be the subject.

So in the video, I go through and do a lot of examples, and that may be helpful to you, but you go by the title first and not the subject.

So hopefully that's clear.

Yes, this will be recorded.

There'll be a replay.

All right, let me get back to the questions.

How long does it take to fill out?

Do not feel like you have to submit Caspa on April 29 on the day it opens.

It is.

I'll include these links in the replay too, if I can, but.

And I'll post them on Instagram.

But you will want to get in there, start putting in your information.

Even let's say if you take April 29 off and you enter all of your stuff, you'll want to take a couple days away from your application and come back to it with fresh eyes.

Look at your experience, everything you've entered.

Make sure there aren't any typos or issues.

And so you definitely don't want to rush it, because I've seen lots of mistakes, especially in people putting in filler information and then forgetting to go back and change it.

Because when you're in Caspo, which I don't have my login set up right now, but you go into each section separately, and so it's not like you're going down a list and there's a lot of different things to check on.

Okay.

So the.

I know the courses are really confusing.

So somebody said for the course list, what if the subject is not on the list either?

For example, my major is Exercise and Health Sciences, and that is the subject for my major classes.

So Health Sciences is on the list.

And you would use that.

You use what is most appropriate.

Appropriate and most relevant when possible.

Okay, so how long will it take to fill out?

I mean, I would.

I would allot a few different blocks of a few hours to really go through it and make sure you're just dedicating time to the application.

But I think some people said in there it took them a couple hours in our grades, and that seems about right.

So you're.

It's going to take some time to get everything.

But there's stuff you can do now.

You can be working on your experience details, you can be working on your personal statement, gathering all of your information, getting it organized.

We have an Excel sheet on the PA platform where you can actually.

It's set up the way you enter everything in caspa, and so it has for your experiences how many hours per week and then how many weeks you've worked to get your total number.

So that may be a good.

Good thing to use if you don't have all that information together now to kind of start organizing it.

Okay.

Okay.

What is the difference between regular gpa, science GPA and CASPA gpa?

Have y' all seen the GPAS that CASPA calculates?

Maybe, maybe not.

Let me see if I can pull them up.

Hold on.

Okay, I'm gonna show y' all something.

Okay, Here we go.

Screen share again.

Okay, so this is the list of GPAs that CASPA calculates, which is a lot of them.

If you have taken.

If you have repeated courses, if you have taken classes at multiple places, if you have classes that are on the quarter system or quarter and semester or trimester, your GPAs will most likely be different than what is on your transcript.

And so in here, you know, some schools may have specific things they're looking at.

We have your biology, chemistry, physics totals, and that what's included in that is on that list of course, subjects, then specific subjects.

And then we get into freshman, sophomore, junior, senior.

So if I'm looking at freshman, like this freshman to post back stuff over here, I really just want to see an upward trend.

I want to see that the person has essentially done better every year and seeing that they're showing improvement or being very consistent.

And then we have the main GPAs, which the most important are this overall right here.

So 3.53.

And then overall science, which is 3.51.

And then we have specific sciences.

But I would say in general those are the ones that schools look at the most.

If a school does a specific prerequisite GPA or if they do a last 40, 60, 80 hours, that will not be on your Casper application.

That is something the school does separately outside of caspa.

So just know that like you're not going to see those grades or those GPAs on this document.

You can try to calculate them yourself.

We do have a free GPA calculator on the PA platform that is close to accurate.

It's not as accurate as I would like or as like art.

So one is that we use.

But you will not see these GPAs until you have submitted a CASPER application and you're to at least one school and your application has been verified.

I'm going to say this, and this is very important if you hear me say one thing during this entire webinar like this is it.

Casper will only calculate GPAs once.

So whenever you choose to submit, whatever transcripts have been submitted and verified will be the ones that are used to calculate GPAs.

Some examples of this, if you are currently in school, let's say you're graduating in May and you apply on April 30th and you submit everything and you have a transcript that shows classes or your degree in progress and then you go ahead and submit.

And then later in May when your official transcript comes out, you go ahead and send that too.

