Most of what you're calling a red flag isn't one.

This is a listener question episode, and the theme that kept coming up was fear. Someone transferred schools and took time off to serve in the military and was convinced it would sink their application. It won't. Framed well, it's a strength.

Another listener wanted to know where to even start. My answer is always the same: pick your programs first, look at their actual prerequisites, and then build a plan backward from that. Applying to schools you were never eligible for is the most common waste of money I see.

We also get into GPA math, which nobody enjoys but everybody needs. Know your CASPA science GPA and your overall GPA before you decide where to apply. Run the numbers instead of guessing.

And fill out your CASPA completely. All of it. Schools use those fields to evaluate you, and blank sections don't help you.

What I answer:

• Whether transferring schools or a military gap is a red flag
• How to frame time away from school so it works for you
• Where to actually start if you're brand new to this
• How CASPA calculates your GPAs
• Why blank CASPA fields hurt you
• Finding the weak spot in your own application before a committee does

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

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

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

Mentioned in this episode:

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Hello everyone.

The Prepa Club is back and this week we're answering some questions that y' all submitted through voicemail and wow, this feels good.

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, thanks for tuning in.

We went on a little hiatus just with life getting busy, CASPA opening and things being a little bit crazy.

But we are back and this week we have some questions that were submitted through the voicemail.

If you didn't know you can submit a voice message.

You can also email questions if there's something you'd like to hear on the podcast.

But thank you for joining me.

I'm Savannah, I am a dermatology PA and the creator of the PA platform and the Pre PA Club podcast.

We are definitely getting into interview season, lots of interviews going out, so if you need help with that and need a mock interview, don't forget that you can use the code Future PA for a discount on any of those services or any of our books like the Interview Guide and Personal Statement Guide.

We'll be doing a bunch of giveaways on Instagram coming up, so make sure you're following along there.

Just the PA Platform I have officially been a PA for eight years and that means I have to start the process of studying for my Panry, which is our recertification exam.

I'll be using one of our podcast sponsors, Picmonic, an audio visual learning system with unforgettable stories and characters to revisit everything I learned in PA school.

The subjects in Picmonic are based on the Pants and Pantry and a great memory tool and supplement to help make the information stick.

I'm working on cardiology today and the videos are short and digestible, which fits in perfectly with a busy schedule.

There's a free option that offers a free daily picmonic or you can sign up now for access on iOS, Android or desktop and get 20% off with the link in the description or use the code thepaplatform at checkout and that will also get you that discount.

I've been doing a couple videos a day and it is super helpful.

Alright, so let's jump into some questions that y' all have submitted and see what I can help with.

Hello, I am a Pre PA student getting ready to finish up my undergrad in the next year or so I I'm going to have a degree in biology with a concentration in Pre Med And a minor in chemistry and psychology.

I have a question regarding my career in undergrad.

Thus far, I have jumped around quite a bit during my undergrad career.

I transferred schools twice and I'm finally in a place where I feel like I can graduate from this school and earn a degree from this school.

So I don't plan on moving around anymore.

I also took a year off from undergrad to join the military.

I became a 68 whiskey combat medic in the United States army and spent a year training in emergency medicine, trauma, and other medically related areas in the military.

I guess my question is, when I go to apply to PA school, will people look at how much I have jumped around in my undergrad and see that as a red flag?

I'm a huge fan of this podcast.

It's helped me tremendously in feeling better about applying and getting to PA school.

So thank you so much for all of the advice that you have and thank you if you see this question.

I appreciate it greatly.

Okay, number one, thank you for listening to the podcast and the kind words and for submitting your question.

So I think when we're looking at applications, we are always looking for what's the red flag?

What's the weakness?

What's the that one thing that a school might call me out on or ask about, and that's good.

We want to be objective when we're looking at ourselves and our applications to identify those weaknesses.

Nothing that you discussed in your question I see as major red flags, particularly with changing schools, changing majors, taking time off as long as you were bettering yourself and had a reason for doing those things.

I don't see that being an issue with PA schools.

Could it come up in an interview?

Sure.

But you gave great background for why you were doing what you were doing.

I don't think any school would say you shouldn't have taken a year off to get really great experience, because that's not true.

And some of those decisions changes actually, to me, show a lot of maturity in your decision making that instead of powering through a major or school that wasn't what you felt was best for you or a time period where, you know, instead of taking time off, you just kept going.

You realized that something different needed to happen and you took action on that.

So I think that should give you confidence that that you were making great decisions and that a program will also see that and appreciate that.

I'll also say, as someone who does a lot of prepa coaching, I rarely see applications that don't have multiple schools Multiple, you know, I guess I don't necessarily know if they change their major, but people talk about it in their supplementals and their essays.

Time off there's so much variety that I don't even think a traditional applicant exists at this point.

I think everyone takes such a different path towards becoming a PA that I just don't even know if we can say what a traditional applicant looks like.

That could change in the future, but most applications are going to have a variety of experiences and that includes academic experiences, so I wouldn't let that hold you back.

