The Pre-PA Club
by The PA Platform
The Pre-PA Club Podcast is real talk about getting into PA school from people who did it. Host Savanna Perry, PA-C, founder of The PA Platform, interviews practicing PAs, program directors, admissions coaches, and recently accepted students about the CASPA application, personal statements, interviews, patient care hours, GPA, and reapplying. The PA Platform has coached pre-PA students since 2015 and has reviewed more than 10,000 personal statements and essays. Find every episode, the free CASPA GPA calculator, and the PA program directory for all 50 states at thepaplatform.com.
Episodes
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How to Prepare for Your PA School Interview with Avery Tinsley
Avery Tinsley, PA-S and former Teach For America recruiter, has sat on both sides of the interview table. In this workshop she walks through exactly how to prepare for a PA school interview: the formats you will see, the mistakes that sink strong applicants, and her recipes for the questions you...
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Paying for PA School in 2026 with Juno
Grad PLUS loans are gone for new students, and the rules for what replaces them are still being decided in court. So how do you actually pay for PA school in 2026? Savanna sits down with Leah Young, Head of Student Success at Juno, to walk through federal vs. private loans, what your credit score...
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Brittani and Cameron - Married PAs in GYN and Interventional Radiology!
I'm back, and I brought two people I really wanted you to meet. Brittani and Cameron are married PAs. She's in gynecology, he's in interventional radiology - two specialties that could not look more different from each other. They also became foster parents, which is its own enormous thing to…
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Low 2.99 CASPA GPA to PA School Acceptance! (How She Did It!)
2.99. One hundredth of a point under the number everybody says is the cutoff. Sarah Matthews applied with that GPA and got in. She's now practicing in OB-GYN and urogynecology. I want to be careful here, because this is not me telling you GPA doesn't matter. It does, and a 2.99 makes everything...
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Becoming a Dermatology PA with NO Experience
Dermatology is one of the hardest PA jobs to get with no derm experience. Amanda Lark got one anyway. And she didn't do it by applying to postings and waiting. She got creative about how she reached out, which is the part of this episode I'd rewind if I were you. Most good first jobs are not…
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@lyssllo from TikTok! - Alyssa - New Grad ENT PA!
We recorded this right around Alyssa's first day as an ENT PA. You can hear the nerves. You might know her as @lyssllo on TikTok. She's a brand-new grad, and this is that specific window where you've passed the boards, you have the credential, and you still feel like someone's going to figure out...
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Personal Statement and Interview Tips with Pre-PA Coach, Peter Alfano, PA-C
"I want to help people." That sentence has never gotten anyone into PA school. Peter Alfano is a family medicine PA and one of our coaches, and he's back to talk about the two places applicants lose the most ground: the personal statement and the interview. The pattern he sees over and over is...
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Money and Finances as a PA with Kristin Burton, PA-C of Strive with Kristin
Nobody teaches you money in PA school. Then you graduate with six figures of debt and a real salary for the first time. Kristin Burton is a PA who runs Strive with Kristin, and she came on to talk about the stuff we all avoid. Student debt and how to think about paying it down. Investing when...
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Interview with Joy Moverley - Touro University California Joint MSPAS-MPH Program Director
A PA degree and a public health degree at the same time. That's Touro University California. Joy Moverley directs the joint MSPAS/MPH program, and I wanted to understand who this is actually for. Because it's not for everyone, and that's fine. The idea is that a lot of what makes your patients…
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2023 The PA Platform Recap!!
2023 was a big year over here, and a lot of you don't know half of what we added. So this is the recap. Quick, useful, and mostly a list of things that might solve a problem you currently have. We added PA school tutoring through partnerships with Rosh Review and Blueprint, which is for people...
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What is my CASPA GPA?? How to Use Mappd
"What's my CASPA GPA?" is the question I get more than any other. And the honest answer is that it's probably not what you think, because CASPA calculates it differently than your school does. Every attempt counts. Retakes don't erase the original. That surprises people every year. So in this...
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Dietitian to PA Student of the Year to PA - with Cassidy
Cassidy was a clinical registered dietitian. Then she became AAPA's 2022 PA Student of the Year. Her dietitian background wasn't a detour. It was direct patient care, in a hospital, with real clinical responsibility - exactly the kind of experience that makes an applicant credible. She graduated...
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3-Time Reapplicant to PA Student - Interview with Jacklyn
Watching your friends get in while you're getting rejection emails is its own specific kind of awful. Jacklyn lived that for three cycles. She's honest in this episode about how discouraging it got, which I appreciate, because the highlight-reel version of this process helps nobody. What she did...
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FAQ + Pre-PA AI - PA Week 2023
Happy PA Week. I built you something. The Pre-PA AI is free, it's available around the clock, and it's trained on my own material - the books, the podcast episodes, the videos, all of it. So when you have a question at 11pm about interviews or CASPA or a specific part of the process, you can just...
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Interview with Dr. Ryan Gray and Rachel Grubbs - Meet Mappd! - Free Pre-PA Application Tracker
A brief summary of this episode Mentioned in this episode: CapYear Training Get $200 Off CapYear Academy Looking to boost your clinical experience this summer? CapYear Academy offers a flexible, 100% online medical assistant training program with optional externships and CCMA certification...
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3 Time PA School Reapplicant - Interview with Rachel
Rachel applied three times. She's in. Two rejections is where most people quit, and I understand why. It's expensive, it's exhausting, and it starts to feel personal. Rachel kept going, and more importantly, she kept changing things. The move I want you to steal from her: after a rejection, she...
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Live Mock Interviews - 2023
Three volunteers. Real questions. No editing. This is live mock interviews, and it's uncomfortable to listen to in the best way. You hear people think on their feet, land some answers, fumble others, and get feedback in real time. We hit the two questions that come up everywhere. "Why do you want...
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2nd Career PA - HR to PA Student with Cierra Pennal
Cierra spent five years in human resources before going back to medicine. Medicine was her first love. She talked herself out of it, built a career somewhere else, and then couldn't stop thinking about it. If that sounds familiar, this episode is for you. The logistics are the hard part and she...
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Low GPA to PA Student - Interview with Elijah
Elijah's undergrad transcript was rough. He got in on his first try anyway. That combination almost never happens by accident, so I wanted to know exactly what he did. He did a master's program and performed. That gave admissions recent, graduate-level evidence that he can handle the coursework,...
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How to Prep for PA School Interviews - Part 2
Wear the suit. Yes, even on Zoom. Part two of interview prep is the logistics episode - the unglamorous details that quietly shape someone's first impression of you. Dress professionally. A suit is still the standard, and virtual doesn't change that. Nobody has ever been rejected for being too...
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Laurel Miller - PA Professor at Point Loma Nazarene University
The advice your cousin got when she applied five years ago might not apply to you anymore. Laurel Miller is an assistant professor at Point Loma Nazarene University, and she's watched this process shift. Clinical hour expectations have moved. More programs are taking applicants straight out of...
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How to Prep for PA School Interviews - Part 1
Interview invites don't warn you. Some programs give you two weeks' notice. So start prepping the day after you submit. Not when the email lands. That's part one of this interview prep series, and it's the mistake I watch people make every single cycle. On mock interviews: schedule one two to…
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Assistant Professor at Charles Drew University and Creator of EDGE program - Interview with Sam Paik
The PA profession does not look like the patients it treats. Sam Paik is doing something about it. He's an assistant professor at Charles Drew University and he created the EDGE Program, which exists to help underrepresented Black male applicants get into PA school. That group is one of the most...
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Supplemental Essays for PA School
You submitted CASPA and thought you were done. Then the supplementals showed up. Supplemental essays are not a formality. Programs use them to figure out whether you actually want to go to their school or whether you just added them to a list. And you can tell the difference in about two…
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PA-S1 at Nova - Interview with Nina
Keep a journal. Starting today. That's Nina's advice and it's the single most practical thing in this episode. Write down what happened at work - the patient who scared you, the moment something clicked, the shift that made you sure. Two years later when you're staring at a blank personal...
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Pre-PA Q&A - CASPA and Personal Statements - Part 2
Part two of the Q&A, and this one gets into the weeds of CASPA coursework entry. This is the tedious part that quietly costs people. How you categorize a class changes which GPA it lands in. A course called "Human Biology" and a course called "Biology of Humans" might get sorted differently...
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Interview with Dr. Thibodeau - Director of Admissions at EVMS
The waitlist is not a rejection. Dr. Thibodeau wants you to hear that. He's the Director of Admissions for the PA program at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and his take is that a waitlist spot means you're qualified and you're close. Sitting on one is miserable, but it's information, not a no.…
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Pre-PA Q&A - CASPA and Personal Statements - Part 1
Application season makes smart people panic. Let's bring the temperature down. This is a Q&A on CASPA and personal statements, answering the questions I get asked most this time of year. First, the shape of the thing. CASPA has four sections: personal information, academic history, supporting...
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2023 Live Personal Statement Editing for PA School Applications - Part 2
Part two of live personal statement editing, and this time I'm also going to nag you about your timeline. Rolling admissions means your application gets reviewed whenever it's complete. Not on a deadline. Whenever. That means people who submitted in May are already interviewing while you're still...
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Live Personal Statement Editing 2023 - Part 1
Real essays. Real edits. Out loud. This is part one of live personal statement editing, where I read submitted essays and tell you exactly what's working and what isn't. It's the closest thing to sitting in on an essay review without paying for one. The patterns repeat every single year.…
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Yale Online PA Student - 1st Year - Sara
Online PA school is real, and people have a lot of opinions about it. Sara is a first-year in the Yale Online PA program, and she came on to tell you what it's actually like. She was a child life specialist before this, which is one of the best backgrounds I can think of for understanding…
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PA School Personal Statement Boot Camp
If you're waiting until CASPA opens to start your personal statement, you're already behind. This is my personal statement boot camp, and the first thing I'll tell you is to start early. Before April. Before the cycle opens. Good essays take drafts, and drafts take time you won't have in June.…
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Mary Ann Stahovich, PA-C - Director of Admissions at California Baptist University
You want to know what admissions is actually thinking. So I asked one. Mary Ann Stahovich is the Director of PA Admissions and didactic coordinator at California Baptist University, and she's been a PA for over 25 years. She reads these applications. She sits in these interviews. The thing she...
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CASPA Walkthrough Webinar
CASPA is open. Let's walk through it together. This is the audio from my CASPA walkthrough webinar, where I go section by section - personal information, academic history, experiences, supporting documents - and point out where people get stuck. A few things I hammer on. Keep your contact info...
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Interview with Pacific University PA Student Adam
Adam found out what a PA was in middle school, at his own doctor's appointment. He's now a didactic year student at Pacific University Pennsylvania, and he got there by starting early and staying consistent. EMT work for patient care hours. Volunteering. A pre-health advisor who actually knew…
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What to do with a 2.9 GPA?
A 2.9 science GPA with a cumulative above 3.0. What now? That was a listener voicemail, and it's one of the most common situations I see. So let's talk about it honestly. Most programs want a 3.0 minimum, and schools do not round up. A 2.97 is a 2.9 to them. That's the hard part nobody wants to...
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Must Read Books Before Starting PA School
You will not have time to read for fun in PA school. Do it now. I'm sharing the books I think every pre-PA should get through before they start, and they're not textbooks. They're the ones that change how you think about medicine and about patients. Atul Gawande shows up more than once on this...
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FAQ! Red Flags? GPA Calculations? CASPA Questions?
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....
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PT to PA - Interview with Ashley
Ashley already had a doctorate. She's going back to school anyway. She's a traveling physical therapist, and she loves patient care - she just wanted more of it. More autonomy, more of the medical decision-making, more say in what happens next. So she started working on PA prereqs while working...
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Virtual Shadowing with Jourdyn - ER PA
Can you put virtual shadowing hours on CASPA? Yes. But schools weigh it differently, so don't assume every program will count it the same way. Check with the ones on your list. This episode is a virtual shadowing session with Jourdyn, an emergency medicine PA and one of our coaches. She walks...
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Should You Get a Master's in Respiratory Therapy? - Interview with Amanda Dexter, Program Director at Jacksonville University
PA isn't the only good option in medicine, and I'd rather you hear that from me than figure it out three years in. Amanda Dexter directs the Master of Respiratory Care program at Jacksonville University, and she came on to explain what respiratory therapy actually is as a career. RTs are in the…
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PSLF Deep Dive - How to get Student Loans Forgiven with Meagan Landress of StudentLoanPlanner.com
PA school is expensive, and Public Service Loan Forgiveness is one of the few real ways out from under it. It's also one of the most misunderstood programs in existence. Meagan Landress is a student loan consultant with Student Loan Planner, and she walks through the five boxes you have to check:...
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Chapman University Simon Scholar PA Program - Full Tuition! - Interview with 2 Students
Full tuition. Covered. The Simon Scholar program at Chapman University pays for PA school, and I don't think nearly enough people know it exists. So I brought on Raina Walker and Courtney, two students actually in it, to explain how it works. The criteria are specific. They're looking for...
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Reapplicant to PA Student - Nelson
Eleven applications. Ten interview invites. Three acceptances. That's Nelson's second cycle. His first cycle looked nothing like that. So what changed? He added patient care experience. He knocked out more prereqs. He applied early to rolling admissions programs, which matters more than almost...
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PA Platform Coach Interview - Peter
"Apply anyway." That's Peter's advice, and I want it tattooed on every pre-PA's forehead. So many of you talk yourselves out of applying because of one number, one semester, one thing you think disqualifies you. Admissions committees are weighing a lot more than you think. Peter is a family...
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Coming Back to PA After a Gap - Soon to be Student Emily
Emily decided she wanted to do medicine in seventh grade, when her mom went back to school to become a medical assistant. She kept that thread all the way through. Biomedical science program, then Liberty University, where she built an interdisciplinary studies degree specifically so she could…
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PA Platform Coach Interview - Christa
Christa took the MCAT twice before she figured out she wanted to be a PA. That's a hard thing to admit out loud when you've spent years telling everyone you're going to med school. She talks about that pivot honestly - what pushed her toward PA, and why she's never looked back. She works in…
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Interview with PA Platform Coach - Emma - GI PA
Emma didn't get in the first time. She's a GI PA now, and one of our coaches here at The PA Platform. I wanted her on because reapplicants get treated like they failed at something. They didn't. Emma applied, didn't get in, figured out what was actually weak, fixed it, and got in the next cycle....
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Respiratory Therapist to PA Student - Interview with Alden
Alden was bartending at Chili's. Then she met a couple of respiratory therapists, and that conversation changed her whole life. She became an RT first. Loved it, and then hit the ceiling of what she was allowed to do. That's a feeling a lot of you know well - you're in the room, you understand...
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Studying Effectively in PA School with Jono of Quill Notebooks
Jono started PA school with one daughter. He finished with three. He's a PA in Washington, and he's also the guy behind Quill Notebooks. Those two things are connected. He couldn't study the way everyone else was studying, so he built a system that fit the hours he actually had. That's the part I...
About this show
The Pre-PA Club Podcast is real talk about getting into PA school from people who did it. Host Savanna Perry, PA-C, founder of The PA Platform, interviews practicing PAs, program directors, admissions coaches, and recently accepted students about the CASPA application, personal statements, interviews, patient care hours, GPA, and reapplying. The PA Platform has coached pre-PA students since 2015 and has reviewed more than 10,000 personal statements and essays. Find every episode, the free CASPA GPA calculator, and the PA program directory for all 50 states at thepaplatform.com.
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The PA Platform
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