If you've already been verified, they aren't going to verify that transcript.

They're not going to verify your degree.

They're not going to include those grades in your GPA calculations.

So this becomes important when you have schools that want either prereqs or, or your degree or your certain classes considered complete at the time of application.

A more complete application is going to be very valuable even if it takes a little bit longer.

And so you definitely want to weigh.

You have to weigh your application.

You have to weigh having more experience or grades or hours or whatever versus getting in early.

And when we're talking about early, it's going to be school dependent.

Using the forums online can be helpful in determining what that is for each school.

You can apply to more schools later.

You can add experiences, you can't edit experiences that you've already submitted, but you can add new ones.

But if you are trying to decide, definitely look at the forums, try to gauge like their application cycle shooting for mid to late May and early June is good.

I like to encourage people to set a deadline that is a Little bit earlier because it might take you longer than you're expecting.

It may take your documents or your letters longer.

And you have to also think about verification time, which CASPA will tell you that it can take up to four weeks to get verified.

The most recent reported average time was around six days.

Last year when things were really busy at the beginning, people were reporting that it was taking up to two weeks to get verified.

So you do want to think about.

About those things as well.

I see a couple questions about if I'm graduating in December, can you apply for a program starting in January?

It'll depend on the program and what and your requirements.

So like what you have completed versus what they want completed and when.

So you'll have to look at all those and make sure that you check all the boxes, meet all the minimums, have everything they're looking for when it's time to submit.

Otherwise you're just wasting your time and money.

CASPA essentially has an algorithm.

And so if you, let's say a school wants a C plus in general chemistry and you only have a C, it's most likely that your school would never actually see your application and it would get weeded out before you ever got there.

So hopefully that is somewhat clear.

I think.

I feel like I'm just raising more questions.

I'm so sorry.

Okay.

Oh, I see a good question.

So fee waivers for the application, that's something really important.

You can submit documentation to CASPA.

If you type in CASPs, a fee waivers, you'll find information, but these are first come, first serve and it pays for your first CASPER application.

So that first $179, unless they raise it again, would be covered in that fee waiver.

From the time that you get confirmed for a fee waiver, you have to submit within a certain period of time.

I think in the past it has been two weeks, so you have to be kind of ready to submit when you apply for that.

But that's definitely something good to look into to save on cost.

For sure.

Okay.

Foreign.

Let's talk about letters.

You can have up to five letters of recommendation in caspa.

Some schools have specific requirements about who writes them or how many.

You do need to wait until CASPA opens for the Cycle on April 29th to request your letters.

You will have to put in the person's contact information and email because that's the most important thing.

They'll get an email that comes in with asking about it basically has like a little survey and you have to say, you know, I recommend this Person with highest recommendation and it asks you about a few different categories and then they have to upload a document that would be their letter of recommendation.

If we have a blog post that is kind of helpful in one of our coaches, Jamie actually wrote it in how to approach asking your letter writers to write them.

For example, if you are going to a professor to get an academic letter, you can even ask for.

You can kind of prompt them a little bit and say, you know, I, I would really love if you could write me a letter talking about my, my study skills and my efficiency in classes.

My, you know, how you've seen me improve.

Because it would be weird if your professor wrote about your patient care experience because they don't really know that.

So you want your letters to be on topic as much as possible and then you do not pick which letters go to which schools.

If a school is looking for a particular letter, they're going to go through your letters and see which ones are there.

For your application to be considered complete by CASPA to be verified, you have to, I believe, have at least two letters in.

And so you may want to wait until you have.

If a school wants specific, specific ones, wait until you know that those have been submitted before you submit your application, just in case they get it and don't look at it.

So yeah, so if you have any letters in CASTA now, they will be erased and you will have to resubmit for sure.

But in those letters, I would not recommend you want them to be professional references.

So some of the things I've seen in the prepa club are family members or patients.

Those are not typically people you want to use for letters.

We want professors, PAs, supervisors at work.

Some schools will want an MD letter or a volunteer person supervisor.

You should get a notification.