I don't see that as a weakness or a red flag.

I think all of that will be beneficial and especially if you discuss it in a beneficial and positive way in your essays and in your interviews, that will certainly pay off.

So best of luck.

If I can ever help you out, please let me know.

You know where to find me.

But that was a great question and thank you for sharing your personal background as well.

Alright, let's move on to our next question.

Hi, I'm Jamina and I just found your blog and haven't been able to stop reading your articles.

Incredibly helpful really.

I am currently a medical language interpreter, which is an interpreter just in the medical field and I am interested in applying to PA school.

Just very excited to hear more about what this Pre PA Club has to offer.

Thank you so much for the articles and my biggest question is what was the most or what are the most helpful tips you you've got for me in terms of applying for PA school, especially this very early step of the process that I'm in currently in terms of prerequisites, my goal is to ace every class, but other than that I really I've made sure that the classes will transfer to the PA program that.

I'm hi Jamina, thank you for the question and I'm so glad you found the PA platform.

Hopefully this will be a helpful resource and tool for you in your process.

That's why we're here, that's why I do what I do.

But I love this question because this is a version of probably the most common question I get in Instagram DMs what I see in Prepay Club on Facebook all the time and also what I get emails of.

Basically the question of where do I start and what do I do?

And this is a little bit about what I'm doing.

So first of all, your background as a medical interpreter will be so beneficial to you.

And I think that is great.

Some schools may want to see some clinical experience, so that may be something to look into.

And it sounds like you've started that process as well of figuring out what you need.

And that is always my first piece of advice for anyone when they are starting out is look specifically at programs that you are interested in and start forming that list of where you plan to apply.

For a couple reasons.

Requirements can vary so much between programs and the timelines of what you need to do and when you have to submit.

All of that can be so different.

And so, you know, you have to take that into consideration when you're making your list of preference programs to really narrow down where you're going to apply.

One kind of, I guess problem that I've seen this cycle is people applying to schools that have different start dates.

So they have different.

Like some will start in January, some will start the following August or fall.

And the problem becomes the interview cycles are so different for those programs that you may not hear back from the fall start programs until after you would have needed to start a January start program.

And so it's making some of that decision making very difficult for people.

So I would try to apply to schools that are pretty much on the same schedule if you can.

And when you're making your list, just use that to guide you.

It sounds like you are doing the next right step of taking prereqs and doing well in them, which it seems you realize how important that is to make sure you're doing very well in those those classes.

And as long as you keep your grades up and take it one step at a time, that's the thing.

You've got to continually reevaluate your application, see where you're at and see what you need to work on, whether that is your experience, volunteering, shadowing, whatever the weakest part of your application is, make that your focus.

That is hard.

Sometimes we don't want to do that.

Sometimes it is much easier to focus on just what we want to do and what we think is the easier option, which may be getting experience or shadowing or whatever.

Everybody's like shadowing is not the easy part.

But you know, shadowing maybe the same person over and over Instead of looking for other opportunities, whatever you, you gotta get out of your comfort zone a little bit and so figure out what is going to make you the most well rounded applicant that you can be.

And when you look at your application, you want to try to make it so that there's nothing that you could do better.

There's always things we could do better, but that is the goal that you want to strive for.

So it sounds like you're doing awesome again.

If I can ever help you out, please let me know and thank you so much for listening and for you and anyone else listening, if there's ever a subject that you feel like we haven't covered or you can't find information about, please let me know.

I find the easiest way to find stuff is just to Google the PA platform and whatever it is you're looking for, whether that's gre, pa, cat, gpa, whatever.

Hello, I have a question about the personal information component of caspa.

From my understanding, I've heard it's really important to not leave anything in your CASPA application blank, and I totally understand that.

But I think I'm a little bit confused on the personal information section and how some of it's required, some of it is optional, and if that section as a whole is a part of of the process for determining who schools are going to offer interviews to, I left.

So I'm a re applicant this year and I left pretty much all of the optional pieces blank just because I wanted my application and my qualifications to be the determining factor if schools are going to offer me an interview and not my background.

But I want to know your thoughts on it, know what your understanding of that is, because I'm sure I'm not the only one that is a little bit confused about the required versus the optional components of that.

So thank you very much and I love the podcast.

All right, so this question also comes up every single year and it's because nobody really knows how to address the personal information part of caspa and there's not a ton of direction.

I agree with Kyle with what you mentioned and what you've probably heard elsewhere, that the more you can fill out your application, the better.

You know, schools want as much info about you before you get there for an interview as they can get.

They want to have a good look at your background, your application, and kind of understanding where you're coming from.

And that's where the personal information plays in.

One if you're needing help with this, I would say we did some CASPA webinars earlier in the year where we did kind of walkthroughs and different talks about CASPA that are part of our webinar series.

So that is still going on.

We're not doing Casper right now.

We've moved on to interviews.

I guess that'll end up being like probably 30 hours of stuff that you can watch.

That's a lot.

