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3. My Stats
150 Plays4 years ago
In this episode, I break down all of my major stats when I applied to PA school. From GPA-PCH I go into what programs saw when I applied.
Take a look at my CASPA calculated GPAs I talk about in this episode.
--- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/appRecommended
Transcript
Introduction to Podcasting with Anchor
00:00:00
Speaker
If you have been wondering how I could do this podcast in PA School, I'll tell you, I use an anchor. This is the easiest way to make a podcast. Let me explain. First, it is a free hosting platform which allows anyone to start a podcast with no upfront cost. It has built-in tools which allow you to edit and record a podcast. You can even record it from your phone.
00:00:23
Speaker
Anchor will distribute your podcast for you so it can be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and other major podcast platforms. You can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. Anchor has everything that you need to make a podcast. They make it so easy for you. Download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm to get started. That's anchor.fm
00:00:48
Speaker
a-n-c-h-o-r dot f-m to get started today.
Sebring Sands' PA School Experience
00:00:53
Speaker
The PA School Experience Podcast, episode three, my stats.
00:01:08
Speaker
Welcome to the PA School Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Sebring Sands, and we'll explore what it's like to go through PA school and give you a glimpse into the excitement of becoming a PA. Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the podcast.
Academic Challenges and Success in PA School
00:01:23
Speaker
I'm glad to be back again, especially after several weeks of intense exams and studying. It was pretty intense.
00:01:34
Speaker
and glad that that's over with. Today, I'm going to be continuing from the first episode, which I'm going to talk about my stats now. Because in the first episode, it doesn't seem too crazy my journey, but when I throw in some stats, hopefully it'll give people hope that even with a lower GPA, having to take classes again, going back and taking college classes to increase your GPA,
00:02:05
Speaker
It's still possible to get into PA school and even on your first try, even though I kind of did it in a roundabout way and it wasn't totally certain that I was going to be able to go to peace school my first time around, but I'll get into that.
00:02:21
Speaker
Okay, in this first part, I'm just going to be sharing my GPA with you, my different types of GPAs. And this will kind of give you an understanding and a glimpse into what I was like as an applicant.
00:02:37
Speaker
I'm just like just with the numbers. So hopefully this gives people some hope that they still can get into B-School with their GPS. So my cumulative undergraduate, so this is after a post-bac, is a 3.38. Then my overall science was a 3.11. This is also after a post-bac.
00:02:57
Speaker
So that's what I got my GPA up to after taking three semesters of undergraduate science classes that I didn't do with my traditional bachelor degree.
00:03:12
Speaker
So before I went back to Postbac, my science GPA was at 2.94. And I realized this, that P schools, also DO schools at the time when I was thinking of going into DO school, was that they did not count the math GPA, which I calculated in. Because some med schools do, MD schools
00:03:38
Speaker
But most everyone else doesn't. And that really threw a wrench into my plans. I dipped below a 3.0, which I was thinking I had in the bag. So that really messed up my planning a bit. And I had to rethink and redo some things to increase that GPA. So when I went back and did my post back, I just did it by myself. I wasn't a formal one or anything. I just went back.
00:04:05
Speaker
I did extra classes, I did take out loans, a lot more loans for those three semesters, but I think it's well worth it. So my post-bacc science, I only did science classes
00:04:18
Speaker
And I only did things that would increase my signed GPA. It was a 3.5. So I didn't do 4.0, which a lot of people are able to do and kudos to them, but I didn't. I still struggled with some things, but I did a lot better. I was able to recharge. I was pretty burnt out after I graduated.
00:04:40
Speaker
And I had a good six, seven months off before I started that first semester of my post back. So those are my, those are my GPA. You know, it really depends on you as a candidate, including volunteering and, uh, patient care hours, just everything is what admissions look at.
00:05:04
Speaker
And I'm no admission expert. There's a lot more people more qualified. But for me personally, they did have to look at more than just one thing. And my personal statement, I felt like, was good enough for them to really be interested in looking at me as a candidate. I think that really paid off. OK, next up, I'm going to be talking about my patient care hours.
Gaining Experience as a CNA
00:05:29
Speaker
So I opted to doing the route of a CNA.
00:05:32
Speaker
Well, at the time, I really didn't think there were other options that were practical for me. And I ended up loving being a CNA, you know, as much as you can. Love the job. It is hard, long hours. It's just exhausting doing that much work and lifting and moving. It is hard, but I felt like
00:05:56
Speaker
The interactions I had with patients was well worth it. So I worked first I worked at an assisted living facility. Then I switched to working at a home health and hospital which I loved.
00:06:11
Speaker
for a couple of years. And it was a really good option for me because I was able to have a more flexible schedule while going back and taking classes during the day. But when I was done before PA school, I then switched again to another facility, assisted living and skilled nursing facility, which I loved as well. And it was good to get the two differences. I felt a lot more free,
00:06:38
Speaker
had a lot more autonomy in home health and hospice, but also it was nice to have the structured help that you have at a facility. And also you get to see a lot more people, different stages at a facility. So there's just differences in those two. So total
00:07:01
Speaker
The total hours that I had was 4,023. That's what I reported to a missions committee when I applied. This is what I put into CASPA. And some people ask if they do verify hours, how can they verify hours? They probably don't verify hours at all in the application process, but I had to submit
00:07:24
Speaker
verifications when I was accepted into PA school. And what I did as I went into the HR departments, and I had them print out all my hours that I had, and they had just one glitch on my health job.
00:07:40
Speaker
that they switched systems completely, maybe a little before halfway or halfway through working there. A bulk of my hours I couldn't report because they weren't on any system that the manager had access to. So I just had him write a little note and sign it saying, call me if you have any questions about his hours. This is what it was reported.
00:08:03
Speaker
and it was fine, they were accepted. So do keep that into mind and try not to inflate them. It's hard with a system where it has you input hours per week and weeks, which I think is weird. I think you should just be able to just put the hours that you have because some weeks are more, some weeks are less, and it's hard to really get a good average, but try the best you can.
00:08:31
Speaker
It was really cool to see now that I'm in preschool to see everyone's background. We've got some EMTs in there. We got scribes, MAs, just a whole mixed surgical text. So if you do have just a CNA like I was, don't be too worried that you can't compete with other people because you can bring something different into the program.
00:09:00
Speaker
And that's what they're looking for. I had the incredible experience of understanding a little bit better of the geriatric community and their issues, medications they take. There's a lot of things in PSQ that I'm learning that, yeah, this is what that person took and this is what they, this person needed to be done to treat this certain
00:09:24
Speaker
condition they had or illnesses. So it is very valuable whatever you take into preschool. And that's what patient care hours is needed. You need that experience to kind of know how to interact with and be immersed into that environment.
00:09:44
Speaker
So in PA school, we can springboard off of that. And with your other peers in PA school, they have different strengths too, and that helps with the learning process, with certain skills that they have that they can show you, or their knowledge that they have.
Volunteering and Personal Growth
00:09:59
Speaker
So it is very helpful in the whole cohort that everyone be in different places, coming from different backgrounds in experience, and that's a good thing.
00:10:10
Speaker
For volunteering, I did a total hours of traditional volunteering as 222. I had some more volunteering I counted with my church and different aspects of it. And that I kind of added to it, but my traditional volunteering was about 222. And I learned while trying to apply and trying to get ready to apply to medical school.
00:10:35
Speaker
The focus that I always heard was volunteer on things you love to do because it's more than just fluffing your application. You really show passion and interest for doing certain things with your volunteering. So I took this to heart and I just fell in love with mentoring and helping kids and teenagers. I did my first kind of major volunteering that I did was I helped teenagers in high school. I was a tutor for them.
00:11:05
Speaker
So I helped with anatomy, I helped with sciences, math, and that was really rewarding. I love just being in that environment because I had many great mentors myself and I feel like kids can really be set up for success if they have someone
00:11:22
Speaker
that can encourage them and be there for them and help them overcome challenges. I'm all for that. And having a daughter myself, stuff comes close to home a lot. I want that experience. I want that encouragement for other children as well.
00:11:39
Speaker
And that led me to a reading tutor. I was doing, I was a reading tutor for almost a year, which was super awesome. I was mostly with one child and to see her progress was amazing and well worth the time. And then towards the end, I worked at this place called the family place, which was this center for at risk children and also low income children to come in for a couple hours. I mostly did.
00:12:06
Speaker
but the volunteers could mostly just do play with the children and have activities for children for two hours and it was kind of a signed time slot that they did and that was amazingly fun. Kids from all sorts of backgrounds were there, we played certain types of games, sensory,
00:12:23
Speaker
dancing it was a ton of fun and I did that for a whole semester almost six months and that was amazing too so all of those things added up I think that was a good show of my personality and my passions and my interests to show that as volunteering I think is very important for your application
PA School Applications and Acceptance
00:12:43
Speaker
So I applied to 14 different schools. That seems like a lot, but I felt like that almost wasn't enough for me. There's people that you might hear on Reddit or other places where they apply to just a few schools, and good for them if they feel like it's enough for them.
00:13:03
Speaker
I'm not sure what the average is, but it's up there, I think close to 10. But 14 schools, I was hoping at least one program would bite. And it did, it worked out for me. I applied to a bunch of places I really wanted to go and some places that I wasn't sure about, but could be a good opportunity to go to. I ended up only getting one interview
00:13:33
Speaker
at the school I'm at now at Sacred Heart University. And I was totally sure it was across the country. I had to fly there. But going through that experience and going there, I went to the interview and I was blown away of how awesome and how inviting the program was. And they really wanted to see me as a person
00:13:56
Speaker
interacting with other students and kind of getting a feel for my personality and how I would contribute to the culture of the program. And I think you have to keep that in mind when interviewing is you don't have to get everything right. I wasn't perfect at my responses to some of the questions, even to the almost basic question of why do you want to BPA? But I think they saw me interacting with other students.
00:14:23
Speaker
in different situations and realize that I could be a good fit for the culture and it turned out to be right.
Life and Learning in PA School
00:14:30
Speaker
I feel like I fit in pretty well with certain personalities and different people and everyone is so kind and inviting and warm and encouraging and I love that about my program.
00:14:43
Speaker
I didn't get in right away. I was on the waitlist right around December. So I interviewed on October and December. I got on the waitlist and it wasn't until April when I got off the waitlist. So I was really excited when I got that email saying that I was accepted. I had to go through now the stresses of going through all the verifications and everything before I moved to Connecticut because I was in Utah at the time.
00:15:09
Speaker
And that was a little stressful, but well worth my time and effort and stresses. And when I started PA school, I really felt this amazing feeling of really, I don't have to compare myself that much to people because yeah, they have some amazing experiences. I feel like they're a lot more prepared for PA school than I am with their experiences, but we all bring something different to the program, to our cohort. And that was an amazing feeling that
00:15:39
Speaker
yep maybe i didn't do as well as they did but we're all here together we're all all here in the same battle of studying and getting through it and that was very encouraging to me just think about that as you go through the process and in peace school that everyone
00:15:55
Speaker
has gotten there, deserves to be there, they well vetted. I know imposter syndrome comes up a lot with people, and I feel that sometimes as maybe I'm not prepared enough for clinicals, but realizing that everyone is there, deserves to be there, you deserve to be there, and that's very encouraging.
00:16:14
Speaker
My program is not a competitive one. There's no posted GPAs, no one keeps track of it, which I love. It really suits my personality well. I don't think I would have been able to hold up to the pressure of trying to compete with other people and realizing that you don't have to be the number one student to do well as a PA.
00:16:39
Speaker
my program director always emphasizes this is don't worry about your GPA learn about worry about learning what you need to learn to be a good PA good practitioner because that's what's most important no one really cares about
00:16:54
Speaker
the A's that you got in PA score, even undergrad, it cares that you can apply the knowledge and learn the knowledge to better do patient care. And that's what I've been trying to focus on. I'm not the most perfect student. You can even look at my test scores recently, last semester, I'm not the best one. There's
00:17:12
Speaker
people way smarter than me, able to understand and absorb the information better than me. But what my goal is, is to apply everything so I can help with patients, I can do patient care. And that's what's important. So focus on that in PA school.
00:17:29
Speaker
not trying to use your type eight personality to get every A's on everything. And if you're able to do that and you're not super stressed out, good for you. I have to get at least six or seven hours of sleep every night. And I can't just go on no sleep in order to be able to get the study time in there required to get extremely good grades. But I'm satisfied with my knowledge at this time and able to learn the knowledge. And that's my goal in PA school.
Encouragement for Future PA Students
00:17:59
Speaker
So that's a summary of all my stats. I think the most important one's not completely comprehensive, but that could be boring and long. But I'm going to post the screenshot of all my GPAs so everyone can take a look at how they kind of break it down. It's hard to calculate everything that they do in CASPA.
00:18:18
Speaker
But there are calculators even on the website that you can use to make sure you're over minimums and things like that. And within a tenth of a point, you should be pretty accurate with those. So I'm going to post that. Well, I'm glad you guys are able to come to another episode and listen. Hopefully these subjects are kind of less ambiguous for people. People can get a better idea of what to expect with the process.
00:18:42
Speaker
and hope for people that have lower GPAs that it is possible to get into PA school. It might take you some time. It might take you some money to apply to enough schools so that someone might be able to take a chance on you and really have you be a part of their program, but it is possible.
00:19:00
Speaker
You know, I am an N of one, and this is no statistical significance at all, but hopefully these experiences of mine can help someone that is struggling to have confidence to apply because they don't have, you know, even the averages, which
00:19:16
Speaker
averages are averages you have people that are higher people that are lower so be aware of that as you're looking at averages so i hope this is helpful helpful for some people and i'll talk to you guys in the next episode