General Tips:
- Visit the Pre-Health portal for a comprehensive look at the pre-health resources here at UW
- Learn more about the various careers in healthcare by visiting ExploreHealthCareers.org
- Subscribe to the Health Career Interest page to stay up-to-date with relevant news on health-related jobs/internships; it also includes several resources regarding preparing and applying to graduate health programs.
- Engage in this self-paced online course to learn about the significant steps in the application process for health professional programs.
- Schedule an appointment with your academic advisor* (UAA/Departmental/OMA&D) to discuss course planning.
- Schedule an appointment with a career coach* to discuss your career interests and goals, plus how to reach them.
*Disclaimer: The University of Washington does not have dedicated pre-health advisors, so staff members you meet with will likely not have deep or special insight but rather more general knowledge of requirements and recommendations.
Choose from one of the following for more information:
In addition to courses, students should actively gain clinical exposure. Students are encouraged to get both professional-facing (shadowing) and patient-facing time. Both are instrumental in demonstrating that students are a good fit for the profession with capabilities to be a good physician’s assistant, as well as being able to work and empathize with patients. Many PA schools require anywhere from 1,000-3,000 hours of direct patient-facing clinical experiences, and often recommend pursuing allied health training program certificates, such as Medical Assistant (MA), Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), or Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), to gain clinical hours. We encourage students to start documenting their clinical experiences so they can reflect on them later in the application process. Explore opportunities near the UW to build clinical experience and gain health-related credentials.
Leadership can be demonstrated in many ways. Students are encouraged to reflect on what leadership looks like in pharmacy and how their involvement in clubs, volunteering, employment, research, sports, and Greek Life may help them demonstrate they have the necessary leadership skills. Visit HuskyLink to explore RSOs. The Community Engagement & Leadership Education (CELE) Center on campus is also a great resource!
While research experience is not a requirement for PA school, many students use research to explore the intersection of science and medicine. Explore and discover research opportunities at the UW through the Office of Undergraduate Research (171 Mary Gates Hall).
Letters of Recommendation are vital to a student’s PA school application. Professional schools vary in how many letters they require and from whom but will usually require at least one science professor. Establishing relationships with faculty, TAs, mentors, principal investigators, and supervisors early on can help with creating strong letters of recommendations.
PA schools do not expect or prefer any particular undergraduate major. We encourage students to pursue a major that is interesting to them and one they can academically excel in, as a strong GPA makes a competitive candidate.
Every PA school has different expectations in terms of required and recommended coursework. Students may need to exceed the requirements of some schools to meet the requirements of other schools. We encourage students to review the requirements of individual schools and/or purchase a membership for the American Association of Physician Assistant’s (AAPA) to further research specific course requirements when they are ready to apply.
The PA Education Association (PAEA) has a free directory of all PA programs in the U.S. that highlights many (but not all) critical parts of their application: pre-requisites, expectations, and more. It is updated yearly and can be found here. The following courses are required/recommended by most PA schools:
Most require:
- Human Anatomy
- Physiology
- General Biology
- Microbiology
- General Chemistry
- English
Some require (and many recommend):
- Statistics
- Biochemistry
- Genetics
- Sociology*
- Psychology*
- Anthropology*
*count towards social science requirements
Every PA school has different expectations for competitive GPAs -there is no universal standard. Every school also has their own policy on if the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is needed, though many schools in recent years have removed the GRE requirement. The PA Education Association (PAEA) has a free directory of all PA programs in the U.S that provides information on minimum and average GPA of accepted candidates and GRE requirements.
