As you’re applying to PA school and filling out the Centralized Application Service for Physician Assistants (CASPA), you may wonder about the “Experiences” section and how much detail to include. At its core, the CASPA experiences section is meant to help you stand out among other applicants for PA school and showcase your individuality in a sea of good grades and mandatory prerequisites.
Sometimes, the CASPA experiences section can even be your ace in the hole as it can increase the competitiveness of your application if any part of it (such as your grades) is found lacking. Given the importance of this section, you’ll want to spend time reviewing your experiences to see which are best to include!
When filling out this portion of the application, you’ll be able to add each experience you think increases your chances of landing an interview. Keep in mind, though, the CASPA experiences section is organized by categories, so you’ll have to select which category of experience you’re inputting and then provide further information about it.
So, what should you include in the CASPA experiences section? Let’s have a look at each category, and talk about what’ll make you stand out as a candidate.
🩺 Want to make sure you’re prepped for PA school? Try out these Pre-PA practice questions from anatomy and physiology to medical terminology, professional practice, and more!
Extracurricular Activities
I love the extracurricular activities portion of the CASPA experiences section. What you decide to include here can really help define you as a candidate and tell the admissions committee something about your interests. You can include organizations you were involved in or even sports you played in this category.
Non-Healthcare Employment
While you may not think your previous job as a waitress or receptionist is pertinent, it shows off your work ethic. It may also be impressive for the admissions committee to see you were working hard in many ways. Balancing work and school can be quite the challenge, and it deserves to be appreciated. Therefore, include any non-healthcare positions in this CASPA experiences category.
Healthcare Experience
Healthcare experience is paid or unpaid experience in the healthcare field. This CASPA experiences category is different from patient care experience, as there doesn’t need to be hands-on patient care. There are no required hours for health care experience, but this experience helps showcase your knowledge of the medical field in general.
Good examples of this would be medical scribes, medical receptionists, or unit clerking among others. Even if they aren’t hands-on, you should definitely include any relevant experiences here.
Patient Care Experience
While this is still experience in the healthcare field, it’s specific to hands-on patient care experience. This involves actively working with patients by taking vitals, performing procedures, or administering medications. Examples under this CASPA experiences category include working as a nursing assistant, phlebotomist, paramedic, or nurse, among other things. This experience is usually paid, therefore shadowing or volunteering don’t fit this description.
A lot of schools have requirements for mandatory patient care experience, so ensure you’re logging these correctly and leaving no hours out. Many schools require a minimum of 500 hours, but make sure you look further into the requirements for each individual program you apply for because this can vary with some schools requiring over 2,000 hours. Your patient care experience will also be helpful to pull from when answering questions if you’re invited for an interview.
Leadership Experience
Leadership experience often goes hand in hand with extracurricular activities, but this CASPA experiences category is specific for roles where you held a position.
My leadership experiences included co-president of the biology club, social coordinator of my sorority, and secretary in the college honors society. Some schools may be more interested in your leadership roles than others, but if you’re applying to PA school, I recommend trying to get involved in different leadership positions. This helps to showcase your responsibility and commitment.
Research
This CASPA experiences category is for any research project you participated in outside of regular classroom work. Whether you spent the summer as a research assistant, assisted with your professors’ research outside of class hours, or spent time after college working in a research position, all of these are things you’d include in this section of the application.
Not all applicants will have this, but it is great to include if you do!
Shadowing
Another area that’s required by programs is job shadowing. Specifically, this should be shadowing a physician assistant, nurse practitioner, or doctor, otherwise it won’t count towards program requirements.
Shadowing is extremely important, as it ensures that you’ve taken the time to immerse yourself in this career and ensure it’s for you. As you know, PA school is hard work and success requires a passion for the career path. The number of shadowing hours required also varies per school, so make sure you look into what your desired programs ask for.
Teaching Experience
These would include any experiences that involved you instructing others. My personal teaching experience came from tutoring during college and acting as a teaching assistant.
Other examples would include instructing certification courses such as BLS. This shows a high level of understanding that may impress the admissions committee by showcasing your knowledge.
Volunteering
Volunteer experience can help shape you as a well-rounded candidate. If you can, I highly encourage you to do some. Not only does it enhance your application, but–more importantly–it’s truly fulfilling work. Colleges often do a really great job at providing volunteer opportunities for students.
My personal volunteer experience came from working at the Boys & Girls club at the local elementary school. Any volunteer work is great to include in this CASPA experiences category, even if it doesn’t relate to healthcare!
Bottom line: use your CASPA experiences section strategically!
Not all areas of the CASPA experiences section need to be highlighted on your application. For example, if you have no research experience, that’s fine! The only areas that are required by most programs include shadowing and patient care experience. Anything else you add is a bonus, and I encourage you to try and include everything you can. Make sure you describe any roles you’ve held in detail and say how you were involved in each experience, especially those you feel the admissions committee may be interested in.
…and start compiling them early!
Depending on your involvement, this can definitely be time-consuming, so make sure you start early to ensure you don’t have to rush through this. In anticipation of the application process, I would start organizing your experiences into categories so you ensure nothing is forgotten.
Best of luck with the CASPA experiences section! If you’d like more help preparing the rest of your PA school application, check out these other posts on the blog:
