Tips on CASPA & The Application Process – Jisoo L.

Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy amidst this stressful and confusing time! Take a breather and read helpful tips about the application process from the lovely, PA-S, Jisoo Lee! Enjoy your read! – CL

Hello everyone! My name is Jisoo Lee and I graduated from UCSD with a degree in Public Health in 2018, and now I’m a first year PA student at Chapman University. I just finished my first trimester of PA school and with CASPA opening soon, I thought this would be a good time to share some tips on CASPA and navigating the application process with my PPASO family!

First and foremost, I know this is an unprecedented time with COVID-19 and I’m sure everyone is extremely stressed in general even without the added stressors of applying to PA school. Just know that everyone is in the same boat, so you are not alone! With school and work being online for a lot of people, try to take advantage of this extra time to work on yourself and also to strengthen your application.

Tip #1: Personal statement

Hopefully you’ve started drafting your personal statement by now and maybe even asked a few people to review it for you. The personal statement is probably one of the hardest parts of the application, but one way I tried to stay on task with my writing was to focus in on “Why PA?” Each sentence should in some way answer or support your answer to this question. You may start out with why you want to go into healthcare in general, but make sure the reader knows while reading why you want to specifically be a PA, rather than a physician, nurse, or other health care profession. What is it about this profession that drew you to it? Why wouldn’t you be able to stay in your current job (e.g. medical assistant, CNA, EMT) for the rest of your life?

Tip #2: Experience descriptions

With every single CASPA entry of a patient/healthcare/volunteer experience, leadership position, shadowing opportunity, etc. you have to write a description of that experience. It’s not too long, only a short paragraph for each, but if you have multiple jobs/opportunities to input as I’m sure most of you have, it can get very daunting. Additionally, you should view these as mini personal statements through which admissions committees can get to know more about you, so don’t rush these! Get started on them early and the best piece of advice I got with these descriptions was to close out each entry with what you learned from that position to tie it all together and show what you took away from each opportunity.

Tip #3: Transcripts

I recommend requesting paper copies of all your transcripts be mailed to yourself ahead of time from every institution you took college level courses at. Oftentimes, there are discrepancies between the official transcript and the online academic history, which will get flagged by CASPA and delay your application being submitted to programs. By having the paper copies of the official transcript in front of you, it makes transcript entry much easier and also ensures that all of your class titles and codes will be correct. Also take advantage of CASPA’s comprehensive FAQ section as questions inevitably come up as you’re putting in your classes. Most likely, they’ve already thought of it and have an answer.

Tip #4: AP Credit

This is an unexpected complication I ran into when putting in my classes into CASPA. I realized that for some reason UCSD’s official transcript does not indicate which AP classes and how many credits for each one you received credit for. This is an issue if you plan on using AP class credit to count for English or Math prerequisites for PA school as the programs will have no idea which AP courses you took. To work around this, you have to email registrar@ucsd.edu and request a letter verifying your AP credit and then add that letter as an attachment to your transcript when electronically sending official transcripts to CASPA. I did still have some programs email me after the fact requesting proof of my AP credit, but once I directed them to see the attachment to my transcript or just resent my copy of the AP verification letter, all of those issues were quickly resolved.

Tip #5: GRE scores

Not sure if this has changed now with GRE testing dates being cancelled, but on test day after you finish the test, you get to send scores for free to 4 institutions. I knew beforehand which programs I wanted to send them to but didn’t memorize/familiarize myself with the specific GRE codes for those schools’ PA programs. When I went to look them up, I made the mistake of just sending them to the universities in general rather than the PA programs specifically and ended up having to pay later to send them again to the correct code. Applying to PA school is expensive enough as it is, so take advantage of any and all opportunities to save cut down on costs!

Tip #6: Letters of recommendation

Give your letter writers plenty of time (at least 2 months) to write their letters as they are most likely very busy people. I also recommend sending them gentle reminders at the 1 month and 1 week mark, as well as checking in with them the day before/day of to make sure everything is on track. Also, I’ve heard before that the “golden combination” is to have letters from a professor, a supervisor, and a healthcare provider (ideally a PA). If you have all these and they know you well and can write you a strong letter, then great! However, I don’t recommend reaching out to someone who doesn’t know you that well just to hit this combo because a bad or generic letter is worse than not having one from that “category” at all.

Tip #7: Staying calm

There is no doubt that applying to PA school is an extremely stressful and time-consuming process. While it is important to apply early to increase your chances at rolling admissions schools, don’t sacrifice the quality of your application by rushing so you can submit within a week of CAPSA opening. Take your time with every step of the process making sure everything is correct by double and triple checking everything. Break up different parts of the application and work on it one step at a time rather than trying to get it all done in one sitting. Keep doing things that de-stress you during the process and take time away from it as well—going back to it with a clear mind and fresh eyes is guaranteed to yield better results than obsessing over it every day. You will eventually finish it and it will all be worth it in the end!

Tip #8: After applying

Submitting is such a liberating feeling, but it’s not over yet! Soon after submitting you’ll start getting invitations to complete supplemental applications which involves, yes…more essays. I remember getting extremely overwhelmed by all the supplemental applications I had to do, so I recommend only applying to programs you are strongly considering as it is not only financially burdensome to apply to a ton of programs, but it also makes more work for yourself. Lastly, and I cannot stress this enough, start preparing for interviews as soon as you submit. I got my first interview invite 11 days after I submitted, which sounds crazy but especially for programs that are early start, this should be something you are prepared for! I’ve also gotten interview invites not even a week before the interview date as people drop out of their slots all the time, so you should be prepped and ready to interview at literally any time after submitting.

Good luck to everyone applying this cycle! Things are definitely hectic and stressful right now but push through, lean on each other, and your hard work will pay off in the end. I personally have been navigating PA school online which is definitely not something I expected in a million years, but I feel very grateful to my program and faculty for ensuring that we are still getting our education despite everything that is going on.

Feel free to email me at ljisoo@gmail.com with any questions and best of luck!