One thing that can be helpful is to set up a separate Gmail account for all of your application stuff just so that you're not missing things and not missing interview invites and you can have it all in one place.

We use this when my husband was doing residency interviews.

And so we had the app and we had it set up to give notifications so that if an interview came in, he get that scheduled really quickly.

But yeah, your letters will be submitted directly from your letter writer.

I do recommend waiving the right to read that.

That's.

That's pretty much standard and expected by most programs.

So.

Okay, everyone's asking about my PA box.

I personally do not support my PA box.

If you love it, that's great.

They approached me very early in their process.

And I was personally not impressed with how they presented, how they would be updating information.

I've heard a lot about misinformation.

They wouldn't let me actually see the product, but wanted me to promote it, and I wasn't okay with that.

So I don't know.

I've heard people have had inaccuracies, but not for sure on that.

Let's see.

So lots of specific letter questions.

Maybe we'll do a letter post on Instagram, and y' all can post, like, who you want to write your letter, and we can say whether it's good or not,.

Because.

Yeah, I mean, you just have to weigh, like, is this a professional relationship?

And can this person speak to things that would specifically be important for me becoming a pa so, like, if you were nanning for a family, you know, they probably are going to know you well.

They can probably speak to a lot of things about your character, and I think that would be something that would be, you know, very helpful.

But it depends on, again, what your schools are looking for and all the other kind of stuff involved.

Okay, I'm gonna keep going on this list, and then I know y' all have a lot of questions we might need.

I was gonna do a different topic next month.

We made it a Casper Part 2.

We are also doing a specific.

If you went to the pre PA conference in January, the one that was more about kind of getting ready for PA stuff, we are doing a Casper Boot Camp on.

Oh, gosh, I pulled my calendar again.

April.

I can't keep dates straight in my head at all.

Let's see.

It is April 12th through the 15th.

So this is an application.

Casper Boot Camp.

It'll be every night from 8 to 10.

It's 15.

But if you use the code future pa, it's $10, which helps us pay for this webinar software.

But that'll be myself and Brian, Palm of my PA Resource, as well as some of our PA friends.

And we'll be talking about CASPA specifically for two nights.

We'll be talking about personal statements and then interviews.

So that might be helpful to anyone who is, you know, wanting to get a jump start right before Casper starts.

And again, this is, like, really, really helping me realize what y' all want.

It's.

It's $10 one time every night.

So for access to all of it and all the replays.

So, yeah, one time.

But, yeah, like, I. I might need to do another Casper Q A, though, and we may need to go through every section because, yeah, the The y' all are impressive with the amount of questions y' all have about this, for sure.

CASPA does actually have an Excel sheet that you can download to try to estimate your GPAs.

And I have found it personally very confusing, but it's there if you want to try it.

And so, yeah, and I think Emily put the info in the chat, but it's just prepaconference.com for all the info on that.

Okay.

Whoo.

Okay, so I like this question.

Is it necessary to complete the family history and environmental factors of the application?

That is a really weird part of caspa, which everyone always has questions about you.

So I recommend doing it.

I don't think there's any harm.

You don't have to be super specific.

You can put, you know, lived in an apartment in an urban city, lived in a single family home in a suburban setting.

You really don't have to get too specific with any of that.

And so it just, I don't know what they use that for.

Schools really just use demographics for different, different things.

But I would say, you know, just go ahead and fill out as much as possible.

Some of that can also come into play when it's time to do scholarships.

And so that can be helpful if you filled it out completely.

Okay, listen.

Okay, how do you enter in progress classes?

What if you change your course plans and don't take the prospective classes?

That is a really good question.

So you can enter coursework as planned or in progress.

So if you are currently in a class, it would be in progress.

If you know you're going to take something or you're planning on it later on, it would be planned if you put a class as planned, especially if it is a prereq for a program or a recommended course, plan on taking it.

Last cycle, I had three separate people who had acceptances that they then had essentially revoked or had to like scramble to figure out coursework to get everything set up.

So you if a school.

So, I mean, you can check with your program, let's say you got accepted and you had planned coursework and you decided not to do it.

You could check with them and see if they wanted you to continue to complete that.

But sometimes your acceptance is dependent on what is listed on your application as kind of what you had planned.

So, but you can indicate that to programs.

It just will not update your GPAs or verify it once those classes are complete.

Can you cover summer classes and how to apply to Casper?

Do we wait until after our summer grades go in or can we just apply and then submit those summer grades later, especially if they're needed for GPA boost.

That's a fine line.

That's a gray area.

And so you have to weigh those things.

It may be worth, especially for GPA purposes, waiting to have those classes as complete and then submitting a little bit later.

So a lot.

I mean, there are people who have submitted the day before the deadline and still gotten into PA school.

So that's definitely, you know, not necessarily going to bump you out of the running, but it just increases your chances for rolling programs to apply early.

But then if you're not applying to rolling programs, you'd be fine to apply a little bit later.

There's so many factors in this process.

I've been talking to some pre PA clubs this week, and I was saying that I applied to PA school 10 years ago, and I honestly thought that this process would get easier.

I thought it would get more standardized and schools would work together more.

But it has honestly gotten more complicated.

There are more requirements, there are more different deadlines.

And, you know, it's.

It's just way different.

So, like, for med school, it's a lot more standardized when it comes to requirements, early admission, application process.

And so I know it's frustrating for y' all and really annoying.

So maybe one day they'll get together.

Maybe we need a union.

I don't really know what unions do, but we don't have those in medicine.

All right, so I see some questions coming up that are coming up a lot.

So what is your opinion on having W's on your transcripts?

W's are better than low grades.

They don't count in your GPAs at all.

And I think you just need to be able to explain it in an interview setting, not even really in your essays, unless it asks specifically about that.

But, you know, W's happen.

It's not a big deal to withdraw.

WFs count as F's, so just know that, too.

Okay, I will come back to this.

Do I need a CV or resume?

And what is the difference?

Some schools will want you to upload a CV or resume.

Most likely at your stage.

It is the same.

A CV is just an extension, expanded version of a resume with more specifics.

If you.

We have a resume template on the PA platform, so that may be helpful if you're working on that.

I would avoid kind of the fancy, graphically appealing ones, like, keep your audience in mind.

These are academic people, most likely a little bit older.

They may or may not think that is appropriate or nice.

So I Would keep it really boring to the point.

Ideally one page.

I also did a.

If you go to YouTube, there is a video with Leanne Hahn and she's a PA who does like contract and resume stuff and job stuff.

And so we talked about resumes and like went through it.

And so that may be helpful too.

You do not need to put descriptions in your resume.

Okay.

A couple questions about COVID I don't.

Casper has not said whether the COVID essay will continue with through this cycle.

It was part of last cycle.

I anticipate that it will.

Like, my assumption is that they will have the CASPA at least this cycle.

I don't know if moving forward they will have that or not.

And so that is your opportunity to say, like, my classes are moved online.

They were moved to pass fail.

My experience was canceled.

My shadowing was canceled.

I would have had 200 more hours.

I think we have a blog post on it.

Maybe that may be helpful that I kind of talk about.

I feel like.

Or maybe a podcast that talks about what that is.

If you ever have a question like, what I do is just look up the PA platform Covid or the PA platform supplementals and usually something will come up that is helpful and if it doesn't, tell me and we'll figure it out.

Can definitely always email or message.

Okay, Do I have to send my GRE to all the schools I'm applying to if only one requires it?

So you.

The way you send your GRE or test scores is it is program dependent.

So you'll have a specific CASPA program code for each program and then it's only going to show up for those programs that you specifically sent it to.

And so you don't really have to worry about that.

And I mean, some schools will still have that on their application.

Like they can choose what they see or don't see.

And so there's a chance they might see it if you enter an unofficial score.

But they won't get that official score report.

I do that one.

Okay, so I'm getting some questions about experience details and oh, shoot, I can't do it.

Okay.

I was going to show you part of the interview guide or the personal statement guide that I talk about that I'll have to post it on Instagram.

Because,.

Like, I have examples.

There's a whole chapter in there about how to do experience details.

And so I break down like, what is a good versus bad example in your experience?

Details.

You just want to think about those as expansions on your personal statement.

Or like many personal statements, you want to talk about not only what you did, but also what you learned.

So somebody said we shouldn't just say shadowed an ERPA for eight hours, Right?

So, yeah, right.

You have a good amount of characters, 600 characters, to describe your experiences.

So if you're talking about shadowing, I also don't necessarily want you to just say, like, saw an ERPA suture, set a broken bone, diagnose a cold, I don't know what else.

Put back a dislocated shoulder, remove a fish hook from someone's ear.

These are all things I saw during my ER rotation.

But I don't want you to just list out those things.

And also, your shadowing is not about gaining medical knowledge.

It's about learning about the PA profession.

So what I really want you to do is talk about what you saw that PA do.

So being able to say, I saw the page, interact with patients and comfort patient families when their child is having his arm set, talking about, you know, I saw the PA consult with a physician on a chest pain case.

So talking about, like showing instead of just telling and really showing what you saw about the PA profession from that experience is a good way to do that.

So each school has a different process for how they review your application and your experiences and your personal statement.

And you can't assume that everyone has that reads your, let's say read your essay, has read the rest of your application because it could be completely different people.

Okay, do we have to take the PA CAT or mcat?

Can you take the MCAT instead of the GRE that's completely school dependent.

Just double check and see what their requirements are.

Is the Casper test related to Casper or are they different things?

Can.

Okay, the Casper test, I believe.

I don't know.

I've never seen those scores in Casper.

I think they go directly to the schools.

So I don't think that's Casper related at all.

Can Casper tell that you are applying.

For the second time?

Okay, this is a good question and one I get a lot.

So if you are, let's say you've already made an account, but you've never applied to PA school.

You will bring your information over if you want to, but you will not be seen as a reapplicant to a program unless you have applied to that program previously.

So CASPA does not determine whether you are a RE applicant or not.

It's by each school that tells that.

Okay, I see questions about describing virtual shadowing.

Should I put all 51 hour sessions in individually or as one submission?

I would not enter those individually.

That will make your application ridiculously long.

And not all programs are going to accept virtual shadowing.

So I would put that in as.

As one entry or unless it was like distinct, different organizations that you could separate it out.

Something like that.

I've also seen people putting it under extracurriculars instead of shadowing if they're.

They have programs that aren't accepting it.

So yeah, it's.

That's another kind of new thing.

I've talked to different admissions.

Some people say they're fine with it, some people are fine with a certain amount accepting it, like as official hours.

And then other schools aren't accepting it.

So it just depends.

But I think it's great learning, Learning opportunities to do those sessions.

A lot of.

I mean, when I see them on Instagram, I'll share them in the Facebook group.

We share them a lot.

So definitely something to kind of keep, keep your eye out for and participate in if you're able to.

Okay, did that one Bullets or sentences for stuff on caspa?

Either one is fine.

Whichever one you choose, be consistent.

And I have examples of both in the book, but either one is fine for your experience details.

Oh, okay.

This is another good question.

Are y' all hanging in there?

I know this is a lot.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

For schools that have certain prereqs and multiple classes can be used to fulfill the prereq.

Does Casper pick it for us or do we pick which one we choose to use for the prereq?

If we pick, is it better to pick a lower level class with the higher grade or the higher level class with the lower grade?

Okay.

Not necessarily all of that.

So some schools will have you assign grades to your prereqs.

Let me see if I can show you what that looks like.

Okay.

Here we go.

Okay, so this is what it looks like.

So this school wanted their prerequisites here.

This prereq was.

I guess it got cut off.

Let's see.

We'll go up.

Okay.

Anatomy and physiology.

There we go.

So anatomy and physiology 1 and 2 is their prerequisite.

They want minimum credits.

This is in semester hours of eight semester hours.

And so they say it here.

Minimum of 8 semester hours or 12 quarter hours.

They want labs.

So they.

They're telling you there, you can ignore this minimum grade.

That doesn't.

I mean, it is equivalent To I guess.

No, that's not right.

These are just weird.

Like we're not going to go into that.

It's a whole other thing.

But here.

So We've assigned Bio 207, Anatomy, Physiology 1 for six quarter credits and the grade.

So then you assign here which this all comes from your transcript entry.

Anatomy and physiology 2, chemistry 1 and 2.

This specifically says general chem 1 and 2.

Sometimes they'll just want a chemistry class and you can choose at that point between chemistry or organic chemistry, whatever fits.

Here we have Biology one and two.

That's very specific.

English is very specific here.

This one is less specific.

Advanced mathematics.

So just advanced math.

And then we want, here we have statistics, algebra, all this minimum of six quarters semester hours or eight quarter hours.

I will tell you that this person, because this is one of my friends I know really well, she had taken a CLEP exam for algebra that counted for this particular program and she had emailed and asked them about that.

So if you have anything that you have questions about, go directly to the program and email them.

You can call, but email gives you a paper trail.

So if there's ever a question later on you can say like no, this person approved this for me and said it was fine.

And that's more helpful later on.

So yeah.

So when it comes to choosing like let's say you have multiple things that could fit, you can basically I would say choose the most appropriate class so what you know, fulfills that requirement the best and has the best grade and is most recent.

So you, there may be some wiggle stuff in there where I mean something may not completely fit but you want to, I mean, try to choose the best grade.

This is probably what they're making a prereq GPA from.

So sorry if that's confusing but just hard because there's so many different types of instances and scenarios.

Can you log AP credits?

You can, you will enter AP credits as if they're on your transcript.

If they're not in your transcript, you will not enter them and they don't really count for anything.

Schools don't typically accept AP credits for prerequisite courses.

They want to see grades for that.

Okay, let me keep going on these and we'll come back.

Okay, How do I enter?

One time volunteer event.

Since you have to put the hours per week you would put, let's say like it was a one day thing.

Eight hours per week.

One week and then just the one day as the start and end date.

And then you have your experience details to Explain that a little bit more if you need to.

You cannot project hours.

Here, let me show you experiences.

Okay, here we go.

So, like, these are good because they're shadowing.

So it shows you what you're asking.

Okay, so if we look here for shadowing, so this was a temporary status.

We put the start and end date.

So that was, you know, that one week that that happened and then it was six hours per week.

So one day, but one week.

And so you really just have to, you kind of have to make it work to make those total hours work out.

This one was over two weeks in two separate five hour times.

So even though this spans a month and is more than two weeks, we still know that ultimately we're looking at that total hours to see what that experience was like.

So it is a little confusing if you work different hours, figure out what that total amount is, and work backwards to kind of calculate out how many hours that would be for per week and just make it end up being your total amount of hours.

If you are unsure, always err on the side of a little bit less instead of overestimating.

I think at some point somebody asked for like, how are they verified?

Most of this is on the honor system and schools will not typically follow up unless there is a question about, sorry, this computer's being left.

There we go.

Unless there is a question about validity and if there's anything weird they may look into it, they're going to call that supervisor who is on your application and talk to them if needed.

So that's just something to kind of have in mind.

You definitely don't want to exaggerate anything on your application.

Some schools very rarely will have a verification form that they want you to have completed that somebody will have to sign off on to verify your hours.

So that's just things to keep in mind.

Okay, y', all, we.

We have like 10 pages of questions.

Okay, this.

I'm gonna have to continue this on Instagram tomorrow, but we'll answer some more right now.

This is wild.

Okay.

Yeah, I, I know it's confusing, but I definitely, I do recommend reading through the CASPA FAQ because I do think it'll help.

I really do.

Okay, so how far back should you include work from?

I personally don't think that patient care or healthcare experience hours expire.

Maybe if you have been out of school for like five or 10 years and working for that long, you May not want to go back and include all of your volunteer experience from when you were in college.

Most of the time high school stuff is not going to be relevant unless it was very healthcare or patient care related.

Shadowing that type of thing you could definitely include.

Or if it's a volunteer experience that you started in high school and continued throughout college, that may also be relevant.