But we're really covering kind of all of the different topics.

So I'll put a link to that in the description or you can find it on the PA platform if that would be helpful to you.

It's $20 for the whole year.

And then you do get access to all of the upcoming webinars, which, by the way, our next one will be on July 31.

We are still working on interview stuff.

And this webinar will be, you be the interviewer and you're gonna ask me questions, which at the time, when I planned it, I thought was a good idea.

Now I'm kind of scared.

So anyway, that should be fun.

And we'll be posting about it on social media if you want to join.

Sorry for getting off topic.

Okay, so when we're talking about personal information on caspa, we want to think about how this is going to be used by the programs.

And the bad part is we don't really know.

Every program is going to do this a little differently.

Some programs may not really look at it at all.

Some programs may look at it very closely.

We really just don't know.

And so in my mind, it's better to just go ahead and give them the information because I think either way there's gonna be bias.

Whether you provide the information or don't, they're going to make assumptions.

And this is something I wouldn't say I do it as much on the personal information side of things.

But when I'm reading a personal statement and someone is vaguely referring to a medical condition or a medical situation is really hard for me not to assume the worst.

Like, I go to thinking, oh my gosh, this person had terrible cancer.

Or, you know, I don't even know, like, just crazy stuff.

And so.

But then sometimes I talk to them and they're like, oh, it wasn't that bad, or whatever.

And so I just think you've got to give enough information so that that person Isn't assuming, like, is there a reason that she wouldn't put this.

And some schools, maybe that is part of their application screening process is just having a complete application and providing that information.

So I can't really think of many reasons why you wouldn't put the personal information on there.

And I'm assuming you're talking about kind of the parent information or your childhood residency information type stuff.

Yeah, I don't see a really a reason that that wouldn't be included or why it would be detrimental or a negative to your application.

Some of that information is needed and important for like in state schools or when schools are looking at certain funding, they need to have certain kind of demographic information.

And so that can play in a little bit.

But yeah, I wouldn't overthink it either.

Just, you know, don't overthink it.

There are way more important parts of your application.

I don't think that part, the personal information portion is going to be the biggest deal breaker on your application.

So hopefully that helps.

And yeah, we definitely go more in depth kind of in the webinars too.

So if you have that, you may want to revisit those CASPA webinars.

Hi, I have a question.

I was wondering if you guys offer a service where GPAs are calculated.

I need someone to help me calculate my gpa or if anyone can calculate the GPA for me.

If I send my transcript, that will be good.

If you can let me know, that'd be great.

Hello, thank you for your question.

GPA always comes up with lots of questions and, and yes, so there.

I'll tell you about a few resources you can use.

We do have a Service to calculate GPAs.

It's on the website on the PA platform where we basically you send in your transcripts and we will plug everything in for you.

I say we, I will plug everything in for you with assigning course subjects and science.

And it's an interactive Excel document so you.

So you can add things to it or change it or do whatever you need to do.

So that is an option.

We also have a free GPA calculator on the PA platform.

I will add a disclaimer that it is not quite as specific as I would like.

It is a little bit not perfect in calculating.

So we kind of want to, you know, know, round down, take that with a grain of salt.

The Excel sheet that we use is much more accurate.

So yes, that is on there.

It won't save for you either, but that's a good place.

Like if you just want A rough estimate.

Go to the PA platform, look for the free GPA calculator and then you're good to go.

CASPA has an Excel document you can download as well to plug in your coursework.

I have always found it very confusing to use and for that reason I don't use this theirs.

And so you know, you can play with that and see how it does for you.

But that is an option as well.

And then another resource that you may want to consider, there's a new website called mapped.comm a p d.com and it is something called Mapped App which lets you put in all of your information into this online kind of application and you can put in all of your courses.

It's really cool how you put in courses because you put in your school and then it actually has the course catalog and pulls up the courses for you.

You can assign them to science and then it calculates your overall and your science GPAs.

You can also keep track of your experience and everything in there.

It is free to use.

There are some upgrade options for like personalized advising that you can upgrade to a paid service.

And it's very low cost, but that is a great option, especially compared to some of the other applications out there that I feel like are not as well done, that cost a lot more money.

So that's something else to look at.

If you're trying to figure out GPA stuff, I know that that is super confusing.

We have a blog post on the PA platform.

If you just look up what is my CASPA GPA or like PA platform CASPA gpa.

It'll come up where we talk through what goes into your GPAs, how to calculate how GPAs can change, what to expect and all of that.

So that's another resource as well.

We've also have some YouTube videos, so lots of stuff out there on GPA and if you need personalized help, we are happy to do that.

Alright, that's our last voicemail question.

Y' all have got to submit more questions so we can have more of these episodes.

And I'm glad we are back on the podcast train and I hope that you enjoyed this episode.

If you did, please let me know on social media so that we know that we need to keep the podcast going.

And if there's anything you want to hear, any guests you'd love to hear from, please, please let me know.

And I would love to reach out to them.

Have a great week everybody.