So you have to use some judgment.

I remember seeing one Casper application that had literally somebody's job at a gas station for three weeks during the summer.

Like that's, that's not really relevant.

Like that doesn't show anything.

It doesn't show consistency.

It doesn't show much of it.

Just brings up more questions like why are we only there for three weeks?

And yeah, so just think about those things when you're kind of making those decisions.

Okay, so every.

Okay, so everybody likes May's questions.

Let's see what you have.

Me.

Can you submit to schools that have that you have all the requirements for first, then submit to other schools once you finish their requirements, or do you have to wait for everything to be ready?

For example, if I'm ready to submit to a school that does not require GRE or a certain prereq, but I'm waiting on those, can I submit to my ones I'm ready so it does not delay my submission.

So kind of you can submit and then submit later.

But like for a prereq, they're not going to re verify.

They're not going to say that that prereq was completed.

So unless the school is willing to take another transcript or they're okay with not having it verified by caspa, which some are and some aren't, that could play into that decision.

Same thing with gre.

Some schools want it complete on CASPA and verified and some don't.

Experiences aren't as big of a deal because you can add those later and they will show up on your application even if you submit it to more programs.

How do schools know if labs have been taken online?

This is a dicey question.

Most of the time they don't.

Unless it specifically says so on your transcript or you take it through a program like somebody's mentioning don't or Portage.

People talk about those all the time in the pre PA club.

I don't have any particular personal experience with them.

But you.

I mean schools may know that they are primarily online courses, but usually transcripts don't say.

That being said, you know, I think you should always try to be honest on your application.

If school says they don't accept online labs or coursework.

Trying to slide in with some.

Could you get you into some hot water if you are accepted?

So try, try to not do that.

Okay, let's see.

Tips.

Okay.

On average, how many programs should I apply to?

The average number that an account accepted student applied to was 7.

So I think that's a good kind of guide.

I think if you're wanting to spread a wide net and kind of make the most of your first attempt or second attempt or your attempt at all, I think trying to find 10 to 12 that are a good fit for you is a good number.

You have to think about.

I mean, you don't really want to apply to a million schools or really.

I mean, I think 18, 20, 25 is getting a little crazy because you're gonna have supplementals and those are gonna come with fees and also essays and more applications.

Some supplementals make you enter the exact same stuff you entered in caspa, which seems pointless.

So you want to make sure that you have enough time to devote to making sure your applications are as thorough and complete as possible.

And so if you have 30 supplementals and some of these supplementals want five one page essays, that's insane.

You're just added so many essays to your plate.

So that would be a little crazy.

And I would say try to limit yourself a little bit there.

All right.

Okay.

We're at an hour.

I think I'm losing my voice because I work today, but I think I. I think we may need a part two.

I may have to make this a part two.

And then I'll be talking a lot more on social media.

Like I said, I'm in the middle of a move, but I'm gonna be doing lots of stuff on social media.

I'll put a question box up or I'll answer some of the ones from the question box we put up last week, tomorrow and through the rest of the week and weekend.

And I will, you know, just try to make this as clear as possible.

Ask your questions in the Prepa club on Facebook.

Ask your questions on the Pre PA forum on the PA platform.

And I mean, I know it's.

I know it's confusing.

Okay, let's find our winner.

Emily texted me.

Let's see.

Okay.

Congrats to.

If you're still here, Katerina Schaefer from Instagram.

We will be reaching out to get your information.

And I hope y', all, I hope y' all had.

This was helpful.

If you got the interview book, that'll ship quickly.

I have those the personal statement book will ship in a couple weeks if they get them to me promptly, which I hope they do.

And y' all are awesome.

Be on the lookout for social media stuff, upcoming events, dates, trying to make this process as easy as possible.

And yeah, we'll do our best.

So this will go out the replay in about 24 hours, and then it'll be up other places too.

The replay from the personal statement webinar from last month will be up on YouTube and the podcast on Friday.

And it's about personal statements specifically.

So if you're working on that, that's another good resource.

So hope this is helpful.

See you guys next time.

By.